ALBION Sports boss Kulwinder Sandhu was delighted to get a friendly fixture with Conference North neighbours Guiseley.

The game was finalised at short notice and Albion gave a good account of themselves but were guilty of a couple of second-half errors as the Lions capitalised to win 2-0.

Sandhu said: "We had difficulty arranging games because we don't have our own ground. Once again, Farsley have been really good with us. They allowed us to ground-share at Throstle Nest again and they gave us a friendly.

"We had to work around their arrangements for pre-season and tried to get most of our warm-up games away. But when we got the chance of a game against Guiseley, who wanted to play us away from their ground because of all the work they have had done on their pitch, Farsley worked with us to fix a date.

"Mark Bower is a gentleman to deal with and we wanted to look after his club and their directors and put on some hospitality for them. This is how you make friends and foster good inter-club relations within the game.

"It was a good game but obviously Guiseley had the better quality, although at least we didn't let ourselves down. They are a good team and they played two different sides but we had 16 players involved."

Sandhu has been as busy as counterpart Bower over the close season. The clubs at the lower levels of the football pyramid do not have the luxury of contracted players.

Albion, like all of their Toolstation Northern Counties East League Premier Division rivals, have no idea how many of last season's players are going to return until they report back for pre-season training. Even then, many train with two or three clubs before making a decision on which to sign for.

Sandhu said: "It really is a difficult time of year for clubs like us. A lot of our lads have come back but some are on holiday, so we still don't know where we stand.

"I have signed Sam Bradley – he came up through our age groups – but I've lost Liam Ormsby because he got a big offer from Tadcaster Albion.

"We had our new signings James Firth, Matt Mathers and Matt Morgan, who were all at Thackley last season, playing on Thursday. There were also a couple of trialists – Brice Tiani was one of them and he is a good player."