THERE are a few things you expect to see when going to watch a football match. An alpaca disturbing the game certainly isn't one of them.

Yes! You read that right. A local amateur club's league fixture was halted after the mammal found its way onto the pitch.

Ilkley Town's visit to Carlton Athletic was paused for 20 minutes thanks to Oscar the alpaca.

In a video which went viral, gaining almost 700,000 views, on Ilkley's Twitter page, the footage shows the animal racing towards the touchline before showing an interest in one of their players, Joe Garside.

Danger was averted though and many laughs were shared all around in what was a lighthearted incident.

Town boss Simon Armstrong was as surprised as everybody else.

He said: "You know the Alpaca’s are in the field because they are next to the away dugout.

"One of them jumped the gate, ran along the road, and came through the main entrance. Subsequently, it ran on the pitch. As soon as that happens, the game had to stop.

"Everyone is unsure what to do. Do Alpaca’s kick, bite or spit?

"The game halted until we could get the farmer to come down from the farm shop to give it some food. Eventually, it got tempted back into the field.

"We have played Carlton for seven years and never had an incident like it. It was a bit of a comical 20 minutes.

"Both teams have got national recognition which is nice for amateur clubs. I think the country is in need of light relief in these down times."

Chairman Richard Giles was unable to attend the game, but was on the phone at the time to Claire Armstrong, Simon's wife, who took the video.

Giles thinks it's important that the club use this going forward to make everyone aware of Ilkley Town.

He added: "Claire told me, 'I have got to hang up because there is an Alpaca on the pitch.' I thought that's a bit bizarre. The video is hilarious.

"We have never had anything like this. Normally we’d get 20 to 30 views (on a video), we were getting 10,000 every five minutes.

"You were just thinking when is this going to stop. Social media is crazy!

"The profile is massive. We need to build on it. This has been a gift.

"Do we adopt the alpaca as a mascot? Get one to come to one of our games? Do we walk to the game with an alpaca? Cuddly toy alpacas with the Ilkley badge on them?

"If we don’t do anything it will be forgotten within a week. If we build on it, people can say that’s the alpaca club who were in that video.

"We have to keep reminding people that it was Ilkley Town."

In fact, the event proved to be a good omen for Armstrong's men as they strolled away 2-0 winners.

Tom Fleming and Joe Chilaka got the goals in the last 20 minutes to ensure the Baht’atters remained faultless after two West Yorkshire League Premier Division games.

Town host Sherburn White Rose next weekend, and who knows, maybe they could try set-up another visit from their good luck charm.