THERE was a lack of games but no shortage of goals from the Bolton Premier Division teams who beat the weather on Saturday.

Little Lever Lever and Horwich Victoria amassed 14 between them as they moved up to fifth and sixth places, respectively.

With both playing on all-weather surfaces, there was never any chance of their games going the same way as virtually the whole of the region’s amateur football scene and falling foul of the elements.

Little Lever romped to a 9-2 victory over fourth-bottom Rossendale on the 4G pitch at St Catherine’s School, Breightmet.

Matt Woods scored four goals, including a first-half hat-trick to send his side into the interval 3-1 ahead.

He was joined on the scoresheet by Adam Carter, Ste Barlow, Anthony Sivori, Adam Clark and Leon Farrimond.

Manager Lee Buckley said: “There were a lot of great individual performances within a good team performance.

“Adam Carter stepped up from the third and second team to make his debut for the first team and he was outstanding at centre-half.

“We’re going fairly well in the league at the moment. It’s pretty tight near the top and we’ll see if we can get higher.”

Horwich Victoria are on the same points at Little Lever but have played five more games.

They beat bottom club Hesketh Casuals 5-3 on their 3G surface, but had to come back from 2-1 behind after taking a fifth-minute lead through Luke Skelly’s fine finish to a fluent move involving Jordan Coop and Danny Edmondson.

Horwich had already hit the post and missed two clearcut chances.

Two goals from corners put Victory 2-1 down before Coop sent throught Skelly, who had had an earlier effort disallowed, and he slotted home his second a minute before the break.

Scott Adamson put the Horwich men ahead with an individual goal on 50 minutes, and Neil Corbett made it 4-2 five minutes later after beating two defenders. Hesketh pulled one back on 77 minutes before Sean Jones completed the scoring three minutes later.

Vics joint manager Dave Walker said: “The scoreline did not really reflect our dominance. It was a good team performance in difficult conditions. We played some excellent football with some fluent passing and dominated from start to finish.”