Suddick nets on debut, but the Colliers lose at Sunderland

The North Shields-born 24 year old joined the Woodhorn Lane outfit last week after signing from fellow Ebac Northern League outfit Bishop Auckland. He said: “I’m delighted to have joined Ashington who are a club on the up and it’s something I’m really happy to be a part of.

"Hopefully I can settle in and really enjoy my football. I had no hesitation in putting pen to paper – look at Ashington’s position in the league table (fifth from top) - they are doing really, really well and when I had a conversation with the gaffer (Ian Skinner) it was a no-brainer.”

On Saturday, Suddick levelled on the hour in the top of the table clash and said: “I started the move off and managed to go and get on the end of it. I kept my cool and finished it so I was delighted with that.”

However, reflecting on his debut, Suddick – a primary school teacher - added: “I thought I did alright and obviously I was happy to open my account with my first goal but the most important thing was for the team to get a win and we didn’t manage to do that so I was disappointed.

"I thought towards the end we at least deserved a draw and it was really unlucky for us to lose in the way we did.”

Ashington FC manager Ian Skinner had sympathy with his outfit after they had lost by the odd goal in three in their top of the table clash against Sunderland Ryhope CW at the Recreation ground.

Skinner said afterwards: “To be honest, I thought the result was harsh on us because we deserved something from the game - certainly for the second half performance.

"It’s good now that we come to places and we’re disappointed that we haven’t won and we’re looking upwards rather than over our shoulders which has maybes been the case in previous seasons.

"Obviously the result was disappointing because we wanted to take maximum points. It was a game of very contrasting styles and by that I don’t mean to be disrespectful (to Ryhope) because I have got a lot of time for the management team at Ryhope.

"We knew what we were going to get; we knew they would be direct and get the ball forward quickly and try and turn us around and be aggressive – and they did that in the first half.

"They won the majority of the first balls and picked up a lot of the second balls in the first half and we conceded a poor goal with a little bit of a deflection and went in at the break 1-0 down.”

"At half time we talked about how we could really go and influence the game … but we were just a little bit wasteful in the final third when we had the ball.

“We scored a very, very good equaliser,” he added, “but I was disappointed with the manner in which we have conceded the two goals.

"The second was a little bit too easy for them to get the cross in from the left and then it looked like an effort at the back post which hit the crossbar and post and went in.”