Delting win warm-up tournament for football season

Delting won the Highland Fuels Trophy, the traditional warm-up tournament for the main Shetland football season, with a 2-1 victory over Whalsay on Sunday.

Delting started the brighter of the two teams and straight away had Whalsay under sustained pressure. Ross McDougall had a chance to put Delting ahead when he was played in but his shot struck the legs of the keeper and was cleared.

The relief was short lived as five minutes later the same player got his head onto a perfectly flighted ball from Peter Peterson to score at the far post.

Laurence Pearson came close for Whalsay shortly afterwards when he broke free of the defence out right. However, from an acute angle his fiercely driven shot was pushed wide by the keeper.

For the remainder of the first half Delting had most of the possession and pressure on the Whalsay goal continued but despite the succession of corners and long throw-ins the Whalsay defence stood firm and no real chances were created.

The second half saw more or less a reversal of play with the islanders coming more into the game and exerting long spells of pressure on the Delting goal. Pearson again tested the keeper with a few drives from outside the area, the closest to a goal being when a shot was parried out, however no one was running in to take advantage of the rebound.

Delting continued to have their moments and could have extended their lead when Leighton Flaws galloped into the box and with a clear shot at goal drove his effort just over the bar.

A goalmouth scramble at the other end saw at least four attempts on the Delting goal but again the Delting keeper ended up with the ball in his hands.

As so often happens, if you don’t take your chances you are punished, and with Whalsay wondering what they had to do to score they were sucker-punched with five minutes remaining.

Substitute Brydon Mowat, with his first touch of the ball, drove a point-blank-range shot at Thomson in the Whalsay goal who kept the initial shot out but it spun away from him and ended up crossing the line, despite the efforts of Richard Arthur to clear it.

In injury time Whalsay got a deserved consolation goal in a slightly bizarre fashion, when a free kick taken by Keith Pearson at least 50 yeards out on the right was missed by everyone and ended up in the back of the net.

Despite a last minute flurry of activity around the Delting goal there wasn’t enough time for Whalsay to grab an equaliser.