■Thomas Ladomery (partly hidden at rear) lifts the ball over Tweedmouth goalkeeper, Sam Morrison, to put North Merchiston 2-0 ahead at Harrison Park

North Merchiston recorded their "best result" of the season in overcoming Tweedmouth Juniors this morning at Harrison Park. Goals from Thomas Landomery, David Wolffe and Euan Third in the space of 10 minutes either side of half time secured the win. But they can also thank an excellent back five for keeping Tweedmouth at bay as well as an element of good fortune in at least one of three goal line clearances.

Whilst the South East's top sides battled it out in Scottish Cup and Regional Cup ties there was a useful reminder at Harrison Park of why it is so important to have volunteers to let young people play football at all ability levels. This U13 Division Five clash offered no less passion, commitment and occasional skill and in Michael Reid, and his fellow coaches, Tweedmouth have top people with the children's best interests at heart.

Tweedmouth hail from Berwick-Upon-Tweed and in their search for the chance to let boys play in a structured environment they regularly trail up the A1 to Edinburgh and East Lothian to enable the Tweedmouth Juniors U13 side play and develop at football. Michael himself has a small taxi business in the Berwick area and each week he finds himself out until about 3am on a Sunday morning only to rise again at 8am to get this young side to away matches.

Unfortunately, on this particular Sunday, his team couldn't produce enough to make the journey back home a happier one. And yet for the first 20 minutes of this match they dominated with North Merchiston barely able to get out of their own half. But Tweedmouth couldn't create many chances for all their territorial dominance and it was North Merchiston that slowly began to emerge as the most likely to score.

And so it proved as the match approached half time. North Merchiston forced a series of corners and from one of these, in 28 minutes, they took the lead.

Big Euan Third swung over a perfect corner into the centre of the six yard box where David Wolffe met it equally perfectly and headed past the stranded Sam Morrison in the Tweedmouth goal.

That goal spurred Tweedmouth into life again and they had two great chances within a minute to equalise. Firstly, a corner on the right was nodded goalwards by Aaran Grieve only to be parried on the line by the excellent Andrew Bell in the North Merchiston goal before Murray Headrick cleared.

And then a moment later, Matthew Tait was sent clear in on goal only to see his shot blocked by Bell who was off his line quickly to close the Tweedmouth forward down.

Half Time 1-0

The second half was only a minute old when North Merchiston doubled their lead.

Tweedmouth failed to clear their lines as Merchi forced their way into the box and the ball broke loose to Thomas Ladomery who coolly lifted the ball over Sam Morrison and into the back of the net.

■Euan Third's cross/shot flies past Sam Morrison to put North Merchiston 3-0 ahead

2 minutes later and the game was effectively over. North Merchiston's big central midfielder, Euan Third, created space for himself on the right edge of the box but was still only 1 yard from the bye-line when he sent a wicked cross-cum-shot that went flying past the surprised Sam Morrison and into the top left hand corner of the net. I'm not sure he meant it but it looked spectacular and suddenly Tweedmouth found themselves 3 down in a game that they dominated for the opening quarter.

But Tweedmouth never once gave up and were always trying to play football whenever they could. Matthew Tait, Paul Rutherford and Luke Dickson all went probing for an opening but to no avail as the resolute North Merchiston defence, marshalled by captain Andrew Greenhill, stood firm. Behind Greenhill was Andrew Bell who continued to have a great game in goals, comfortably dealing with anything that Tweedmouth could muster.

But even Bell needed help in the 52nd minute when Tweedmouth had a "goal" disallowed. A free kick on the right was floated onto the head of Grant Leiper and Bell appeared to pull off another magnificent save. But the camera never lies and the ball clearly crossed the line.

Young referee, Ross Smith, had a good game, letting play flow whenever he could and got all of the offside decisions right. And in truth it was hard to properly see from every angle that the ball was over with any certainty and without this he was right to wave play on.

As the game wore on, Tweedmouth found themselves forcing play again with Luke Dickson enjoying some success on the right hand side. But again the Merchi defence of Callum McLean, Lee Whitecross, Andrew Greenhill and Murray Headrick stood firm.

The visitors from Berwick had one more good chance before the referee blew for full time. It fell to Robyn Pick after a great surging run by Paul Rutherford but her shot was deflected just past the right hand post with the goalkeeper beaten.

Full Time 3-0

Tweedmouth played some neat football at times with Matthew Tait showing a willingness to take the ball into feet and run at the defence. Paul Rutherford had a great game up front and at the back Daniel Tindle and Grant Leiper played well. In the second half, Luke Dickson, played some lovely football on the wide right and sent in some great crosses.

For North Merchiston the defensive quartet of Callum McLean, Murray Headrick, Andrew Greenhill and Lee Whitecross were excellent. Big Euan Third enjoyed a productive afternoon in centre midfield and capped it with a wonderful goal.

But The Pink Man of the Match for this week goes to North Merchiston's number one, Andrew Bell. He twice stopped Tweedmouth with goal-line saves and produced a very competent all round goalkeeping performance. His side scored three goals but it could have been different if the Merchi goalstopper hadn't been in such fine form. It was just a shame about the hat!