u21s finish season on low note with defeat v Pontefract

Garforth Town Team:
1. Dan Booth
2. Harry Pickup
3. Elliott Cuttle
4. Lee Coulthard (captain)
5. Mat Devlin
6. Chris Manning
7. Gabriel Bradley
8. Joe Etherington
9. Tom Taylor
10. Raul Fletcher
11. Harrison Lightowler
12. Ben Coolican
GT Goal scorer: Raul Fletcher
GT MoM: Raul Fletcher (shown pictured)
The Garforth Town youngsters ended this season's league campaign on a bit of a low note with a defeat against Pontefract Collieries. The match was played on the recently laid 4g pitch at the West Riding County headquarters. Garforth were a goal down on just 7 minutes when they were caught in possession in their own half and with Pontefract having 2 more good chances to increase their lead within a further 10 minutes Garforth were perhaps a little fortunate to be only one goal down after 20 minutes. Garforth then matched the opposition for the rest of the first half but were caught 'asleep' virtually from the kick off of the second half to allow Pontefract to double their lead. Pontefract scored a third with a well taken free kick hit over the wall. On 75 minutes Garforth Town man of the match Raul Fletcher 'followed in' Lee Coulthard's 20 yard low shot and had a 'tap in' as the Pontefract keeper spilled the ball. Garforth had most of the play for the last 15 minutes and it came as a surprise when Pontefract bagged a late fourth goal.
The result made no difference to the table (Garforth finishing 6th out of 8 teams and Pontefract 7th) and the Garforth Town management team of Nick Fletcher (manager) and Lee Coulthard (player coach) told me after the match that they are very pleased with the u21's first season. Generally Garforth have fielded young teams, probably the youngest in the division, in a tough league but have still managed to record victories over teams from clubs operating in a higher division than Garforth i.e. Goole (Evo Stik First division) and FC Halifax Town (Conference North division). The youngsters also did very well to reach the 2nd qualifying round of the FA Youth Cup - the statistics show that a club of Garforth Town's standing has only about a 1 in 12 chance of progressing so far in the competition - and the boys were rewarded with a tie at York City's Bootham Crescent v the York City FC Youth Team - a fantastic life experience for them.