Championship
Blyth Spartans 4 Audenshaw Dynamo 2
Dynamo Burnley 0 Marine 2
Hungaria 3 Manchester Central 1
Liverpool St Helens 3 Hartlepool Petrochemical 1
Northwich Victoria 3 Locomotive Crewe Alexandra 0
Red Star Mossley 1 Wrexham 2
Spartak-Slavia 2 Excelsior Marlow 1
Stalybridge Celtic 1 Gainsborough Trinity 1
Second Division
Bradford Park Avenue 3 Atletico Espanol 2
Crystal Palace 1 Caledonia Thistle 1
Excelsior Benelux 1 Inter-Italiano 1
Manchester Newton Heath 2 Merthyr Tydfil 1
Newcastle Blue Star 4 Torpedo Tranmere 2
Newcastle-Gateshead Dynamo 2 Bohemians 6
Sheffield Wednesday 0 Marxist Polytechnic 1
South Liverpool Red Star 1 Hendon Hotspur 1
A Merseyside one-two at the top of the Championship, with leaders Liverpool St Helens maintaining their position after an expected victory over bottom-placed Hartlepool Petrochemical, not quite as routine as might have been predicted though, the Saints requiring two late goals to break the stalemate and the hearts of the gallant visitors who had equalised an early concession and then proceeded to hold their own for a good hour’s play. St Helens are now only two points clear at the top after Marine’s first win of the year, comfortably 2 - 0 at lowly Dynamo Burnley whose defeat drops them back into the second of the relegation berths. Slipping down to third are reigning champions Stalybridge Celtic, two points behind Marine after a late blunder saw them concede an equaliser and thus only draw at home to Gainsborough Trinity, who themselves are now nine points adrift of the summit and surely out of the title reckoning. Spartak-Slavia’s close-run defeat of Excelsior Marlow allowed them to join Stalybridge on 27 points, five ahead of Trinity in fifth.
The big - indeed only - winners amongst the relegation-threatened were Blyth Spartans, who climbed from second- to fifth-bottom courtesy of a goal-peppered 4 - 2 triumph over Audenshaw Dynamo, one of the teams they’ve consequently leap-frogged, although only a point separates Spartans from the other Dynamo, Burnley, in the claustrophobic cluster above seemingly already-doomed Hartlepool.
Huge result in the battle of the top two in the Second Division as Marxist Polytechnic’s single-goal victory at Sheffield Wednesday allowed the students to usurp their hosts in pole position and quite possibly set down a significant marker in the power dynamic for the remainder of the season, not least in the controlled manner of the Poly’s cool, lean and mean display, largely nullifying free-scoring Wednesday’s attacking threat after taking a first-half lead and always suggesting the ability to add to their advantage if necessary.
Third and fourth at the start of the day also exchanged places after their respective trips to Newcastle, with Bohemians’ comprehensive 6 - 2 rout of their hosts Newcastle-Gateshead Dynamo allowing them to take advantage of Torpedo Tranmere’s defeat at Blue Star, Tranmere’s second successive loss but continuing Blue Star’s unbeaten league run in 2016 so far, enabling them to reach the heady heights of ninth in the table, further away from the bottom four who will fall through the division’s trapdoor at the season’s end. The only other team in the lower half to taste victory, Manchester Newton Heath, similarly established a modicum of breathing space in the otherwise congested space above the basement two who are showing few signs of being able to rouse themselves in the scramble to avoid the dreaded drop, which state of entropy also seems to have enveloped South Liverpool Red Star, who have dimmed of late, even though they did earn a first point in five matches with a draw at home to Hendon Hotspur.
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