WESTHOUGHTON FC carried on their fine start in the Bolton at Home Sunday League Division Two with a hard-fought 5-4 victory against fourth-placed Newbury FC.

In an exciting game, the joint leaders opened the scoring through a left-footed strike from outside the box from Richard Purehouse.

Westhoughton doubled their lead through Ben Howarth, however this sparked life into Newbury and they replied with two quick goals through Brent Haliwell and Ashley Haslam.

Just before half time Josh Pennington hit a shot from the edge of the area to send the home side in with a 3-2 lead.

As the second half got under way, Newbury came out with all guns blazing as they looked for an equaliser, which they got through an excellent strike from Haliwell.

The game was now end to end with both teams going for the victory and Westhoughton scored their fourth through Adam Arkwright, only for Newbury to go straight to the other end to equalise yet again through Haliwell to complete his hat-trick.

With five minutes to go Adam Dorken broke through the Newbury defence to slot the winner home.

If ever the was a match to promote Sunday League football this was it and according to referee Stan McGowan, the game was also played in an excellent sporting manner.

The other team at the top of Division Two are Deane FC who travelled to Farnworth to play Bradford Arms B and came away with a 4-2 victory with two goals each from Carl Dumbarton and Dave Stuart, Tom Dann and Jason Chadwick replying for Bradford Arms.

Manny Road kept their fine form going with a 6-0 victory against Railway FC with goals from Lee Hemmings (two), Ryan Aspinal (two), Jordan Stannard and Charlie Helsby.

Church Reds came within five minutes of recording their first victory of the season only for Deane Wanderers to equalise through Mark Laithwaite.

The other goal for Deane came from a Liam Parkinson penalty, Scott Patterson and Brad Ainsworth replying for Church Reds.

Elsewhere, Atherton Villa won 2-1 at Lostock.

In Division One the result of the day went to Bridge Celtic as they beat last year’s champions Farnworth United 5-4. Scorers for Bridge were G Travers (two), S Hutchinson (two) and J Ross with M Carter, A Monks, French and M Brown replying for Farnworth United.

Astley Bridge Elite stay top of the division after a fine 4-1 win at Hulton Wanderers. Two2 goals from Chris Donahue and one from Layton Migas, as well as a superb strike from Ben Worsley secured three points.

Close on their heels are Queen Anne who travelled to Farnworth to play Bradford Arms A and came back with a well-deserved 6- 2 victory thanks to goals from Gaz Cunniff (two), Nial Callaghan, Josh Stott, Craig Leader and a beautiful finish from a free kick from Ashley McClements.

Great Lever Taskers lost their first game of the season 6-4 to Top Club, the goals coming from Danny Smith (three), Ryan Owen (two) and Travis Vaughan for Top Club while Aron McCarthy (two), Gareth Colquitt and Mark Ridding replied for Great Lever.

Dehaviland FC beat Southfields FC 8-4 in a 12-goal thriller.

Dehaviland's goals came from Jay Manion (three), Glen Matthews (three) and Kieron Marsh (two) with Ady Nugent, Danny Kerrigan and Ian Parr netting for Southfields

A special mention has to go to Southfields manager John Oudomvilay who, due to shortages to his team, had to come out of retirement to play and he scored Southfield's last goal which was a 35-yard screamer.