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Saturday 12th March - Frickley Athletic  1-1  Whitby Town

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Lee Pugh fired the Blues into an 18th minute lead at the Millennium Worldwide Stadium this afternoon, rifling a 16 yard shot into the top left hand corner, but visitors Whitby Town drew level through Jack Wilkinson after 66 minutes. The Blues had a strong penalty claim turned down whilst Gary Ingham pulled off a couple of good saves to keep Whitby at bay during a second half which could have seen the game swing either way.

Gary Marrow was forced to make one change with Matt Daly absent through flu, so Calum Selby returned to the side.

The opening exchanges were fairly even, although the Blues slowly started to look the more likely of the two sides to make the breakthrough with some deep crosses and free-kicks causing the Whitby defence problems. The Blues opened the scoring after 18 minutes following Wael Nazha's persistence winning the ball down the right. Steve Woolford played it forward to Steve Robinson whose first time ball into the box was held up by Leroy Chambers with his back to goal. He laid the ball into the path of the advancing Woolford but his shot was blocked only for the ball to fall to the unmarked LEE PUGH who rifled a 16 yard shot into the top left hand corner. Nazha shot tamely wide of the right hand post from 20 yards a few minutes later whilst the Blues' defence was snuffing out almost all of Whitby's attacks. However, on the half hour Whitby's Craig Veart saw his 25 yard free-kick deflected wide for a corner. Whitby ought to have equalised on 40 minutes when Selby's mistake set Jack Wilkinson away with only Phil Lindley blocking his run to goal but he unselfishly played the ball into the path of Scott Nicholson who screwed his shot well wide from 18 yards. Minutes later Nazha chased a long clearance from Selby which 'keeper David Campbell failed to clear but Danny Farthing got back to clear at the expense of a corner as Nazha was set to pounce. Neil Ashley's corner was met at the near post by a powerful header from Steve Kennedy which flew inches over the bar. As half time neared Nazha fired wide of the left hand post from 18 yards whilst Pugh's 20 yard shot just cleared the crossbar.

Whitby started the second half more positively and came close to equalising within 5 minutes of the restart. A cross from the left was metby the head of Nicholson but his looping header was brilliantly clawed away by Gary Ingham. Shortly afterwards, a left wing corner from Ashley was flicked on by Chambers to Simon Collins but his close range header struck the underside of the bar and came out, only for a mass scramble to ensue inside the 6 yard box. However, the referee decided that the laws of the game do not permit such a scramble and mysteriously awarded Whitby a free-kick. Next, Pugh beat Alex Gildea down the right before cutting into the box and being pushed to the ground from behind by Gildea but the referee adjudged this to be a fair challenge! Whitby equalised after 66 minutes when Veart's free-kick from his own half came off the head of Lindley to Graham Robinson but his short was acrobatically kept out by Ingham, only for Jack Wilkinson to score from a tight angle. This seemed to spur Whitby on as they lifted their game for the last 25 minutes, although Ashley went desperately close for Frickley when he picked the ball up on half way before running at the Whitby defence and firing in a 20 yard shot which only just cleared the crossbar. At the other end, Whitby Substitute Steve Johnson broke clear but Ingham did brilliantly to collect the ball off his feet.

In the end, an entertaining game which could have gone either way, so probably a draw was fair result.