Easington are now five points adrift of the others after they lost 3-1 at home to West Allotment, for whom Shaun Reid (2) and Gary Day scored. Rob Huntley had earlier pulled a goal back at 2-0.

Easington manager Andy Colledge said: “Even though we lost, we can still take a lot of positives from the game, especially in the way we battled in the second half.”

The morning’s top three all lost.

Leaders Team Northumbria were surprisingly defeated 4-1 at Whitehaven after taking an early lead.

Peter Watling put them in front from the penalty spot, but Stuart Shaw, Adam Telfer, Leigh Dunn and Kevin Connelly replied for Whitehaven.

Team Northumbria director of football Paul Johnson said: “Other teams don’t beat us, we beat ourselves with poor individual decisions which as a whole end up as a poor team performance. We defended badly for their goals and didn’t finish them off early in the game when we had the chances to put the game out of sight. Nothing went right for us today, with numerous offsides, a disallowed goal and a goal where our defender was clearly fouled. Add to that a below par performance and it was a long drive home!”

Esh Winning were easily beaten 5-2 at home by Gillford Park. Player-manager Steve Skinner and Simon Tucker put Gillford 2-0 up, before James Parker put through his own goal to put Esh back into the game. However, Skinner and Marc Shiel made it 4-1 , and although Luke Wilson pulled a goal back, Tucker made sure of a comfortable victory.

Esh Winning manager Andrew Soppitt said: “I thought it was closer than the scoreline suggests, however they caught us on the break and their pace caused us problems. Overall the better side won.”

Darlington RA lost 2-0 at Brandon. Marc Costello put Brandon into the lead with a penalty, and before half time Andrew Beamson added the second.

Darlington RA assistant manager Jamie Smith said: “We’re very disappointed. The game was levelled out by terrible conditions. We paid the penalty for missed chances – a missed penalty, three one –on-ones, and two free headers. The leads were really disappointed after a good little run.”

The setbacks for the top three opened the door for North Shields to go second, but only thanks to a dramatic late winner against Thornaby.

The visitors gave as good as they got in the game, but deep into stoppage time Scott Blandford headed the winner for Shields.

North Shields manager Anthony Woodhouse said: “Although we scored late, I thought we deserved to win the game. It was tough in the first half against the wind but we dominated. With the wind, we again dictated the play but couldn’t score. We scored the winner, then the ref blew the final whistle.”

Thornaby manager Ray Morton said: “How the ref got eight minutes of added time is beyond me. We should have won, because we had some good chances near the end.”

Northallerton are steadily making up ground on the leaders, and they had a good 5-2 away win at Washington to put them 8th.

Peter Bulmer gave them an early lead with a 20 yarder, then Colin Anderson quickly added a second. Carl Chillingsworth headed the third, before Chris Tate pulled a goal back. Bulmer made the half time score 4-1 with a penalty, and in the second half, Anderson tapped in the fifth. Dan Young scored a late consolation for Washington.

Northallerton manager Mark Fanning said: “We started the game really well with the wind at our backs in the first half, and we played just as well against it in the second. We took our chances really well.”

Hebburn conceded five at home to Whitehaven in midweek, but they scored five in a 5-1 away win at Crook Town.

Liam McBryde scored four times, taking advantage of some poor Crook defending, while Dean Walker scored the other. McBryde has now scored 17 league goals for the season to make him the second top scorer in the division. Kevin Devine scored Crook’s consolation.

Crook joint manager Paul Adamson said: “I’m gutted with the performance and the result. We gave some awful goals away.”

Hebburn manager Paul Bennett said: “The players must realise that because of our FA Cup run, everyone wants to beat us. This league isn’t about pretty football, and they need to remember that.”

Birtley won by the best of seven at Seaham Red Star, the winner a fluke, when the Seaham keeper tried to clear the ball, but instead it hit the back of Tony Healer’s head and it rebounded into the net. Michael Chapman, Tim Bowman and Michael Turnbull scored for Seaham, with Julian Allsopp (2) and Andrew Grant-Soulsby also scoring for Birtley.

Birtley manager Scott Oliver said: “Another crazy game for us. We had the luck today with the winning goal. It’s a crazy game at times.”

Seaham manager Steve Cook said: “We were the better side in the first half, but were still losing at the break. An inability to score when we were on top cost us. Second half was end to end, and we got ourselves in a winning position but again let Birtley in. A freak goal gifted the points to Birtley, but we only have ourselves to blame.”

Horden had a good 3-1 away win at Whickham to lift them well away from bottom spot. Even though they had only had 12 available players, they took the lead through Kevin Price, only for Dom Elliott to equalise. However, Adam Wilkinson put through his own goal, and Lloyd Evans added another.

Horden manager Brian Honour said: “It was a hard fought win, even though we had a depleted team. We only had twelve players, so it was a great win in the circumstances. Four points from two games against Gillford Park and Whitehaven isn’t bad.”

Chester-le-Street are now just a point above the bottom two after they lost 2-1 at Alnwick, but Michael Coghlan hit the post with a last minute penalty for a point. Tony Brown gave Alnwick the lead, but Coghlan equalised after Chester missed several good chances. Ben Keenan then scored the winner when he was left unmarked with a few minutes left.

Chester-le-Street manager Anth Smith said: “We dominated the game from start to finish, created many chances but never took them which had a massive impact on the game. We missed a penalty with the last kick of the game to equalise.”

In the other game, Morpeth beat Ryton and Crawcrook 2-1. Stephen Anderson scored a last minute winner for Morpeth after Mark Peacock had cancelled out Ashley McAlpine’s goal.