Pickering Town are gearing up for their first home league game of the season with boss Steve Brown anxious for his troops to repeat their sparkling FA Cup form.

The Pikes have already won two cup ties but lie third from bottom in the Northern Counties East League premier division and have yet to register a three-point haul.

Although they have played between one and four league games less than their rivals, Brown is anxious to get their league campaign up and running sooner rather than later.

"We only have one point from six when I think it should have been four from six if we had been a little bit cuter. We need to be a bit more ruthless in front of goal," said Brown.

"The league table does not present a nice picture at the moment and although we have played less games than most of the other teams we want to get points on the board and start moving up."

Pickering have a gilt-edged opportunity to kick-start their climb away from the lower reaches tomorrow with bottom club Borrowash Victoria the visitors (kick-off 3pm).

Centre-back Danny Farthing is unavailable for the Pikes with Brown recalling Tom Reid at right-back and moving former York City trainee Peter Vasey into the middle of the defence.

Elsewhere in the premier division, there's a derby duel between Harrogate Railway against in-form Selby Town.

Victory for Selby could take clear at the top if results go their way, while hosts Railway will be looking for their first home win after two defeats at Station View.

Tadcaster Albion, currently bottom of the NCEL first divisionwith just one point from their first three games, can forget about their league woes this weekend.

Albion travel to take on Norton and Stockton Ancients in the first qualifying round of the FA Vase tomorrow.

Tadcaster will be looking for better form and fortune in the Vase than in the FA Cup, where they lost 4-0 to Winsford in last weekend's preliminary round.

In the UniBond League premier division, fourth-placed Harrogate Town will be striving to maintain their promising start to the season when they travel to Lancaster City.

John Reed's side go west in good heart after their 2-0 midweek win over Wakefield and Emley.

However, Town have a number of injury concerns.

Michael Ord, Lennie Curtis, Robbie Whellans and Scott Bonsall all missed the midweek victory through injury. They are unlikely to feature tomorrow with Ord expected to be out until Christmas with a knee problem.

However, former Scarborough centre-back Michael McNaughton, who also missed the trip to Wakefield, could be in line for a recall to the bench after overcoming an ankle injury.

With so many injuries, Reed has been trying to draft in some fresh faces this week but admitted he doesn't expect to hit lucky in time for the weekend.

"We have spoken to three or four Division Three clubs and one or two Conference teams trying to fix up some loans, but I can't see anything happening in time for Saturday," he said.

Lancaster currently prop up the division having lost the last four of their opening five games but Reed is taking nothing for granted.

"It wasn't a real quality performance in midweek but we ground out a very good win," he said.

"It will be another tough game. They might have had a difficult start but sooner or later someone will get it wrong against them.

"We certainly can't be complacent. We have to make sure everything is right in our dressing-room."

Updated: 09:05 Friday, September 05, 2003