Every week I seem to be saying that the Avenue Reserves are facing their stiffest test of the season so far. That was certainly the case last time out in the league at Brighouse Town when they beat the table toppers on their own pitch.
Saturday was certainly a case of the toughest test yet as they faced the new league leaders, Otley Town away from home with a depleted squad.
With a stiff wind blowing across the pitch, the Avenue Reserves started brightly enough, but fell behind from Otley’s first attack, although there was a strong suspicion of offside about the goal. The official waved away the appeals, the goal stood and it wasn’t the first time that Avenue would feel hard done by.
It wasn’t long before Avenue struck back and on 17 minutes, the ball fell kindly to Oskar Wota, who dinked a shot at goal which was cleared off the line..Fortunately for Avenue, the loose ball was slotted home by Michael Douglas and they were level.
In a breath though, Avenue went behind again as indecision in the defence led to Otley scoring from a chance gift wrapped to them.
The next 15 minutes saw the game effectively slip away from Avenue due to a mixture of individual mistakes and a loss of discipline. Moments after going behind, Lucas Shaw got his name in the book for a tasty challenge on the Otley number six. Shortly after this, Connor Douglas received a yellow card for a challenge and to add insult to injury, further indecisiveness in defence led to Otley scoring three times inside several minutes to lead 5-1.
The referee awarded a penalty to the home side, but from the spot kick, Luke Morris dived to his left to save superbly. However, such was Connor Douglas’s annoyance with the official, he spoke out of turn, received a second yellow and was sent off.
If that wasn’t bad enough, in the closing minutes of the half, Michael Douglas was sent to the sin bin for ten minutes, meaning Avenue would start the second half with 9 men.
Such was Owen Murphy’s team talk at the interval, the referee had to blow his whistle to get them out of the dressing room, the home side already out on the pitch with their tails up. Haris Khan replaced Lucas Shaw and Avenue held on until M. Douglas joined the action again.
Surprisingly it was Avenue who pressed forward and Max Walker was denied a goal after his superb shot drew an even better save.
Otley were restricted to breakaway attacks by this point and they almost made one count, but for a brilliant last ditch tackle from Reuben Armitage.
Avenue were playing really well, but fresh legs were required, Jayden Cuffe and McKenzie Murphy replacing Wota and Josh Owen respectively. The two newcomers made an instant impact as great work by Murphy set up Jayden Cuffe who fired home to make it 5-2.
Still they piled forward in a desperate attempt to reduce the deficit further, but always mindful that Otley could punish them with a breakaway attacks. The Avenue lads had certainly put in a great shift in the second half, but in the closing seconds one such attack caught them cold and Otley added a sixth goal to finish off their afternoon’s work.
It was a bad day at the office for Avenue, but hopefully they’ll learn to cut out individual errors and sort out the discipline issues.
Match report by Paul Waterhouse.