Harrogate Town's George Thomson gets monkey off his back with stunning strike in Morecambe FC success

The 31-year-old midfielder netted a stunning 66th-minute free-kick to wrap up a 2-0 success for Sulphurites at Wetherby Road, following on from Luke Armstrong’s first-half penalty conversion.

Rather surprisingly for a man who is something of a set-piece specialist and has also weighed in with so many important goals for Simon Weaver’s team over the last six years, his strike at the weekend was the first he has bagged directly from a dead-ball situation.

Thomson had got his name on the score-sheet on 37 separate occasions in Town colours prior to Saturday, while providing a similar number of assists, but admits that his free-kick drought had been “bugging” him.

“It’s the first one I’ve scored since I’ve been here. The last one was probably against Harrogate for FC United [of Manchester], so it’s been something like seven years,” he told the Harrogate Advertiser.

“I should have scored more free-kicks and it is something that has been bugging me. Earlier in my career I scored quite a few of them, but those type of goals haven’t materialised here.

“I’ve always practiced set-pieces anyway, but this summer a few of us have been putting in a lot of extra work, staying behind after training.

“Me and Matty Foulds have really worked on dead balls and this is the first one I’ve taken and it’s gone in - so I dare say we’ll be continuing to stop back at the end of training sessions.

“You can’t just expect to walk up and take a free-kick and be able to score. It’s an individual skill and a lot of work goes into it so it was nice to see what I’d been doing on the training ground pay off in a game. As soon as I hit it, I knew it had a good chance and it was a great feeling to see it hit the back of the net.”

Even more satisfying than that feeling was the fact that his goal put Town in full control of a match that they really needed a positive result from following a sequence of three consecutive losses.

“The biggest thing for me was that it gave us a two-goal cushion in a game we were absolutely desperate to win. That was the most important thing,” Thomson added.

“Obviously you never want to lose any game of football, but after the results we’ve had in the last few weeks it was key that we got a result against Morecambe.

“We had to show a reaction from the previous Saturday’s game [at Accrington]. We knew that we owed the fans a performance and a result.

“And I think that we delivered both and we’re fully deserving of the three points. We were the better side from minute one to minute 90.

“We started fast and the goal settled us down. We could have been three up by half-time and definitely won by more - and we also kept it tight at the other end and kept a clean-sheet. We just need to look to be more consistent in producing that level of performance now.”

Saturday’s result lifts Harrogate up to 17th place in the League Two standings, where they sit with six points to their name from five matches.

Next up for the Sulphurites is a Carabao Cup showdown with Championship Blackburn Rovers on Wednesday evening (7.45pm).