Otley Town 2 Hartshead 1

In a dire game spoiled by a strong wind and difficult pitch conditions Otley Town made it six wins out of seven with this hard-fought victory over a resilient Hartshead team in this West Yorkshire League Division One encounter.

Manager Roger Eli stressed to his players after the game that they would need to improve if they wished to stay in league contention whilst concurrently praising his young side for holding on to win rather than lose such a poor game.

Town were unchanged for the game and were much the better side for most of the first 45 minutes with chances being created on a regular basis and falling mostly to hapless centre-forward Charles McGrath. Unfortunately he was denied by a mixture of good defending, a bobbly pitch or his own shortcomings.

For their part, Hartshead worked hard and in fairness had a couple of good chances of their own but generally it was Town in the ascendancy but lacking the ruthless streak in front of goal.

The second period started much as the first with Town doing most of the attacking primarily through livewire winger Tom Chadwick who was getting into his stride. However, when the goal finally came for Town it was somewhat of a gift - a Hartshead player pushing Danny Royston in the box right in front of the referee.

Chadwick's perfect spot kick gave Town the lead their play had merited and the chance to push on and make the game safe. Teams are always vulnerable immediately following a goal and within five minutes Hartshead were level, when they scored a cleverly taken goal as several Town players stood motionless appealing in vain that the ball had gone dead prior to the decisive strike.

Otley now needed to increase the tempo and this they did with the introduction of Chris Alderson and it was he who scored Town's second after 75 minutes with a typical clinical strike.

Further chances came the way of McGrath and Alderson but there would be no further scoring in this game from either side.

Having been out of action for three weeks the Otley players will have been pleased to take the points on a cold afternoon which, other than the result, gave the home spectators little to cheer.