Bradford Park Avenue 2 Harrogate Town 3

Avenue slipped one place back in the UniBond Premier Division after suffering a 3-2 Boxing Day home defeat to high-flying Harrogate Town, and lost leading scorer Steve Oleksewycz to injury.

The striker limped off with a little over ten minutes remaining and faces a race against time to be fit for Saturday's visit to Radcliffe Borough.

The narrow defeat that dropped Avenue to fourth bottom left Bradford boss Trevor Storton pondering the fickle fortunes of the not so beautiful game.

"At times the game is unjust," said Storton. "We have all been playing and working in it long enough to know that but it never gets any easier to accept a defeat like that.

"We had 80 per cent of the play and we ended up losing another game at home that should have been won. Harrogate had four attempts on our goal and three of them went in.

"It wouldn't be so annoying if we weren't playing well but we are not playing badly. A couple of individual errors cost us in this game, like so many before.

"I can count the number of times we have been outplayed here at Horsfall Stadium this season on two fingers but still the bad run of results goes at home goes on.

"We have finished the year on a real low after this but it has to change in the New Year. The luck we have had so far has all been bad and the law of averages says it can't possibly continue."

Town took the lead with a neat shot on the spin from Glenn Naylor. They doubled their tally when, after some more ineffectual defending, James Turley popped up to curl a shot into the top corner.

Oleksewycz made it 2-1, but four minutes into the second half turned from hero to villain as he squandered possession on the halfway line. Colin Hunter raced through and slipped the ball to Andrew Parton, who drilled home.

Sutcliffe saved from Hayward, Maxwell drove against the post and then had an audacious lob thwarted by a back-peddling Sutcliffe before a free-kick that eventually led to Gavin Smith netting in the 68th minute.

Several chances followed but Avenue hit a brick wall and dropped all three points.