An entertaining chance-laden match finished goalless as Spalding United held hotly-fancied Macclesfield to a 0-0 draw the Sir Halley Stewart Field on Tuesday.
It followed Saturday’s single-goal defeat at home to Oxford City and leaves the Tulips with four points from their opening three games at the higher level.
Jack Roberts, Ben Fowkes and Tom Pugh all went close in the opening stages against Macclesfield, who also created a host of chances themselves. The Tulips pushed hard for the winner with Roberts and substitute Bart Cybulski both going close in the dying minutes.
Playing it too safe cost Spalding the points in their first home National League North match on Saturday.
“I don’t think we were great, and was a little bit disappointed with the performance,” said manager Jimmy Dean.
“We have to add that little bit of courage and conviction when we get a little bit of adversity.
“Too many times in the game we took an option to play it back instead of forward. We took the safe option instead of the brave one that could open the door for us.”
Spalding matched their opponents for much of the game but were beaten by a 40th-minute strike from Tyrone Marsh.
It came in controversial fashion, with Dean feeling the referee should have stopped play before the goal after Connor Johnson went down injured on the edge of his penalty area.
Alfie Bendle was caught in possession in the centre circle and the visitors took advantage of the prone defender playing them onside to score.
“Oxford were a good team and I was impressed by them but it was disappointing the game was decided by a real contentious decision from the referee,” said Dean.
“Our boy’s gone down in the area and our player (Bendle) was running away so didn’t know he’d gone down. We turned it over and the referee should have had knowledge there was a player down on the floor.”
A lack of a cutting edge cost the Tulips a share of the points though and Dean added: “We had some good chances and we must be putting those away. We have to be clinical when the chances present themselves.”
Tulips (v Oxford): Crook, Olopade (Sani), Kelly, Moore, Johnson, Roberts, Pugh (Bendle), Cybulski Ceesay (Fowkes), Jarvis (Straughan-Brown), Byrne (Xavier-Jones). Subs (not used): Wilks, Fox.
Attendance: 841.
Tulips (v Macclesfield): Crook, Olopade, Kelly, Moore, Johnson, Roberts, Pugh, Ceesay, Fowkes (Cybulski), Byrne, Straughan-Brown. Subs: Wilks, Bendle, Sani, Fox, Xavier-Jones. Attendance: 922.
Pictures by Adrian Smith
