Ahmed Salam fires Bridlington Town to morale-boosting victory on the road at Lincoln United

The Seasiders handed a first-team debut to former Gainsborough Trinity goalkeeper Josh Render, who earned the man of the match award after keeping a clean sheet in the win.

Town manager Mike Thompson said: “I thought he was great, he didn’t put a foot wrong, his distribution was good, we hit Jake (Day) when we needed to, we hit the wide men when we needed to play it quick.

"Dashy (Jonathan Dash) hasn’t done too much wrong previously, he was ill in the week before we went to Dunston and struggled with that a bit but Josh was coming into the club in the summer and he broke his collarbone so this is his first competitive game and had been thrust in there as we had plans to send him out on loan and get four or five games in him.

"He will be sore in the morning as that’s a 90 minutes he has not experienced for a while after his injury, but we’ve worked on him a lot with Josh and the medical guys and getting him back involved in training so he deserved that clean sheet.”

Thompson’s side had lost their previous three NPL East matches, preceded by four draws, having slid down to mid-table after making an excellent start to the campaign with three successive wins.

The Brid boss added: “The result was everything, I have talked about us having had a raw deal recently as I think there’s only the Garforth game recently that we have played poorly, everything else we have just been on the wrong side of things to not get results so you get to a point where you just need a result and tonight was that night.

"I think in the first half we were brilliant, we were very front-footed for a Tuesday night away from home, we had a game plan and wanted to play a certain way on a similar pitch to ours, a big pitch, a decent pitch. We thought that we could exploit their weaknesses and get outside the full-backs and we did that really well in the first half. We wanted balls into the box with us starting Jake (Day) up there and Jake caused them quite a few problems from setpieces and balls into the box, but we probably didn’t do it enough.

"We were happy and felt comfortable in the first half, I think in the second half felt very much as the half went on longer and we didn’t kill it we started to look like a team that had not won for a while, so it becomes a little bit of squeaky-bum time.

"Clean sheet was big, but the result was everything and although we did take the foot off a bit in the second half I thought the boys stood up fantastically well, from a defensive perspective we’ve really locked them down and made it difficult for them. One of Matty Dixon’s blocks in the 85th minute, that’s the sort of ‘body on the line’ stuff you want from your skipper and it deserved a clean sheet."

The visitors made a strong start to the game, there was an early chance for Michael Coulson on seven minutes, after Salam’s seventh-minute free-kick was played short to the edge of the box.

Coulson ran free and struck it first time, but his powerful shot flew over the bar.

On 13 minutes Salam blasted home a shot from long-range to put the visitors in front, and eight minutes later Jake Day had a great chance to double the lead but his close-range header crashed back off the bar.

Just after the hour mark Salam squeezed through the United back line and places the ball past Heath Richardson but Lewis Smalley smashed the ball off the goal-line.

On 73 minutes Render pulled off a superb save to deny Grayson Giles after great work on the right wing by Connor Brown, Giles and Brown also had great opportunities to level in the next five minutes but both narrowly missed the ball after great crosses.

Render was now being kept very busy as he also claimed the ball to deny Brown after a great Eli Dye cross.

With a minute of normal time remaining a Giles volley rattled the woodwork and United failed to force home the rebound as the Seasiders weathered the storm to claim a vital three points.

Bridlington Town: Josh Render, Alex Markham, Benn Lewis (Jak Whiting 83 mins), Matty Dixon (captain), Kasper Williams, Tom Allan, Joe Batty (Casey Stewart 62 mins) Pete Davidson (Charlie Dunkerley 58 mins), Jake Day, Michael Coulson (Stan Hewitt 77 mins), Ahmed Salam. Subs not used – Jonathan Dash