Mark Bower says winning the Bradford Sports Awards Club of the Year is testament to his side's penchant for overachieving.

The Bradford (Park Avenue) boss added the accolade was proof of the solid standing the whole club has.

Bower said: "It's really nice to be recognised. It's nice for everyone at the club, not just on the pitch, but off it.

"It's a team effort to ensure that we're in a position to compete and do well.

"We've not had a bad start to this year either I guess now, looking at it and we want to try and continue that sort of foundation that we've built."

Avenue were tipped for relegation from the National League North for the previous two seasons, but Bower steered them towards a surprise play-off semi-final last year.

This season, they started with a bang, leading the way for much of the first half of campaign before a winless slump at the start of 2019 threatened to derail their promotion hopes.

Bower's charges have since strung together a solid run of form and he believes it is their ability to prove people wrong that has led to Avenue's recognition.

On why he thinks they received the award he said: "I guess punching above your weight and overachieving out on the pitch, which was something that was contributed to by everybody, not just the players and staff."

Avenue's coach also gave special mention to the club's owner and volunteers who have allowed the side to play how they wanted to play.

Bower added: "It's a whole team effort, a whole club effort and it's nice to be recognised in such a great city where there's so many talented sports clubs and people doing such good work."

The biggest prize of all though for Avenue would be promotion to the Vanarama National League, which would leave them one tier below the fabled league football of the club's past.

Avenue came away from strugglers Ashton United with a pleasing 2-0 win, solidifying their play-off berth and putting them on a run of five games without defeat.

Bower said: "We adapted well to the conditions. I think we looked fit. It was really windy, the pitch was horrendous, it was like a gluepot pitch and players could hardly keep their footing and struggled to kick a ball properly it was that bad.

"We've just started to get a little bit more of what we deserved from the performances that we've put in.

"I kept saying it, you keep your level of performance, there's always going to be ups and downs along the way, but over an extended period of time, the points will follow and that's what's happened over the last few weeks."

Now at the business end of the season, Avenue will have to focus on a run of four games over two weeks, despite not playing this coming Saturday.

Bower said: "It's a little bit strange not playing on Saturday at this time of year really, but that's football and we've rearranged the Spennymoor one for the Tuesday, so it's not a massive gap we've had without any games.