PROMOTION battles don’t get any better than this!

The crowd were kept on their toes right up until the final whistle as Howden Clough Under 11s gained revenge for an early-season defeat by beating Linthwaite 3-2 in Division II.

Having had that 4-2 defeat of Clough and, with only one previous defeat from 12 league and cup games, Linthwaite were clear favourites.

But Clough knew anything less than victory would be a serious setback to their promotion aspirations.

Although Clough started the stronger the game remained on a knife edge throughout as both sides set about trying to add three points to their promotion push.

A number of half chances at both ends had come after 15 minutes when a half-cleared corner provided Josh Walton with the opportunity to stab home the opening goal from six yards to give Clough the lead.

Linthwaite were stung into action and were back on level terms just before the break as Nathan Cyrus and captain Luke Lambert created an opening for Ben Heppenstall to provide a perfect cross for Cyrus to fire home the equaliser.

By the time the second half got under way, Linthwaite were beginning to pile on the pressure and it seemed just a matter of time before they scored, but the sterling defending of Ryan Bottomley, Taylor Goldthorpe, Jacob Naylor and Saad Aziz kept the threat at bay.

Despite the Linthwaite onslaught it was Clough who regained the advantage. Joe Crabtree floated a corner to the near post where it was met by a Linthwaite defender, but the clearance fell kindly back into the path of Crabtree who fired a superb shot into the far top corner.

Howden Clough’s celebrations were short lived, however, as within a minute Bayley Tindall had found a second equaliser for the home side.

Again, it was impossible to judge which team may run out winners as the play flowed from end to end and, with both sets of players tiring on the heavy pitch, both keepers were kept busy as shots arrived from all angles.

George Brook began to find a little more space on the left wing and his hard work kept Linthwaite pinned back, but it was from the other wing that the Spen Valley side finally found the winning goal.

Walton fed a pass to Adam Townend whose determination enabled him to ride three tackles, lose the ball and win it back before firing a cross to the far post.

Joe Tordoff’s volley was brilliantly saved by Josh Moore, but the keeper’s heroics came to nothing as the ball fell back to Tordoff, who made no mistake with his second attempt.

Dray Marren almost produced a third equaliser for Linthwaite but his shot trickled agonisingly wide of the target.

George Brook almost crowned a fine personal performance with a fourth goal for Clough, but the equally superb Linthwaite captain Luke Lambert was on hand to clear off the line.

On this performance both these two sides will still be fighting for promotion at the end of the season.