Ben Rhydding 3

Harrogate 2

Ben Rhydding narrowed the gap between themselves and top team Sheffield Bankers in the Northern Premier League to three points by deservedly beating arch-rivals Harrogate at the weekend.

A delightful penalty-corner strike from Marc Gledhill early in the second-half sealed Ben Rhydding's third consecutive league victory, and left Harrogate lamenting a horrible season which sees them on the bottom of the league with just four points.

"We really had to fight for this one," said Rhydding's Australian midfielder Stuart Haslam. "We went into the break well placed at 2-1 up, but to their credit Harrogate certainly made us work hard."

In front of a small but vocal home crowd, Harrogate came out hard and put Rhydding's sensational 'keeper Phil Weaver under pressure on numerous occasions.

After 15 minutes though it was Ben Rhydding who hit the lead with Daneil Kelly finishing off an improvised penalty corner routing.

Harrogate hit back with their own well taken penalty corner, but in the 27th minute erratic Ben Rhydding captain Brad King showed enormous courage to burst through three Harrogate defenders and slot the ball home from close range.

Three minutes after half-time Ben Rhydding went 3-1 up with Gledhill's strike.

Although dominating most of the perios, Rhydding had to withtand a late Harrogate rally before coming away with a confidence boosting 3-2 win.

Ben Rhydding are at home to Southport on Saturday at 1.30pm. It should be a cracking game as Southport fight to keep their league dreams alive and Rhydding strive to hit the top of the league.

The men's third team had a 1-1 draw with Harrogate with D Sutherland scoring.

The seventh team won 2-1 against Doncaster with goals from A Cussons and M Timperley.

All other games were postponed due to the weather conditions.

Sheffield Ladies 4

Ben Rhydding Ladies 4

In their first match since the Christmas break the Ilkley side were pleased not to be thwarted by a frozen pitch in this friendly fixture against old rivals Sheffield.

Despite missing key players through unavailability and holiday commitments, Ben Rhydding started the stronger and soon took the lead through Sarah Male, who once again revelled in her attacking midfield role to fire home from the edge of the area.

Male later extended the lead, latching onto a fine pass from Aussie newcomer Kate Bradley, who confessed to never having played on a pitch surrounded by piles of snow.

Sheffield began to settle towards the end of the first-half and the Ilkley defence were put under pressure from a series of well worked attacking moves. Young Jodie Bridges gave a fine performance at centre-back, and at 13 years-old became possibly the youngest ever first XI player.

Meanwhile Karen Llewellyn used her wealth of experience to counter the Sheffield right flank, and showed no signs of fatigue despite a lack of match practice.

It was, however, due to a couple of glaring errors in the Ben Rhydding defence that Sheffield forced their way back into the game, as they latched onto some sloppy passing out of defence to put away a couple of fine goals.

As the half-time whistle approached, it was Melanie Scott who restored the away lead with a well struck shot past the hapless Sheffield 'keeper, after some fine approach play by Bradley.

Into the second-half and just as Sheffield put themselves back on level terms with a neatly taken goal, Ben Rhydding again eased their way into the lead with a textbook short corner routine which Jo Skirrow calmly thundered home.

Honours were even at the final whistle, however, as once again a rush of blood saw the Ilkley sweeper pass the ball straight to the opposing centre-forward, who could not believe her luck as she drew her side level once more.

A good workout for the Ilkley side in their league preparations and they look forward to a much sterner test away to National League side Deeside Ramblers on Saturday.