Workington 0, Bradford Park Avenue 2: Midfielder Chris Dolby scored his first goal for Bradford Park Avenue in an excellent victory which puts them right back in the promotion frame.

Workington are one of the two clubs in UniBond Division One who are past Football League rivals for Avenue, and the huge support they enjoy at Borough Park makes it a daunting venue.

But Avenue manager Trevor Storton believes there is another reason why teams find it hard to get results there.

"It is the worst pitch we have ever played on," he said. "It looked like a cow meadow - you couldn't roll a ball two yards without it doing something, so we had to adapt. That made the result all the more pleasing.

"It was a solid, workmanlike performance and puts us right back in there.

"We missed a bagful of chan-ces in the first half, but Chris Dolby got a goal for us when it really mattered, and Mark Hancock finished really well to make it an easy win for us in the end - well deserved."

Hancock and striker Phil Denney both fired over from good positions early on, but Workington came back, Gra-ham Goulding shooting into the side-netting after being pushed wide by Gavin Kelly, who then made a fine fingertip save from Brian Dawson.

Avenue took control again and Jason Maxwell was unfortunate not to break the deadlock before the interval, his shot from just over from ten yards forcing Gary Hoggeth into an excellent save by the foot of the post.

Into the second half, Avenue were still on top, Mark Wilson and Dolby keeping Hoggeth on his toes with headers.

The game was played in an excellent spirit, only one yellow card being shown. That was to Hancock on the hour, his tenth of the season, which means he receives a second one-match ban in a fortnight.

Dolby found the range when he was on the end of a sweeping move in the 63rd minute and drilled a low shot into the corner of the net.

The strike was ruled out for offside, but former Bradford City man Dolby only had to wait seven more minutes to open his account.

Denney cut in from the right, but his shot was deflected on to a post. Maxwell could not control the rebound and Dolby pounced to fire the ball high into the net.

In the 78th minute a cross from Martin Pemberton was poorly defended, and Hancock hammered the ball in from close range.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.