Baildon Trinity..............1

Methley............................2

Hopes of Baildon Trinity Athletic joining the promotion chase from Division One of the West Yorkshire League took a major knock with this defeat.

All the old failings came to the fore with a vengeance as once again, they dominated the game, but failed to create enough chances, or convert those that did come their way. Methley, tough and uncompromising, dealt out some heavy tackles, several of which should have been punished but weren't.

However, half-time arrived with no score. A bumpy pitch, making the ball difficult to control, was partly to blame for this.

The second-half was explosive. Two Methley players saw yellow cards as the tackles continued to fly in, and then Baildon striker Nick James was flattened by an opponent who made no attempt to go for the ball. The Methley player was sent off, and he was immediately followed by a colleague for using foul language towards the referee.

From this point, Baildon camped in their opponents' half. Midfielder Oliver Atkinson caused havoc down the left-hand side, creating a number of openings for his colleagues, as well as firing just wide himself.

Eventually the pressure told and centre-back Neil Barlow charged through to open the scoring. That should have been that, but Methley got their heads down and showed more fight and passion than the home side. In a rare attack, home goalkeeper Danny Milner unnecessarily came out to try to get a through ball and the visitors equalised.

Worse was to follow, for a second error by the normally sound 'keeper gave Methley the lead late on.

While Baildon's new signing, Chris Thornton, showed one or two nice touches, Baildon's lack of fire power was glaringly apparent and things were not helped when James had to leave the field injured as a result of the tackle that caused the sending off.

Atkinson deservedly got the match point for Baildon but his midfield colleagues misfired for most of the afternoon, and with the strikers unable to get a regular flow of decent balls, Methley held out.

Methley Res..............................4

Baildon Trinity Res.................3

This was a fascinating see-saw match which built up to a thrilling climax. Methley, took a two-goal lead, but Baildon Reserves, who have been having a good season in the Reserves League, fought back well to level the scores through Matthew Nunn and Chris Hawker.

The visitors were further boosted when player-manager Steve Maslen saved a penalty - the third time he had done so in the three games he had played between the posts.

Then in the 89th minute Methley took the lead again and that looked to be it. However, in the 90th minute Baildon managed to equalise with a goal by Ian Firth.

Incredibly, this still wasn't the end of it for deep in injury time, Methley scored the winner, which was rather cruel on Baildon who had contributed evenly to a fine game in which both sides had tried to play good football.