Unibond League Premier Division

Nov 16 2009 by Steve Brown, The Journal

Durham City 0, Buxton 7

THE pain goes on for Durham City, but the Esh Group Stadium outfit are seeking sticking plasters.

Against a Buxton side just one place above them at the foot of UniBond Premier, City had hoped for better but succumbed to goals from Mark Reed (four), Christian Millar, Gavin Knight and Steven Ridley.

And manager Lee Collings is hoping to improve matters by appealing for assistance, most probably in the form of loan deals from local clubs at higher levels in the pyramid system.

Only then might Durham – punctured by the early-season withdrawal of a major sponsor, followed by a flux of players - start to near that precious first point of the season. But still Collings retains belief in his young side.

"Buxton weren't all that impressive, for spells we actually played the better football,” he said.

"I know it sound ridiculous, we were never outplayed. The lads keep on turning up and giving me everything they've got, you can't fault them for that. We just need some help because we can't go on like this. Once Buxton saw the way to open us up by hitting balls into the six-yard box they never did anything else. They spotted our weakness and worked on it and got a lot of joy.

"They never really played any football, they just kept exploiting that one weakness, but once we went 3-0 down just before half-time, it killed us. I think they scored something like five goals from close-range headers that we failed to deal with.

"We can't keep going on like this every week, I probably need a big, experienced keeper and the same at centre-back. I'll be sitting down with the chairman in the next couple of days to see what we can do, if anything.

"If we can get someone in on loan, ideally from clubs at higher levels then that would be great.”

DURHAM CITY: Jobling; Hollingsworth, Wren, Stephenson (Shaw), Mounter, Ayers, Thompson (Winter), Graham, Home-Jackson, Cutts, Stoker.