Match reports

Goalscorers: Roofing: Campbell, Gordon.    SRCA: Proctor (2)

After the disappointment of going out of the FA Cup in injury time at Guisborough in mid week the management team made a number of changes to the team. Wayne Buchanan, transferred from South Shields, was brought in for his debut replacing the unavailable Byrne, Brown replaced Hope and Charlton came in for Hughes. On the bench were new signings Ryan Noble and Ross McNab.

Goalscorers: SRCA: Proctor, Charlton, Hope, Callen.   Guisborough: Earl (2), Steel, Helm.

The injury crisis at RCA was somewhat removed with the return of Harkess, Drysdale and Coe.  Armstrong and Hughes had also shrugged off niggling little injuries, leaving only Larkin and Hatch on the injury list.

The game started in beautiful sunshine and although RCA started brightly they found it difficult to break down Guisborough's well organised defence and it was the visitors who almost opened the scoring in the fifth minute when a freekick from Bettson was not caught cleanly by Harkess and fell to Earl; fortunately for RCA the offside flag had been raised.

Goalscorers: SRCA: None   Consett:  Sweet, Sullivan.

After a hectic pre season by our standards, eight matches, seven wins and only one defeat the management team had difficult choices to make in picking the starting eleven for the first game of the season against a highly fancied Consett AFC outfit.

Problems arose during the warm up when Adam Drysdale pulled up with a problem with his ankle, a reaction to an injury sustained in Wednesday's friendly. Liam Hatch replaced him and Jonathan Carr was promoted to the bench.

RCA forward Joseph Hughes has the ball cleared from under him in the second half of the match.

Goalscorers: SRCA: Proctor, Charlton:   RCW: Pounder.

With a week to go before the start of the season both managers put out strong looking teams, although there were few absences through injury and holiday, but as Allan Thompson always said,"It's not about the players who are not here, it is about the players on the pitch."

A decent crowd welcomed the teams for the start of the game and it wasn't long before they were treated to a piece of audacious skill from Luke Proctor, picking the ball up on the halfway line, he lobbed the ball, fully 45 yards, over the head of Rookes in the CW goal and into the net. Six minutes gone and 1-0 to RCA.

This set the game up and both teams responded with flowing end-to-end football which produced a number of half chances which went begging and so, unbelievably it remained 1-0 at half time.