PICKERING Town are hoping to arrange another pre-season friendly before their league season gets underway from next month.

Pickering have played five warm-up matches so far, with wins over Ryedale, Kirkbymoorside and Selby Town and a defeat to North Ferriby FC. Town also drew 0-0 with Scarborough Athletic on Tuesday evening.

The Pikes have matches against Northallerton Town, on Saturday, July 24, and Hull City Under-23s, on Wednesday, July 28, still to come before their Northern Premier League east season kicks off on Saturday, August 14, at Shildon.

Given the elongated gap between their last scheduled pre-season game and the league opener, manager Steve Roberts is hoping to keep his side busy with another friendly encounter.

Roberts said: “We’ve got those two scheduled in but we’re looking at trying to get one more if not two more, definitely.

“We’re not in the FA Cup and we could have been in that on the 7th (of August). So, with the league starting on the 14th, we’re definitely looking at one more fixture on the 7th before the league campaign starts.

“We definitely want another game or two.”

On a likelihood of extra matches, he added: “We’re still working on it but it is getting a little bit complicated with teams calling games off and people trying to rearrange fixtures.

“I’m hoping that, while I’ve been let down with one, we’ll be able to get something sorted.”

At the weekend, Pickering comfortably defeated Selby Town 5-1 in a pre-season game at the Fairfax Plant Hire Stadium.

New signing Lewis Taylor grabbed the first and last goals of the afternoon, with Wayne Brooksby, Thomas Alngohuro and a trialist also on the scoresheet.

Striker Liam Flanagan got the only goal for Selby after half-time.

“I was pleased with the performance,” reflected Roberts.

“It was a red hot day and not the ideal conditions for football.

“But we spoke about moving the ball quickly in the heat and we carried that out really well.

“I thought that we did keep the ball with real quality. The scoreline reflected the performance and it could possibly have been more.

“It was a good work-out for us really.”

Another fruitful performance in front of goal has been a mark of Pickering’s performances this year.

19 goals have been scored in their first four pre-season friendlies.

Although Roberts was keen not to read too much into the specifics of his side’s performances in pre-season.

The manager said: “Even in the North Ferriby game, which we lost 2-0, I was still pleased with that because we were low on numbers that day.

“We had scholarship players in for us for that game and we were light on subs.

“I’ve been pleased with all of our performances.

“The results aren’t massively important but it’s good to have that winning mentality and be winning games of football.”

Roberts has also previously stressed that the most important aspect of pre-season is gaining fitness.

This is of added significance this summer after the long lay off amid the coronavirus pandemic.

He continued: “We have done a lot of work now and had plenty of pre-season sessions under our belt.

“Our fitness levels have been really good and hopefully that can continue.”