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Wednesday 26th December - Ossett Town 0-1 Frickley Athletic

A solitary first half strike from striker Lee Morris was enough to earn Frickley Athletic three valuable points from their visit to neighbours Ossett Town on Boxing Day. With other results on  the day going in their favour the win boosted their hopes of avoiding relegation from the UniBond Premier Division. 

The game started at a frantic pace with chances at both ends. After just three minutes Town’s Adam Marsh found himself clean through but he pushed the ball too far ahead of himself as he broke into the box, allowing Adam Nicklin to collect the ball off his feet. Three minutes later Lee Morris got half a yard on Danny Meadowcroft before his low18 yard shot flew inches wide of the right hand post. A minute later Morris went even closer as Rob Pell, who was making his second debut for the club, flicked on a Chris Gowen Free-kick into Morris’ path but Jonathan Hedge did brilliantly to block Morris’ shot from point blank range. Frickley broke the deadlock after 23 minutes when Jonathan Groome won the ball some  30 yards out with a great tackle before sending over a perfect cross for MORRIS to head in from 10 yards. The home side responded with Aiden Savory’s 18 yard shot being deflected wide off Gowen whilst Meadowcroft headed the resulting corner goalwards only for Steve Robinson to head off the line. Ben Hardy put a 20 yard free-kick over the bar before the Blues broke to the other end with Chris White forcing Hedge to push his 15 yard shot around the post.

Frickley started the second half positively but Ossett slowly started to force them back into their own half. Chris Hilton collected a pass from Pell on 52 minutes before firing just wide from 20 yards whilst Pell broke away down the right on the hour before sending over a great cross which Morris just failed to make contact with at full stretch with the goal at his mercy.  Ossett replaced Hardy with Sam Jackson as they pushed forward for an equaliser. Rob O’Brien found himself in space inside the box but he lobbed the ball tamely into Nicklin’s arms whilst Frickley broke away on 82 minutes and came close to sealing the match. Pell fed Morris as he broke into the box but his right foot shot zipped across the face of goal.  Ossett spent most of the remaining minutes camped around the Frickley box but the nearest they came to an equaliser was in the 89^th minute when James Walshaw’s header beat Nicklin but Phil Lindley cleared off the line.