Pickering Town 5 South Normanton Athletic 0; The Pikes entertained South Normanton Athletic on Saturday in their first ever visit to Pickering in front of a crowd of 90.

The visitors started very well and after two minutes Martin Bowles had a 25-yard left foot shot which the Pikes keeper Kevin Martin saved.

The Pikes took the lead after seven minutes when Mark Swales passed the ball to Chris Batchelor who scored with a superb 25 yard left foot lob into the roof of the net. The visitor's keeper Ross Whalin never moved.

This goal settled the Pikes down and for the remainder of the first half they had a firm grip on the game with further chances created by Swales, Richard Whitfield, Ricky Greening, and a Joe Connor 35 yard left foot shot which was well saved by Whalin. All the other efforts were either saved or missed the target, the only half chance South Normanton had came after 27 minutes when Lee Pallender got in two timely tackles to prevent Kelvin Myshambi scoring with his two chances. The Pikes were also unlucky not to get a penalty when Whitfield was clearly pushed over by the visitor's Chris Murdock after a fine left wing cross by Batchelor after 44 minutes.

The second half was a different story as the Pikes took complete control and Kevin Martin didn't have a single effort to save.

The Pikes scored very good goals, it could have been and should have been a lot more.

The goals came after 49 minutes when Connor took a free kick to Greening whose right wing cross found Whitfield whose poor finish went wide after 46 minutes.

In the next couple of minutes the ball was hardly out of South Normanton's penalty area, two right wing crosses by Greening failed to find anybody, Batchelor crossed from the left for Danny Gildea to miss the target, the ball was not really cleared for Ricky Greening to score with a shot from 10 yards with a low unstoppable shot.

Two minutes later after 51 minutes a Joe Connor left foot right wing free kick awarded after Swales had been brought down found an unmarked Michael McNaughton who headed in the Pikes third goal.

Swales, Gildea, Batchelor and Whitfield all had good efforts saved. Substitute Liam Salt came on after 59 minutes and was shown the yellow card after 73 minutes.

The Pikes' fourth goal was scored by Ricky Greening after 85 minutes with an unstoppable 25 yard right foot shot which hit the back of the net before keeper Whalin moved and a minute from time Greening completed his first hat-trick of the season when he scored at the second attempt. Salt hit the post in stoppage time.

Pikes man of the match was Ricky Greening.

The Pikes team was: Martin, Aziz, Pallender (Brunton 59), Eeles, McNaughton, Connor, Greening, Gildea (Baxter 67), Whitfield (Salt 59), Swales and Batchelor.

On Saturday the Pikes visit Selby Town, kick-off 3pm. Selby are currently seventh, three points behind fifth-placed Pikes and Selby have a game in hand.

The Pikes will be out for revenge as Selby knocked an understrength side out of the FA Cup this season. Selby impressed on Saturday winning 5-3 at Hallam.

After the game Pikes Manager Mark Wood said how delighted he was with his side's performance and result, five excellent goals and a second half performance which could well prove very hard to beat.

"We looked solid at the back, moved the ball about superbly, and took our chances well although we could have had double figures apart from the woodwork and a few missed chances, " he said. "We looked very well organised and very strong, excellent passing, and when we moved forward we looked great."