Harrogate Railway go third after grinding out 'ugly win' at home to Club Thorne Colliery FC
Fraser Lancaster said he had absolutely no issue with his Harrogate Railway side finding a way to win “ugly” at home to Club Thorne Colliery on Saturday afternoon.
The Starbeck outfit climbed into third position in the NCEL Division One table courtesy of a 1-0 success that was secured by Alex Ingham’s early strike.
Goal-scoring opportunities and eye-catching football were at a premium during what was a game played on a difficult surface, but the hosts still managed to “grind out” another important result in their promotion push.
"Saturday probably wasn’t a great game to watch because it was a midfield battle more than anything,” Lancaster said. “There weren’t a lot of clear-cut chances.
"The pitch was a bit of a leveller with the way the ball was bobbling, and for wide players who want to carry the ball, it was very, very difficult.
"It was always going to be an ugly game, but I don’t think that anyone on our side played poorly. Collectively, I thought that we did what we could.
"We worked hard and just ground the result out. It was an ugly win, one of those where you have to grind it out and it’s not very pretty, but we still get the three points, which is what is important.”
The only goal of the game arrived with just four minutes gone when Harry Atkinson launched a long throw-in into the Thorne box and found striker Ingham, who picked out the far corner of the net.
And that strike ultimately proved sufficient to lift Railway above Worsbrough Bridge Athletic and into third position.
They now sit six points behind second-placed Wakefield AFC, but hold two games in hand on their promotion rivals.
But, Lancaster insists that he and his players are focusing purely on their next fixture, rather than worrying about how the league table looks heading into the business end of the season.
"All we are focusing on is our next game, and we just keep ticking them off,” he added.
"We want to try to finish as high as we can, but we are just taking it game by game.
"It’s just a case of continuing to work hard and sticking to our principles so that we can hopefully keep up this good run of form, as that will be important heading hopefully into the play-offs.”
Railway visit seventh-placed Leeds UFCA this Tuesday evening for a 7.45pm kick-off.