Farsley Celtic slipped to a narrow defeat at South Shields in an entertaining end to end game played in blustery conditions and driving rain.

Two goals from Paul Blackett gave the home side their first home league win since early November. Clayton Donaldson had equalised for the Celts in the first half. The visitors were dealt a blow just before kick off when Rudy Misambo pulled out through injury, Noah Wadsworth deputising.

An entertaining first half saw both teams create a raft of chances.

The home side started well, with striker Blackett causing the makeshift Farsley back line all sorts of problems. The hosts then hit the side netting and forced Leban into a superb diving save.

Ben Atkinson had a good chance for Farsley after 14 minutes but could only shoot straight at the keeper when he had a good sight of goal.

Within two minutes South Shields were ahead. The dangerous Blackett brushing aside the challenge of Tom Allan to slot it into the far corner.

Farsley hit back quickly. On 19 minutes Clayton Donaldson scored a poachers’ goal after Chris Atkinson’s free kick was nodded on by Allan.

A couple of minutes’ later Donaldson fired over the bar and a couple of long distance Farsley shots didn’t really trouble the home keeper, before Donaldson fired narrowly wide again.

Leban pulled off two good saves to keep the scores level.

All square at the break in an entertaining and breathless game.

Early in the second half the lethal Blackett latched on to a long ball to finish well past Leban.

Both sides continued to have chances, with Leban pulling off some good saves in the Farsley goal.

But The Celts kept plugging away.

With 15 minutes to go a Donaldson cross-shot hit the bar and fell to safety, and the striker was then unlucky to hit the side netting with time running out.

Over the 90 minutes Farsley will feel they should have come away with something from a keenly contested and entertaining game.

The Celts travel to Chorley on Saturday.