Towns first visit to Bishop Auckland’s new and well appointed Heritage Stadium ended with a narrow 3-2 victory.
It took less than three minutes for Chib Chilaka to race through an hesitant Bishop’s defence and shoot past Peter Jeffries.
Bishops first attack saw Andy Johnson cleverly turn the Town defence but he shot straight at Jose Veiga.
Town began to dominate and on 18 minutes Danny Stimpson pushed forward to head home a Craig Radcliffe corner.
Alex Meechan then drove Radcliffe’s pass into the sidenetting and Dwayne Samuels tested Jeffries from 35 yards as Town pressed forward.
Bishops were then given a route back into the game when Samuels brought down Arran Wearmouth in the area.
Johnson converted the penalty,although Veiga managed to turn it on to the inside of the post.
It was Bishops who finished the half strongly giving the Town central defence some anxious moments.
Gareth Ayers acrobatically shot over and a superb move culminated in Phil Shead breaking clean through but luckily for Town he fired wide.
Veiga then saved with his legs from Johnson as Bishops sought an equaliser.
Within four minutes of the restart, it was the Stimpson, Radcliffe act again, as the former rose at the far post to head in from a corner.
Bishops hit back hard and Alan White made a tremendous block to deny Jamie Harwood.
Town made five changes and Robbie Youhill, who had replaced Chilaka,was played in by Jonny Allan but he dragged his shot wide.
Bishops battled to the end,and with almost the last kick of the game Craig Hodgson turned in a corner to make it 2-3.
Town
1 Veiga (MacGillvray 63) 2 Samuels 3 Radcliffe 4 Bolder 5 Stimpson 6 White (Killock 54) 7 Dean (Garbutt 72) 8 Bolland (c) 9 Chilaka (Youhill 58) 10 Allan 11 Meechan (Elam 63) Unused Merris,Nowakowski
Scorers Stimpson 18,49 Chilaka 3
