Northallerton’s new manager Steve Skinner says that distance is no object as he starts the task of curing Northallerton’s away day blues.

Skinner beat 16 other applicants to the post – including one from Iceland and one from the USA – and even though the former Carlisle player lives in Cumbria, he says that he has no problems with the journey across the Pennines to North Yorkshire.

“It takes me 90 minutes roughly to travel between the two places, but I’m used to travelling, I’ve travelled all my life,” he said. “When I was with Gretna, we travelled up to the Highlands, when I was with Carlisle we went all over the country, and when I was with Barrow we travelled all around the north of England.”

Skinner might be used to travelling, but Northallerton’s away record this season suggests that they’re not. They’ve lost six of their ten away league games, and only the bottom three clubs have lost more.

“I watched Northallerton play last Saturday against Alnwick, when they won 8-0 and they’re a good side. I want to give all the players a chance over the next few weeks, I don’t want somebody to turn around later and say that he hasn’t been.

“The biggest problem that I can see at the moment is that they don’t win enough away games.”

Skinner has also quashed talk that he still has links with Celtic Nation, the club that he helped rescue during the summer when owner Frank Lynch departed.

“I can understand that people might associate me with Nation because I was there for ten years, but now I don't have any dealing with Nation, Mike Linden and Geoff Andrews run the club. After I left West Auckland earlier in the season, they were short of players and I helped them out. Also, I have no dealing with any other club and am 100 per cent committed to helping Northallerton improve in league, and help the committee move the club forward.”

Northallerton chairman Peter Young said; “Steve ticks a lot of boxes as far as we’re concerned. He has done everything at Celtic Nation, with input on both the playing and committee side. He’s got a lot of football experience, both Football League and non league, which we hope to use. We want to steady the boat this season, and then go forward next season.”