Otley Town 1 East End Park 5

Otley Town suffered their worst defeat of the season against fellow strugglers East End Park.

The visitors proved to be a much-improved side to the one that Otley overcame in October.

They have recruited well recently and have a number of experienced team members back.

Their previous away game had seen them win 4-1 at Premier Division leaders Ripon, so the Otley manage- ment were under no illusions about the task facing them.

Unfortunately a series of player back-words and mis-communications meant that Otley had to make two match-day signings and went into the game with only 12 players.

This meant that the manager had to quickly juggle his resources and it was obvious from the start that there were lots of square pegs being fitted into round holes.

For the game itself – East End Park weren’t great but they didn’t have to be against a subdued Otley team.

They lead by only the one goal at half-time which gave the home side some time to re-organise themselves.

Another goal early in the second half did not help but Otley were still not out of the game.

The turning point came on the hour when one of Town’s new recruits inexplicably stamped on an opponent and received a red card.

East End Park increased their lead before a good goal by Scott Norton gave Town slight hope.

Town with three and sometimes only two at the back had to go for it but East End Park were very good on the counter attack and two further goals finished off a bad day at the office for Otley Town.

Scott Firth played very well for Town and on another day might have had a couple of goals on a day when his 16-year-old brother Joe made his debut.

This Saturday Town travel to high flying Beeston.