After three long weeks without a match, due to postponements, Harrogate railway ladies were away to Altofts FC and the hunger to play showed through.
In the first five minutes Railway, pressed Altofts in their own half creating three shots which went narrowly wide, Louise Donnely on the left wing caused all sorts of problems putting cross after cross in throughout the match and it was the strike partnership of Nicola Hadley and Sandra Clark to make good use of these crosses, which they did but just couldn’t find the right spot to beat the keeper.
The match was a true end to end performance with both teams playing a hard-physical game, as railway broke down the right side with a great cross out from mid fielder Laura Savage to Jodi Hodgson, Jodi carried the ball towards the corner where she was taken down from behind and winning a free kick.
Jodi delivered a perfect dead ball into the penalty box where full back Leanne Court rose high above all the players in the box to head home to put Railway 0-1 up after 36 minutes.
Railway certainly did not sit back after this and felt that a second goal was inevitable before the half time whistle as they piled on the pressure but this was not to happen as Altofts put every one behind the ball to hold the score at half time.
When these two teams met earlier in the season Altofts went home with a 5-1 win so for Railway to get some points out of this they were told by the managers to keep working hard, play together as a team and expect Altofts to come out strong in the second half.
Sure enough Altofts changed their formation and went on a full attack pressing Railway back for the first 15 minutes of the second half, but the railway defence held on strong and some great saves from Rocky, rails keeper, and strong tackling from Kat Purvis and Jenny Hudleston, Altofts were denied.
For the remaining time, it was again back and forth and with 6 minutes to go Altofts won 4 corners, which they delivered with great danger and menace but Railway hung on for 3 fantastic and precious points. Railway are still bottom but now only one point behind the nearest team and two games in hand, next week they are away against Sheffield Wednesday another big challenge but one the Rail are certainly up for.
