YORK City sporting director Dave Penney admitted master marksman Jon Parkin should still be plying his trade at a higher level.

Parkin hit a hat-trick during a 4-1 Boxing Day National League North victory at bottom-of-the-table North Ferriby, taking his season’s tally to 21 and setting a new post-War club record of 36 goals in a calendar year.

The former Championship campaigner, who turns 36 this weekend, was joined on the scoresheet by Jonny Burn at Grange Lane and a delighted Penney - standing in for manager Martin Gray as he rushed off to attend a family function – enthused: “When you’ve got Jon Parkin in your club, you’re going to score goals and you have to build your team around him.

“He’s got 21 goals now and he keeps on scoring. The manner of the hat-trick – with no set-plays in it – was also very pleasing.

“We told him at half-time to go and get a third and he’s told us that he’ll need to build an extension now for all the match-balls he’s got down the years. He’s been fantastic for us and scores goals for fun by having that knack of bring in the right place.

“He should probably be playing at a higher level with his standards and qualities, but he’s under contract for another season with us and we’ll be keeping hold of him.”

Former Pickering Town and Tadcaster Albion centre-forward Carl Stewart grabbed Ferriby’s consolation and might have had a hat-trick of his own, as the Minstermen failed to keep a clean sheet for the 16th game in succession.

Penney admitted the lack of a shut-out was a niggling frustration, but also felt a rutted playing surface played its part in the conceded goal following a Sean McAllister mistake and the former Doncaster chief reckons City should be more comfortable on their Bootham Crescent surface when Ferriby travel to North Yorkshire on New Year’s Day.

“We’re a bit disappointed not to get a clean sheet and have still got to tighten up a bit,” Penney reasoned. “But the pitch wasn’t too great.

“There were a few bobbles, but we tried to play football and, back at our place, hopefully we can pass the ball even better, because I thought it was still a good performance. Adriano Moke was great running with the ball on such a difficult surface and Alex Pattison showed everybody he’s a footballer, whilst it was nice for Jonny Burn to get his goal.

“It was a bit like going to a lower-league club for an FA Cup tie with the pitch. Teams raise their game against us too, because there’s always a big crowd for York City games.

“You only have to see how managers and teams react to beating us to see we are considered a big scalp and we have to manage that. But we got the last goal in this game and we want to take that momentum into the next match, because it was important we had a reaction from Saturday (the 3-2 home defeat to Boston), when I didn’t think our performance was too bad, but the manner of the goals we conceded was.”