Hockey: Bradford 3, Huddersfield 0.

Bradford took all three points in this Yorkshire League encounter at Thornton at the weekend with a lively display that eventually confounded a skilfull Huddersfield side.

For the opening 15 minutes, Bradford found themselves under sustained attack from a lively strike force which came close several times to breaching their defence.

But with the gaps gradually being plugged, Bradford began to build attacks from deep in their defence, releasing forwards Backhouse, Hammond and Harpin to begin causing problems at the heart of the Huddersfield defence.

As half time drew near, a Mark Backhouse run down the right flank for Bradford opened up the Huddersfield defence, and his swift cross was met by Richard Harpin who eventually whipped the ball into the roof of the net from in front of the supine keeper.

But Huddersfield nearly struck back almost immediately, winning a penalty stroke from a swift counter attack. But Bradford keeper Rob Terry made a fine low diving save to keep the score at 1-0 at the interval.

In the second half, Bradford had more of the attack, and began stringing more moves together and increasingly troubling the Huddersfield defence until, fifteen minutes from time, Mark Backhouse latched on to a loose ball in the circle and slotted Bradford's second.

Huddersfield were struggling to string passes together, and Bradford easily soaked up any pressure they put together in the dying minutes of the game, leaving them susceptible to Bradford's swift counter attacks.

And in the dying moments of the game, another attack found the Huddersfield defence all at sea, and substitute Steve Thomas was left just to stroll the ball into the net with no one between him and the goal to give Bradford their third, and the full three Division One points.

Other scores:

Bradford 2xd Xl 1 Rotherham 2nd Xl 5

Bradford 3rd Xl 3 Thirsk 2nd Xl 3

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