MARK Bower has billed Bradford (Park Avenue)'s victory at promotion rivals Spennymoor Town as one of the best results of the season.

The coach saw his side put in a spirited display against their third-placed hosts and Avenue came away with a valuable 2-0 win.

An early goal from Conor Branson set the visitors up strongly in a game that ebbed and flowed between the two competitors on a pitch well-known for its sloping surface.

Bower said: "It was a brilliant win, when you go to a place like Spennymoor who are having a right go to get promoted, with some really good players and a strong squad and a very good home record.

"To go there and win on a Tuesday night is probably up there with our best result of the season really – a fantastic win for everyone."

Avenue's cause was helped in the 76th minute when defender Scott Harrison was sent-off for a professional foul.

But Bower said his side had been looking comfortable in the second-half anyway.

He added: "The longer the game went on they seemed to run out of ideas. We were dealing with what they were throwing at us.

"Obviously the red card helped – to go down to 10 men – and we were able to exploit a bit of a weakness.

"They went to a back three instead of a back four, so we were able to exploit that to get the second goal which completely killed the game off.

"The red card comes from Jake Beesley – I keep telling him about chasing lost causes, with his pace he’ll get on the end of things.

"That’s what he did, chased a lost cause, and ultimately it led to a red card which made our task that little bit easier."

Beesley is in a spell of rich form with five goals across Avenue's last five games, including the second at Spennymoor where his penchant for constantly pressurising the defence paid off when he nipped in on a poor back-header.

Bower highly rates his forward's overall presence on the pitch, as well as his goalscoring ability, and admits he would love to sign the loanee permanently from Salford City.

He added: “We’d love to be able to keep him, whether that’s going to be possible or not I don’t know, because he’s got another year at Salford and having scored a lot of goals at this level, probably financially it may be well out of our reach."

The Avenue boss also had high praise after the match for keeper Charlie Andrew, who kept his side in the game and ahead with a string of impressive saves in the first half.

Bower's men are now unbeaten in six, and he insists the focus for now remains on each game and securing a play-off berth, despite making strides near the top-of-the-table.

He added: "I’m sure the teams chasing the play-offs were not happy to see that result on Tuesday and hopefully we can keep doing that and keep those teams out of the top seven at arms length.

"At this stage of the season, beating a team in and around you is a big result and the sooner we can get those points on the board that we feel we need to get in the play-offs, then we can start looking up and maybe trying to get as high as we possibly can to give yourselves the advantage in the play-offs."