Penrith slipped to a damaging 1-0 home defeat by Whickham to stay deep in Northern League relegation trouble.
Whickham won with a goal on 80 minutes through Ross Peareth and could have doubled their advantage in the fourth minute of stoppage time.
Home keeper Arran Taylor had gone forward to lend support to the attack at a set piece but was caught out by the clearance. On rushing back to his goal he fouled a Whickham player in the area to concede a penalty.
He stayed on the pitch and redeemed himself by saving Nathan Greenwood’s penalty.
Chairman Billy Williams said: “Again it was a disappointing result for us because four of our last five games are against sides in the top six.
“We really needed to win this one to give us a chance but I’m afraid we missed a couple of really good chances before they scored.
“There’s no doubt about it, we have the toughest fixture list of our rivals Bishop Auckland and Northallerton. It’s liking like one of us will join Billingham Town in going down.
“We go to North Shields on Saturday and they are fighting to win the title so that’s going to be really tough and then we have the current leaders, Consett, at home.
“One of our former managers is involved in the League and he has just sent me his run-down on the North Shields team. It’s something he has done three or four times and has been helpful.
“I will be passing it on to our manager Chris Humphrey and hopefully it will help us on Saturday.”
Young forward Alfie Brunskill missed last night’s game with COVID and is unlikely to be ready to return on Saturday.
