Football / Round-Up: Thompson spurs Wolves

IMPRESSIVE home results - five wins out of five - are keeping Wolverhampton Wanderers fractionally ahead of Middlesbrough at the top of the Endsleigh First Division. But yesterday's 2-1 win over a plucky, unlucky Port Vale, the first team to score a League goal at Molineux this season, was an unconvincing performance. Wolves had to rely on the two penalties awarded by referee Eddie Wolstenholme and driven home by left-back Andy Thompson.

Boro, meanwhile, overcame Millwall's dogged defence with a two-goal blast in the first eight miutes of the second half after Kasey Keller had saved a Craig Hignett penalty before the interval. John Hendrie rattled in his seventh goal of the season a minute after the restart and Paul Wilkinson stretched the lead soon after. The Lions' defender Mark Beard scored a late own-goal to make it 3-0.

But the biggest roar came when the young Bolivian international striker, Jaime Moreno, came on as a substitute for his first taste of English football.

Play between Reading and Notts County was halted for 16 minutes late in the second half while firemen investigated a burning smell in the main stand at Elm Park. As it turned out the alert was caused by an elderly pipe-smoking fan who had put his pipe in his pocket and set fire to his jacket.

Reading were on fire in the second half, a 2-0 win lifting them above Tranmere, who could only draw at Burnley and Swindon, beaten by two splendid long-range efforts from Barnsley's Neil Redfearn.

The Second Division world turned upside when bottom-of- the-table Chester City won their first home points of the season by beating Oxford United, 2-0. It was Oxford's first away defeat. Huddersfield, who beat Brighton 3-0, duly knocked them off the top. But Chester are still bottom.

Bury conceded their first away goal in the Third Division and dropped their first away points after a 1-0 defeat at Colchester. Carlisle, 2-1 winners over Darlington, reclaimed the top spot. At Underhill, goalkeeper Gary Phillips became the first Barnet player to make 100 Football League appearances and celebrated by keeping a clean sheet. Visitors Fulham were as impregnable.

Matches between teams contesting the leadership of a division are habitually tight affairs with little given away. Except in Scotland, where all things are probable. Dundee, third in the Scottish First, and top-of-the-table Dunfermline drew 4-4.