Linthorpe Academicals Over 40's

03/10/2026

Result/report from today's trip up the road to play West Allotment.

We changed the formation today to try and suit the players we had available, with a couple of usual faces missing.

In hindsight, the pitch was a little too big for this to work how we wanted.

We started off well, going toe to toe with West Allotment, they had a bit of pressure for the first 10 minutes, but we made it a game for the first 25/30 minutes, some good passing in the middle of West Allotment's half got us a good chance with Hanratty doing well and playing the ball into Noble in the middle of the half, first time through ball to Daniels who pulled away from the defence, got his shot off from the egde of the box, but the keeper managed to save it.
After this, is when the formation probably didn't do us any favours, the pitch was a big pitch and with 3 at the back today, we found ourselves doing a bit more running to cover gaps, West Allotment are very familiar with the pitch and used it to their advantage, switching the play as quick as they could to utilise the space!

Decision making then became effected, with the extra ground covered, we started making errors and ended up gifting the ball to West Allotment, who managed to convert 3 chances after we gave them the ball!

HT 3-0

After some frank, honest & passionate discussions at half time, we switched the formation about!

Much improved 2nd half from the team!

Highlights of the 2nd period -

Around 65 minutes in, Nixon crossed a free kick deep into the West Allotment box, the keeper creeped towards his back post to gather it, but it went over him, Bongi was on hand to keep the ball in and nicely knock it back to Haran who was on the 6 yard box, good effort from them to keep it out, but Haran was never going to let the chance go to waste! ⚽️ This made it 4-1, one goal for both teams in the 2nd period!

Some good work down the left with about 5 mins remaining, Hanratty played the ball inside to Noble on the corner of the box, he turned, seen Carden and Chapman unmarked on the right hand side of the box, cross field ball to Carden, who set the ball for Chapman to run on to, first time shot across the goal, bounced in front of the diving keeper, nestled into the side netting! ⚽️ This made the score line 5-2, 2 goals each for the 2nd half!

That's how it finished, 5-2. Some lessons to learn from today, for us all! Poor to begin with, but good showing 2nd half, showed a bit of character after the break!

Nice to see Stocksy with a 10 minute cameo on his return from injury ❤️

MOTM - Chris Haran 💪

Well done lads.

We go again next week!

30/09/2026

Nice trip up the road this weekend for the team.

Away vs West Allotment Social Club.

📆 Saturday 3rd October
📍 The Langdale Centre, Wallsend. NE28 0HG
⏰ 10:30

28/09/2026

Match report from the weekend.

Home cup game vs South Shields Buzzers.

We started brightly and got the opening goal fairly early on, some good work from Jones on the right, getting the ball into the danger area, which ended up bouncing nicely for Hanratty outside the box, with a thunderous volley from about 20 yards out! Nearly bust a hole in the net! 1-0 ⚽️

With some good football in the first half, we created chance after chance! With clear chances for Noble, Gall & Jones, unfortunately not converted, we should have been 4 goals to the good at the half way stage.

HT 1-0

2nd half, Buzzers came into a little bit more, but we still kept creating chances, and in football, if you don't take them, it will bite you, Buzzers drew level half way through the 2nd half. 1-1 ⚽️

We kept pushing to try get the winner, and with about 5 minutes left, the ball got through to Gall on the right side of the box, he played a perfect pass across the box to Noble who had timed his run from behind Gall and beat the stationary defence, 6 yards out, back post, just about to tap it in.....ref blew for offside! Shocker!

The result was not decided by this decision though, we should have been out of sight!

FT 1-1

Straight to pens, where Buzzers came out on top 2-3!

We go again in the league next weekend!

23/09/2026

Next up for us - cup action vs South Shields Buzzers

Home cup game this weekend! Saturday cannot come quick enough to get back out there and do ourselves justice!

📅Saturday 26th September
📍Acorn Centre, Acklam, TS5 8QB
⏰10:30

No match report for last weeks league game, apologies! I went to start the post, but flashbacks of the nightmare that was the game, meant it did not materialise🤣 I could not bring myself to do it!
So apologies to Damo Nixon who put a lot of effort (AI😉) into the report, it has not been used on this occasion!

Good to know you can do a good job on the report for future games 💪

14/09/2026

Result/report from the weekends game.

We travelled to play Wearmouth on Saturday, in a return fixture of the opening day game this season.

Lightning fast start ⚡️

Wearmouth kicked off, we turned the ball over in the middle of pitch after only a few seconds, ball played out to Nixon on the left, a sharp early cross into the box, Craig Gall running into the box on the left of the box, let the ball drop into his path, first time, left foot volley, across the keeper, into the net! 0-1 ⚽️

What a start! 💪

Wearmouth are a good side and the first half ended 1-1 after they managed to get back on level terms in very well played, competitive half of football.

2nd half seen the return of Alan Jones after a frustrating injury lay off - What a way to announce your return, not only from how he played with some great play down the right, but also with what can only be described as text book, after a corner ended up falling to Jones, in the air, edge of the box, perfect right foot volley, straight through everyone, keeper had no chance. 1-2 ⚽️💪

Wearmouth managed to get on level terms a 2nd time, and put the pressure on for the last 10 minutes. Every single player dug in, put the hard yards in and helped see the game out! 2-2, final score.

A tough. well earned point away from home!

Well done lads. 💪

MOTM - Chris Haran (C) - Solid as a rock!

Onto the next one!

11/09/2026

Good luck to our very own Mark Noble doing The Great North Run in aid of our sponsor Headlight Project this Sunday with his daughter Megan Noble

Go smash it mate, we are all cheering you on from all the lads at Linthorpe Academicals Over 40's👏🏻👏🏻.

Help Mark Noble raise money to support The Russ Devereux Headlight Project

10/09/2026

Away day this weekend for the team. ⚽️

We travel to play Sunderland Wearmouth FC Over 40's Veterans

Season has not got going for us in terms of results yet, we have had some decent performances and some fantastic spells during games, but we need to start converting this into results!

We have a good squad available for this weekend and will be hoping to make the most of it!

📅Saturday 12th September
📍Wearmouth Colliery, Thompson Road SR5 2SD
⏰10:30

08/09/2026

Match report from the weekends game vs Sunderland Ivy Legends.

We hosted Ivy Legends at the weekend, a team that came down from the 3rd division, an unknown team to us, so we didnt know what to expect.

Message was simple, lets start quick, worry about ourselves and what we need to do!

The start didnt quite go like that 😂

We let Ivy Legends into a quick 2 goal lead within the 1st 10 minutes 🙈

We did wake up after that! Just 10 minutes too late.

Once we got going though, we made a game of it!
We settled and started to pass the ball around a bit, looked much better getting to half time with no other change in the score!

We still left ourselves an uphill battle for the 2nd half.

We changed shape for the 2nd half and that worked in our favour, allowing us to go from competing evenly with Ivy Legends, to starting to get the upper hand and make some decent chances.

Our pressure got us a break through midway through the 2nd half.

Noble and Hopson working well to gain possession in the middle of the park, Noble looked up and seen the debutant Gally in between 2 of their defenders in a decent bit of space, Noble played a through ball that set Gally on his way, storming into the box from a little left to the goal, got his shot off from a tight angle, the ball straight past their keeper, nestled nicely in the top right corner! 💪⚽️

Great finish!

We kept pushing to get on level terms, but it wasnt to be and we ran out of time in the end! With the game finishing 1-2.

Good game once we got going, something we need to learn our lessons from!

Great debut goal from Gally! 🙌⚽️

MOTM for this game was Damo Nixon, solid display on the left all game 💪

Onto the next one ⚽️

04/09/2026

Up next in our 'Meet the Team' series -

Mark Dorsi 💪



😉

04/09/2026

Up next in our 'Meet the Team' series -

Kris Smith 💪