Northern Senior League Division One

Minsterworth 1 Cam 6

CAM Bulldogs were crowned Northern Senior League champions for the first time in their history on Saturday - and manager Simon Penny immediately turned his attention to retaining the title next season.

The club are celebrating their greatest ever season after hitting fifth-placed Minsterworth for six to win the league in style, but their application to join the County League was turned down as they are unable to play home games at the beginning and end of the season due to the ground-sharing agreement with Cam Cricket Club.

Penny said: "It has been a huge disappointment not meeting the requirements to achieve County League status but we're all sticking together to emulate this again next season and have facilities in place to get to where we should be playing.

"This was a terrific end to an amazing season in which we never dropped points in two consecutive games, which is a credit to the whole squad and everybody involved at Cam Bulldogs. It's been an honour to manage this side."

Cam only needed a point to seal the title in their final game of the season after they beat Taverners 5-0 in midweek.

They started nervously but finally settled after captain marvel Chris Lindsay volleyed home a corner after great work by midfielder Pete Holder.

Cam then settled into their normal passing game, and it wasn't long until man of the match Callum Dummellow broke from midfield and cleverly finished from the edge of the box.

Aaron Booth then followed suit by scoring after an amazing solo run.

Straight after half-time, Minsterworth pulled a goal back but Cam were soon dominating all over the field again with Adam Philp beating the home keeper from distance.

Substitute Aaron Nash raced through to coolly set up Luke Morrissey to head home the fifth, then Nash himself finished off with ease after a great move.

Penny also paid tribute to the work of chairman Stuart Grimwood and groundsman Gary Browning for their work behind the scenes.

He said: "Gary prepares the pitch for us every single week, which helped massively as we were getting games on when nobody else in the league was playing, which prevented a backlog of mid week games."