Harrogate Town 2 Accrington Stanley 1: Three wins on the spin for 'terrific' Sulphurites

George Thomson popped up with a dramatic stoppage-time winner to seal a 2-1 success for the Sulphurites after Jack Muldoon had earlier cancelled out Jack Nolan’s 57th-minute opener.

Tuesday’s success, in front of a crowd of 3,515 at Wetherby Road, followed on from recent triumphs over Notts County and Grimsby and lifts Simon Weaver’s men up to 12th place in the League Two standings, where they now sit just three points outside the play-offs.

That late Christmas present saw Town string together a trio of League Two wins for the first time since Boxing Day 2022, much to the delight of boss Weaver.

“It’s a great feeling, that’s for sure,” he said. “Coming up to twelfth in the league at this time of the season, it’s far higher than we have been before but it’s not quite given me a nose bleed yet, so I’m wanting more, striving for more and so are the players.

"We are in it together and it’s great, it creates a good feeling about the town.

"It’s terrific because it was a tight game and Accrington are a really good team with some good players. I don’t think that the endeavours were properly rewarded in the first half, where I thought we were more dominant.

"To have a little wobble after half-time and not really get going and for them to score, it’s the acid test isn’t it. We had a packed home crowd in, we didn’t want to disappoint them and we managed to up it and get back into it.

"Then, to end up winning it, when we could have lost it a couple of minutes before, is absolutely the icing on the cake for a great day. The late winner is right up there.”

Having failed to find a breakthrough during an opening 45 minutes which they had much the better of, Town fell behind 11 minutes after the resumption when Nolan rattled home a close-range finish from Shan Whalley‘s low, right-wing cross.

But the hosts were level within six minutes. Thomson delivered a free-kick from the right, which was allowed to bounce inside the six-yard box, and found Muldoon perfectly placed at the back stick to nod home.

And Harrogate then turned the game on its head in the third minute of stoppage-time following another set-piece.

This time it was Matty Foulds who sent a free-kick into the Accrington box, and this time the cross arrived from the left-hand side of the field.

But again the visitors failed to deal with the first ball, allowing Abraham Odoh to bring it under control before pulling back for Thomson to force a first-time effort beyond Joe Walsh.