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Ilkley Town v Knaresborough Town at University Academy Keighley

11am  9 July 2016

Pre-season Friendly at University Academy Keighley
Ilkley Town 2 Knaresborough Town 3 (att 18)

I rarely make a huge effort just to watch pre-season friendlies, generally sticking to local games that give me chance to visit one-off venues.

Ilkley and Knaresborough's warm-up caught my eye partly due to its morning kick-off, giving an opportunity for a second game, and also as it was being held at Keighley's University Academy, which sounds very grand but is essentially just a secondary school.

It's a well-equipped secondary school though, certainly when it comes to sport. I'd expected the all-weather football pitch to be in a typical high-fenced 'cage', but instead it was inside an athletics track, and bordered by a chest-high fence.

The match was played over three 30-minute thirds, rather than the usual 45-minute halves. Not ideal from my point of view, but either way it adds up to 90 minutes of football, and it was just a training match.

Knaresborough, who play at a higher level than Ilkley, took a second minute lead. Ilkley hit back to level well before the end of the first 'third'. Then the goals dried up until the final 10 minutes, Ilkley took the lead but Knaresborough netted twice in the last five minutes to scrape a win.








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