PICKERING Town preserved their 100 per cent home record with a 1-0 victory against NCEL Premier Division high-fliers Thackley.

Omar Sanyang scored the only goal of the game in first half stoppage time, his third in as many matches since his move back to Mill Lane.

It has been a week of change behind the scenes for the Pikes, who announced the departure of James Ward and appointments of Joe Connor and captain Wayne Brooksby as Assistant Manager and First Team Coach respectively.

For Thackley, the result compounded one of woes, having made the emergency signing of goalkeeper Kyle Trenerry before being held up in A64 traffic that pushed kick-off back to 3:25pm.

Nonetheless, the Bradford side came out of the blocks brightly, Antony Brown seeing his strike blocked before Pikes defender Blake Drury almost headed a dangerous corner into the back of his own net.

Pickering then survived two penalty appeals before miscuing their first effort of the afternoon on the quarter-hour.

Defences were on top until the stroke of half time when Trenerry was called into action with a fine one-on-one stop.

But he could not keep the hosts out for much longer.

Thackley made a meal of a corner routine, and with their defence exposed, George Brown set Joe Wood away, the winger then putting it on a plate for Sanyang, who finished well under the advancing shot-stopper to break the deadlock.

The visitors again started brightly after the break, with Brown volleying narrowly wide before a third penalty appeal was waved away.

Pickering though always looked dangerous on the counter-attack and thought that they had extended their lead from a free-kick in the 73rd minute, only for play to be pulled back for a foul on Trenerry.

Yellow cards were aplenty as the game reached its conclusion but the Pikes held on to move themselves up to 11th place ahead of this evening's trip to Goole (7:45pm)