Bradford Park Avenue 2 Tamworth 4

THE Lambs came to the Horsfall Stadium on Saturday but it was Bradford who were slaughtered, by manager John Deacey at half-time.

The Avenue manager was unhappy with his side’s woeful first-half defending as lowly Tamworth hauled themselves out of the Vanarama Conference North relegation zone with a win.

Tamworth, who had scored only 11 goals in 13 games, plundered three inside the last 18 minutes of the first half. That took the score from 1-1 to 1-4 and the game away from Bradford.

Deacey fumed: “You can’t defend like we did and expect to win games.

“We made changes at half-time and they worked but it was too late. I thought their keeper made three absolutely outstanding saves in the second half and you could say that if we had got another goal back soon enough we might have got something from the game.

“But I cannot stress enough that the game was lost in that first half because our defending was useless. We had centre halves banging into each other and people not doing the basics. It was shocking.”

Avenue, who had the on loan Jordan Deacey back in the starting line-up, began well and Richard Marshall fired just wide from the edge of the area after good work by Paul Walker and Chib Chilaka.

However, the Lambs were soon on the attack and Avenue keeper John Danby was caught out trying to shepherd the ball out for a goal-kick. He failed and conceded a needless corner, from which Michael Townsend headed wide.

Tamworth broke the deadlock in the 13th minute. Kevin Thornton dribbled his way into the area and, although his shot was parried by Danby, the rebound went straight back to him and he rolled it along the edge of the six-yard box for Brendon Daniels to sweep in.

Avenue levelled soon after, somewhat against the run of play. A quick counter-attack looked to have broken down but a defender’s interception fell kindly for Chilaka and he produced an excellent finish, curling a shot into the top corner as Lambs' keeper James Belshaw came out to narrow the angle.

The visitors lost skipper Paul Green to injury minutes later but it didn’t have a negative effect as they raced into an unassailable lead.

Before the half-hour Reece Styche side-footed the ball into the bottom corner after another intelligent lay-off from Thornton.

Former Albion Sports and Swindon Town man Kaydon Jackson added a stunner as he battled past three defenders before firing a shot in off the post from just inside the area and then the unmarked Daniels slotted in at the far post in stoppage time.

Avenue came out much stronger after the interval and cut the arrears just six minutes into the second half. A short corner was played to Joe Colbeck and his deep delivery picked out Ryan Qualter, who headed home.

The home side kept knocking on the door and Deacey introduced strikers Lamin Colley and Brad Barraclough from the bench. But Belshaw was in top form and made superb diving saves to deny Qualter, Grant Black and Jordan Deacey twice.