In-form Knaresborough Town climb to fifth in table and progress to next round of FA Vase

The Manse Lane outfit recorded an excellent 3-0 victory at Thackley on Wednesday evening to climb to fifth place in the NCEL Premier Division standings, before beating Marske United on penalties in the first qualifying round of the FA Vase.

Saturday’s tie finished goalless after 90 minutes, but Simon Parkes’ men held their nerve in the shoot-out to eventually progress 4-3 on spot kicks.

Knaresborough, with the wind at their backs, had the better of the early exchanges and Aaron White shot over and then headed over before Sam Cook brought a save from Matthew Wilkinson in the home goal.

James Beaston was then sin-binned for protesting about a blatant foul, but the visitors continued to press and both Jack Dyche and Cole Wildin had headers saved while their side were down to 10 men.

Sam Leverett shot over, but then, on the half hour, Euan McBride fired against the bar with Marske’s first real effort.

Boro centre-half Cook then had to clear his own line after Jey Draper rounded Ed Hall on the left edge of the penalty area.

Dyche fired over just after the break, while White hit an effort wide and Beaston had a header cleared from the goal-line as the men from Manse Lane continued to push for a breakthrough.

Hall then had to make two close-range saves to deny Panashe Mwamba before Marske were handed a huge boost in the 68th minute when Dyche was sent off following an off-the-ball incident.

Boro did however stand firm and even created further chances, Slater Barnes firing over and then seeing a late shot cleared off the home line.

Penalties arrived, and although the first two kicks were converted, the next five were all missed.

After Jack Bennett put Marske 2-1 up, Luke Stewart had to score to force the hosts to their fifth kick, which saw Hall dive to keep out Luke Drummond’s effort and take the shoot-out to sudden death.

Wildin found the net, as did Lucas Casson for Marske and after Cook fired home Knaresborough’s seventh, Draper needed to score to keep the tie level, but could only clear the cross-bar.

Victory earns Knaresborough a very difficult trip to Whitley Bay, who have won the competition on multiple occasions in the past, in the next round of the competition.

At Thackley in midweek, Dyche opened the scoring after 26 minutes before two second-half goals in quick succession from Theo Hudson and Barnes wrapped things up.