Nest

The Throstle Nest is one of the more alluringly named of the local non-league grounds: hidden away where the Bradford and Leeds sprawls meet and mingle. I arrived late due to cancelled buses, and it soon got dark, so I'll have to leave it to another visit to find out whether the sweet sound of the Song Thrush is still a feature of the locale.

The ground is home to Farsley Celtic of the NPL, but Albion Sports of the NCEL Premier also play their home games there, and it was the latter's match against Hemsworth Miners Welfare that I went to see tonight.

Albion are one of the modern successes of Bradford sport. They started out in 1974 as a Sunday league team and after carrying almost all before them they made the switch to Saturday football as recently as 2007. Several promotions later they are firmly established in the NCEL Premier at level 9 of the Pyramid. They're also on a storming FA Cup run at the moment having made it through the opening three preliminary rounds, although they still need to make it through three more to reach the First Round proper.

Their league form hasn't been great so far this season, whereas Hemsworth are up near the top of the table. It proved to be a fairly even game, with both sides creating half-chances. Hemsworth possibly had a little more class and their scrambled goal five minutes from the end was enough to win the match.

I spent the second half standing behind the dugouts, and this image has the Hemsworth assistant coach Andy Hayward following the action. The last time I'd seen him he'd been putting in a stint at right-back during a pre-season friendly - no wonder he was being particularly vocal to the full-backs.