Non-League: Bradford Park Avenue 1, Netherfield Kendal 1.

Avenue failed to make the most of home advantage in Satur-day's match against Netherfield at Horsfall Stadium.

And, despite being on top for a great proportion of the encounter, they paid the price when the Cumbrians snatched a point with a desperate equaliser two minutes from time.

Avenue remain in 17th place in UniBond Division One, five points adrift of Gretna in eighth, and a victory would have taken them above Netherfield and a long way towards a President's Cup place.

The redeeming feature was the performance of recently-signed striker Damien Lee, who netted his third goal for the club after opening his account last time out with a brace in the convincing FA Trophy win at Lincoln United.

Avenue had a stiff breeze behind them when they played towards the Bradford end in the first half, and the visitors would surely have been well behind at the break but for the heroics of their keeper John Armfield.

The son of former Leeds United manager and England full back Jimmy parried a long-range effort from Nick Hey after four minutes.

He also climbed to claim a dipping shot from Jason Maxwell, watched anxiously as a Wayne Benn strike skidded through a forest of legs just wide, and finally got down to take a Lee shot on the turn from the edge of the area.

The visitors went close in the 46th minute, Martin Strong's 20-yard shot just drifting wide of Karl Lenaghan's goal, but Avenue were soon back on the attack.

Ian Briggs could have opened the scoring after 56 minutes, but that distinction fell to Lee, who raced through after a sweeping cross-field ball from Maxwell had Netherfield's defence back-pedalling.

When he reached the edge of the area he unleashed a shot which gave Armfield no chance.

One goal was all the visitors needed to steal a share of the spoils, and they could not have timed their response to better effect.

In the 88th minute, Lenaghan did well to push a shot from Strong for a corner, but when the flag kick was whipped in Benn only half-cleared and visiting centre back John George threaded the ball into the net from ten yards.

Avenue will be back in action tomorrow when they visit Droyls-den in the third round of the Unifilla Division One Cup.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.