IN A must-win final league game to keep their Division 1 title hopes alive at Morpeth Town on Saturday, Guisborough clawed their way back from the shock of going 3-0 down to draw level at 3-3 before finally succumbing to a late goal to lose by the narrowest of margins, 4-3.

With nearest rivals Marske United beating Bishop Auckland 5-2 to leapfrog the Priorymen to the top of the table, Guisborough’s dream of lifting the Northern League Division One title for the first time ever is over in their rollercoaster of a season.

At Morpeth, Guisborough – cheered on by a large away following – knew that only a win would keep them at the top with the chasing pack of Marske, Shildon and North Shields all having games in hand.

The Northumberland hosts opened the scoring on 35 minutes when Ben Sayer dribbled through the defence but his shot hit the bar and rebounded back into the path of Dan Taggert who made sure by slamming the ball into the net to give his side a 1-0 lead.

And worse was to follow for the Priorymen as just a minute later the glaring sun played a big part when a corner was knocked in by Chris Jewels to double the Morpeth lead and only minutes later Guisborough were reeling when another corner was headed in by Michael Hall to make it 3-0.

Just before the interval Guisborough gave themselves hope when Luke Bythway was brought down when through on goal and Danny Earl slammed in the resultant penalty – his third successful spot kick to take his tally for the season to 26 goals.

The teams went into the interval with Morpeth leading 3-1 and whatever Manager Chris Hardy said at half time worked wonderfully well as the Priorymen pulled two goals back in the first ten minutes of the restart to draw level at 3-3.

First a Callum Martin corner went straight into the goal with help again from the bright sunshine and Danny Earl closing in to put pressure on home ‘keeper Karl Dryden. And soon after that it became 3-3 when Andrew May headed the ball to Liam McPhillips who steadied himself to score his sixth league goal.

Then with just over a quarter of an hour left it was yet another corner that proved to be the Priorymen’s downfall. Although Guisborough ‘keeper Nick Liversedge managed to tip the ball onto the bar, Chris Jewels was close enough to slam it in via the bar again to score his second goal which proved to be the winner at 4-3.

A disappointed Chris Hardy said afterwards: “In a game that I thought we had greater possession along with more goal attempts, this just wasn't quite enough to win the game due primarily to some poor defending that made the challenge in front of us just too big an ask.

"However, the efforts and application from the boys this season has been first class and we share a real disappointment that we have not been able to finish our League campaign on the ultimate high we so desperately wanted. But that doesn't take anything away from the achievements over the season as a whole, which everybody at the club can be so very proud of.”

The race for the title – one of the most exciting of all time – now rests between current leaders Marske, Shildon and North Shields, all of whom mathematically can still win the Division One crown.