West Bowling make Sparkes fly in confident Alliance victory

West Bowling kicked off with a 8-2 win at Thornton United in the top flight.

The strong wind blowing across the pitch had an effect on the game, and United opened the scoring when Luke Hepton nipped in between two Bowling players and forced the ball home.

The visitors hit the woodwork twice before they scored their first goal, when Wayne Sparkes latched onto a Omar Mohammad pass and slipped the ball pass the home keeper.

After 35 minutes, Dillon Hollinger's wind-assisted shot put Bowling 2-1 ahead, and then a combination of passes from Joe Jagger, Sparkes and Hollinger brought their third goal, with the ball coming back off a post for Hollinger to hammer it past the Thornton keeper and make it 3-1 to the visitors at the interval.

The second half started with Bowling's keeper Ash Onitiri making a great save from his own player when the ball was sliced in the wind by Steve Duffy.

Then Onitiri sent one of his exocet kicks downfield to Jagger, who bent his shot into the top corner .

Another pass from Mohammad then found Sparkes, who calmly despatched the ball past the home keeper to make it 5-1.

A great shot by Tion Richards reduced United's but Bowling were far from done, and a Jagger corner found Adam Jordan, who firmly headed into the net to regain the visitors' four-goal cushion.

Man of the match Jagger then completed his hat-trick, firstly bending a shot over the home keeper for 7-2 and then walking the ball past the distraught keeper to reinforce Bowling's emphatic opening-day victory.

League champions Olympic Sports shared the points and four goals with Ventus Yeadon, while there were away victories for Westwood Park (3-2 against Bolton Woods) and Station Hotel (3-1 at Wyke Rangers).

In the only fixture played in Division Two, Prince of Orange beat Drop Kick United 5-0, with Steven Stansfield bagging a brace for the winners, and other goals coming from Ryan Murgatroyd, Adam Ferry and Damian Doyle.