Report by Julian Tyley
It was smiles all round from the Bay players as well as the fans who made the trip to Teesside on Saturday as Whitley came away with the three points and a clean sheet.
The 3-0 victory at Thornaby in only their second game of 2026 was also their first win of the new year and it kept them very much in the play-off places.
While Thornaby are in the lower half of the table, Bay manager Jay Bates was under no illusions about the task facing his side. “It’s a tough place to come. They’ve got some good individual players. We had a few missing today but the lads who came in stepped up and I think they played really well, apart from the first ten minutes when the play was a bit sloppy and we were adjusting to the condition of the pitch, but after that we created enough and deserved the win.
“We won the individual battles and to a man, won every battle they were involved in. Young Luca in the middle, I’ll single him out. I thought he was outstanding. He hasn’t had much game time this season but what a performance he put in there. He ran his socks off and you could see in the last five minutes he’d given everything when he was getting cramp.
“But he wasn’t the only one. There was a lot, look at Micky Scott, he was outstanding at the back. He had two handfuls to deal with at centre forward, Sonni Coleman and Parnaby, they’re both good players; and then you’ve got Mikel. He was playing at right back with Josh being away and then went into the ‘ten’ scoring a goal like that. There were a lot of standout performances. Robbie’s another, he had one of his best games for a long time.
“We’ve ‘turned up’ today, what we haven’t done recently like at the North Shields game and the Guisborough game where if we’d scored that equaliser goal we’d have gone on and made it more of a game; but today I think we were back to our best and we deserved the win. I said to the lads it’s been a while coming, getting out there and playing. Obviously the training’s paid off playing in conditions like that.
Goalkeeper Mauro Asikaogu was naturally delighted to keep a clean sheet and Jay highlighted his top class saves. “There was one in the second half where he saved it down on his knee that was a great save. I think Silva switched off at the back post and Mauro has got down and saved it. It’s what Mauro does every game. He always comes out with one great save. But to be fair, their keeper’s made two outstanding saves, one against Meeshi and then one late on, but that‘s what keepers are there for.
Jay had no doubt about the two penalties that Whitley were awarded. “Both penalties were 100% correct decisions, Macca’s taken down for first one from behind and midfield Luca’s got into the box and got another trip for the pen.
Cal’s first choice penalty taker and he wasn’t on the pitch for the first one so Macca got that one and Cal got the second one after he’d come on.
Once the second goal had gone in Thornaby bever looked like getting back into the game, making it a comfortable final few minutes for Whitley. “I don’t think they did look like getting back into it. Their keeper’s made a couple of good saves you can blame the difficult pitch, it bobbles up Macca and Alfie both went through and have hit high and wide we have had opportunities but have not hit the target but yet, comfortable and nice to get a few players on like Alan to look at him ant right back and young Owen who’s been out of the squad lately, he’s been down at Seaton Delaval, so he’s come back into the squad so it was good to get him a few minutes
“90 minutes on a heavy pitch will have taken it out of the players. We’ve got a game on Tuesday (at Horden CW) and if that goes ahead we won’t train on Thursday, and then we’ve got to look at Shildon on Saturday to rest their legs so it’s all about recovery now.
“It’ll be a good game at Shildon. I’m glad we’ve got this game on before we go there because Shildon are a good team and we need to be on the ball.”
