Bradford Park Avenue 1 Garforth Town 1 (aet)

(Garforth won 5-4 on penalties)

The favourites tag did Park Avenue no favours as Garforth Town stemmed their higher ranking opponents’ creativity and won the West Riding County Cup on penalties late into the evening at County HQ.

The first half of normal time was a close affair with few clear-cut chances.

Avenue certainly provided the greater threat after the interval, with Roy Stamer and Luke Gibson forming an unlikely strike-force with the Bradford club having so many cup-tied players and second top-scorer Chris Hall sidelined through injury.

It was Garforth’s former Avenue striker Andy Hayward who came back to haunt them. He eventually broke the deadlock when he poked the ball in after a corner seven minutes into the second period of extra-time.

The final went into the shoot-out lottery after Avenue substitute Mark Bett tucked a shot in when a Mark James effort had been parried by Town’s keeper five minutes from time.

The only penalty of the first eight not to hit the back of the net was Town’s second as Avenue keeper Jon Worsnop made a fine save. That left Bett, Bradford’s regular penalty-taker, with the chance to win it but he fired over.

The sudden death that followed was shortlived as Tom Birch fired Avenue’s next effort over the target and Town netted theirs to record a fine victory and take the trophy back to Leeds.

Avenue chairman Dr John Dean said: “It was a case of nearly but not quite in the game and after gaining an advantage in penalties we missed two on the trot.

“We will have learned from the shoot-out and we may need that if we go all the way in the play-offs in the league.”