PICKERING Town prodigy Billy Fewster was on the scoresheet last weekend as Alfreton Town booked their place in the Vanarama National League North play-offs for the second consecutive season.

Fewster, who played for the Pikes between the ages of eight and 11, opened the scoring for the Reds as they defeated fellow play-off chasers Spennymoor Town 2-1, calmly dispatching Jake Day’s flick-on into the bottom corner just 12 minutes into the contest.

Day netted the hosts’ second after reacting quickest to Brad James’ parry to put them two goals to the good at the interval, but though Glen Taylor halved the deficit for Spennymoor with a stunning volley from a corner, it was too late to mount a comeback.

That was Fewster’s fifth goal for Alfreton, whom he joined following his release from the Premier League's Nottingham Forest last summer.

The Derbyshire side seem set to finish fifth ahead of Saturday’s season closer at Scarborough Athletic, with boss Billy Heath delighted to have secured a play-off spot.

He told the club: “It’s fantastic. It really is. I’ve said it before about this group of players.

“It’s so difficult this league, it’s constant. You never really get one minute to have an easier game, everything is 100 miles an hour and you have to be 100 per cent.

“It was a big game, it was a really big game for some of them. You’ve got to remember how young some of our players are. We’ve got four or five players, maybe even six players, under the age of 24.

“We’ve got some young players and they’ve never been in a game like that today. They’ve never been in a game where if you win, you’ve got a huge prize at the end of it, and the way the players have handled this last month has been fantastic.”