Bucks skipper Lee Vaughan challenges Harrogate's Simon Yeo

Boss Rob Smith can’t give up the day job, and he missed his side’s fourth win in five due to his other work commitments with Network Rail.

But he was doubtless a happy man as news filtered through that AFC Telford United’s promotion charge was well-and-truly back on track.

Assistant Larry Chambers was in charge at Harrogate on Saturday, and he presided over as comfortable a victory as the Bucks have managed all season.

The match itself was no classic, but Telford looked in control from first whistle to last.

Andy Brown’s late penalty moved him clear of Lee Moore as the club’s all-time record goalscorer.

But there was much else to please the visiting fans, who also saw Sean Newton net his first goal for the club and Damian Reeves bag his third in two games.

“It was what you would call a workmanlike but professional job,” said Chambers.

“Harrogate’s always a difficult place to go, irrespective of their league position.

“We arrived on the back of them winning their last two games and it was a very satisfying performance.”

One of few scares for the Bucks all afternoon came as early as the fourth minute, when experienced Harrogate striker Peter Knox burst in the box and appeared to go down under captain Lee Vaughan’s challenge.

There were loud penalty appeals from the home players and fans, but the referee was quick to wave those away.

Knox also got a sight of goal on 14 minutes after some slack marking, and keeper Ryan Young raced off his line to narrow the angle and save with his legs.

From that moment, Telford really did take a tight grip of proceedings and they could have had two or three by the interval.

Carl Rodgers scuffed his effort from a great shooting position, while the impressive Steve Thompson saw a free-kick deflected wide.

Thompson was then brought down by Simon Sturdy as half-time loomed, and Newton needed no second invitation to lash in a great strike from 20 yards into the bottom corner.

Even then, there was time for Adam Dugdale to have an effort from a corner cleared off the line before the official blew up for half time to give Harrogate some breathing space.

Loanee Dugdale was visibly growing in confidence, and he headed narrowly wide from another Newton corner in the second period.

But the second was always coming, and Thompson was again the catalyst with a hustling, bustling run to the touchline, showing determination to hold off Sturdy before crossing to present Reeves with a tap in.

The third came from the penalty spot, the eagle-eyed referee spotting a push on Brown by Jon Maloney.

Brown stepped up to take it himself, and made no mistake from 12 yards to notch his 34th goal for the club.

Either side of that, Thompson was involved in two moments that might have seen him sent off, but fortune, for once this season, was with the Bucks.

The former Port Vale man was rightly booked after a late challenge on Richard Dunning.

And, in the final minute, a second yellow seemed guaranteed when he went in hard on Sturdy, who was left writing on the floor.

Nine times out of 10 Thompson would probably have been off, but Mr Salisbury contented himself with a stern ticking off for the player and a quiet word in the ear of skipper Vaughan.

It was to prove the last incident of the afternoon, as the final whistle sounded to propel the Bucks up to sixth in the table.

Trips to Northwich and, most gruelling of all, Blyth Spartans follow this week, but Telford will head north safe in the knowledge that they are back in the promotion hunt ahead of the run-in.

“The lads have never stopped believing,” said a delighted Newton.

“I know times have been tough, but we’ve always believed we could get back in it if we started winning games.

“We were never that far away, and if we can get six points from the next two away games then it will put us in a great position for the last two months of the season.”