Railway Ladies pegged back by City

Harrogate Railway Ladies were held to a 3-3 draw at Courts City despite leading on three separate occasions.

Victory for the Lady Locomotives would have lifted them out of the North East Regional Womens Football League Southern Division’s bottom two, but the stalemate keeps them ninth in the table.

Railway went 1-0 up after only six minutes courtesy of a fine Laura Savage strike almost 25 yards from goal.

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City refused to lie down, however, and from the re-start they pressurised their visitors continuously until the 39th minute when netted an equaliser.

A half-time dressing down followed a lacklustre first-period showing, but Railway started the second 45 strongly and were soon back in front.

From the kick-off, the visitors strung together six passes and a good move was then finished off with a well-taken strike by Louise Donnelly.

Once again, City replied with plenty of gusto and pulled level for a second time on the hour-mark.

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Railway began to struggle as the game wore on, but with 15 minutes to go the quick-thinking Jodie Hodgson seized the opportunity to take a short corner with Lorna Cooper.

Cooper then laid the ball back into the path of Hodgson, whose shot was too strong for the Courts keeper and flew into the top corner of the net for 3-2.

With time almost up, the Locomotives didn’t have long to hold out for maximum points, but City broke out down the right and the ball was crossed to the back post where it landed for an unmarked attacker to tap home a third equaliser.

Coach Simon Mercer reflected: “We should have taken all three points and taken the pressure of ourselves being second bottom, but with four more games to play there is still plenty of opportunity for us to stay up in this strong and well-contested league.”

Sunday sees the Ladies return to Hull to tackle rock-bottom Malet Lambert in what is a must-win fixture.