WAYNE Thomas earned the plaudits of Worcester City manager Carl Heeley after answering the call for help against Harrogate Town.

The former Southampton and Stoke City centre-half went into goal when Jose Veiga, already in for the absent Nathan Vaughan, had to go off injured inside two minutes at Aggborough.

Thomas, 35, was on the bench due to a slight back problem but he rose to the occasion with a dominant display between the posts in City’s 2-0 win in Vanarama Conference North.

Heeley said: “I think in those situations, I could pick somebody and say, ‘You’ve got to go in goal’, but we got everybody together and asked the question.

“One hand went up and it was Wayne — he said he’d played there previously so he’d go in.

“He had a twinge in his back and I didn’t want to take any chances so we decided to leave him out but unfortunately — or fortunately for us — he’s had to go in goal and did a sterling job.

“I’m really pleased and thankful to him for putting himself out and doing a job for the team.

“It’s an unusual one but that’s the beauty of football. It got the crowd going, it got them talking about something.

“Tommo was saying, ‘Do you think the crowd are serious when they’re saying I’m England’s number one? I might be 35 but I’m still on the end of the phone if Roy Hodgson wants to give me a call!’.”

The City boss continued: “Nathan has got a twinge in his groin after he got caught the other evening against Leamington and I didn’t really want to risk playing him and him being out for three or four weeks.”

As well as Vaughan, striker Daniel Nti and midfielder Sean Geddes were also dropped to the bench with the FA Cup fourth qualifying round tie against Greenwich Borough at Aggborough on Sunday in mind.

David McDermott and Jordan Murphy came in with the latter making his full debut and scoring alongside Nick Wright.

Heeley explained: “The beauty about this squad is whichever 11 we pick, they are capable of doing a job and we beat a side full of high-calibre players.

“Harrogate haven’t had the greatest start and their confidence is relatively low but they will have a good spell this season and won’t struggle.

“But confidence is flying through our team at the moment, we’re buzzing around and everybody wants to be on the pitch.

“We made the changes and you couldn’t really tell the difference.”