Lancaster City 1 Stalybridge Celtic 0: Extra-time goal gives Dolly Blues FA Cup win

The first goal in 200 minutes of football was enough to give the Dolly Blues victory in Tuesday night’s replay at Giant Axe.

That it took extra-time to find the deciding goal, though, matters to nobody of a Lancaster persuasion.

Davidson, introduced just a minute before his matchwinning involvement, surged forward and overlapped David Norris.

Norris then hurdled a desperate challenge in the centre before playing in a team-mate 22 years his junior.

Davidson released a right-footed half-volley which slammed into the far corner, sparking jubilant celebrations by the corner of the Neil Marshall Stand.

Despite their recent scarcity of goals, City remained in tune with their principles and created opportunities.

Another fine performance got off to a regrettable start when Ed Elewa-Ikpakwu, introduced into the fold to combat the high rate of injuries, suffered the same fate after just eight minutes and had to be replaced by Enock Likoy.

Unperturbed by this early setback, the Dolly Blues gave Greg Hall in the Stalybridge goal a few sighters before Dom Lawson had a shot deflected into the side-netting.

At the other end, Raul Correia – Celtic’s principal goal threat – gave Curtis Anderson his only test of the half with a low strike from the edge of the box, but City had the better of the opening exchanges.

Lancaster produced another spate of chances in the second half that made a goal seem inevitable, though it didn’t arrive in normal time.

Cesaire Lingouba made a couple of impressive blocks to deny City a certain breakthrough before Hall thwarted Jake Connelly with around 10 minutes to play.

Late on in normal time, Correia nearly went one better than his first-half chance as, having burst into the box, he narrowly put the ball the wrong side of Anderson’s post.

Then, in extra time, Nico Evangelinos was replaced by Davidson on 109 minutes.

In the 110th, he scored the decisive goal to send the Dollies into the next round, when they will play Bury AFC at Giant Axe.