Albion Sports 3 Pickering Town 2

A stunning second-half display saw Albion Sports come from a goal down to beat Pickering Town, despite being reduced to ten men.

The visitors had dominated the first half but Albion had levelled and were in the ascendancy when Joel Ettienne was handed a straight red card. The midfielder lunged into a challenge with studs showing and the Pickering players were up in arms.

Pickering had done all of the early pressing but their keeper Callum Myers was equal to the first test that came his way.

Midway through the first half, Delroy Facey miscued a shot but the ball ran to his brother Danny, who fired goalwards, only to be denied by a stunning reaction save.

Minutes later the visitors were 1-0 up after winning possession in the middle of the park. A through ball had the back four turning and Ged Dalton slipped through to net a chip from just outside the area.

Pickering could have doubled their lead just three minutes later when the offside trap was sprung again. Joe Danby raced clear on that occasion but his shot was deflected wide by Albion keeper Aaron Bryan’s leg.

Albion got at their visitors right from the off in the second half. Just minutes after the interval they were on terms as skipper Asif Hussain drilled in low from the penalty spot after Nathan Cook had brought Danny Facey down.

Cook made two more errors that could have been costly but the Facey brothers could not capitalise, Delroy’s shot was saved and Danny’s was blocked.

Ettienne got his marching orders in the 70th minute but Albion did not try to settle for the draw. In fact they took the lead just seven minutes later when Danny Facey converted a Lee Elam cross with a powerful header, and when he thumped in a shot six minutes from time it looked as though the Pikes were finished.

Full credit to the visitors, though, because they reduced the deficit when Cook fired a low 20-yard free-kick under the wall and past Bryan.

Albion manager Kulwinder Sandhu was delighted with the win.

He said: “We came out like a different team after half-time but we had torn into the players a bit in the break.

“But the second-half performance was superb. We changed the tactics around just a little bit and I thought we caused their defence a lot of problems. We even scored two goals after we went down to ten men and that showed just how much we wanted the win.

“They (Pickering) are a good side and were full of confidence after that result against Thackley last week.” Pickering blew second-placed Thackley away, winning 7-2.