Threlfall makes his Mark with hat-trick in Barnoldswick Town’s striking win

Mark Threlfall led the way with a hat-trick as Stewart Airdrie’s men produced a performance which offers hope for 2017.

They were bright in attack and created sufficient chances to have won the game by a bigger margin.

Even a penalty miss from Andrew Hill couldn’t take the gloss off their performance.

Town were quickly into their stride and swept the home side away with three goals in the first half.

Threlfall opened the scoring in the 14th minute before doubling the advantage after 29 minutes.

Harry Thompson netted the third goal seven minutes before the break as Ashton failed to cope with Town’s attacking play.

After Hill had missed his penalty, Threlfall completed his hat-trick, to the delight of his manager Stewart Airdrie.

“He took his goals well and I was particularly delighted with his strike partnership with John Beckwith.

“Beckwith set up all three of the Threlfall’s goals and they linked together very well,” he said.

Their form will make it hard for top scorer Joe Gaughan to force his way back into the team for Saturday’s home clash with Main Road.

Gaughan missed the trip to Ashton through illness and Airdrie looks set for the sort of selection dilemma managers enjoy.

Defender Arley Barnes, Zack Dale and Liam Britton were also missing but will soon be back in contention for places.

Airdrie said: “It will be good to have some competition in the squad because we have a tough run of fixtures coming up.

“Because of our games in hand we will be playing Saturday and Tuesday most weeks so we need to have plenty of players to pick from.

“Injuries, work commitments and suspensions can cause problems and I will be looking around in the coming weeks to see if we can bring in one or two players to further improve the squad.

“At this time of the season there are always players looking for a new challenge so we will be keeping an eye out for any who will give us a boost and help us to climb up the league table.”