Jake Farrell’s second-half strike proved the difference as Spalding United Reserves edged out Long Sutton Athletic 1-0 in a very close game at the Sir Halley Stewart Playing Field on Saturday.
In windy conditions, both sides did their best to play football on the deck in the ChromaSport PDFL Division One derby duel.
The home side had plenty of the ball in the first half, but failed to cause Sutton any real problems. Instead, Tulips’ keeper Ash Elderkin was called upon twice to keep the scores level at the break.
In the second half, Spalding upped the quality, with their movement sharper and their passing crisper. As a result, they started to cause the Magpies a real threat.
The deadlock was broken on 65 minutes when Josh McGuire fed a ball into the path of Farrell from right back. Farrell’s burst of pace was too much for the defence and he found himself one-and-one with the keeper.
Despite keeper Dean Tanner’s onward advances, Farrell tucked his effort under the Sutton stopper’s body and the ball found the back of the net.
Spalding then went in search of a second goal, but it was Matt Cawthorn’s Magpies who finished the stronger.
They switched to a 3-5-2 and caused Kev Nottingham’s side a spot of bother.
Elderkin was once again called upon to save late on, but Spalding held firm to take the derby spoils.
Sutton boss Cawthorn felt that nether side deserved to win and chose the praise the first-half performance his side produced.
He said: “It wasn’t the prettiest game of football, the pitch was rock hard and the ball bounced everywhere.
“A draw would have been a fair result, neither side did enough to win really.
“Credit to my team, they defended superbly in the first half. We’ve received a lot of negativity this year, but they stood firm.
“But we made one mistake and Farrell punished us with a cool finish.
“We move on to Saturday against Wittering and hopefully we’ll get back to winning ways.”
Spalding Res: Elderkin, McGuire, Phillips, Braybrook (Britton), Rose (Cannon), Pryke, Mroczka, Nottingham, Farrell, Klos, Relf.
Long Sutton: Tanner, Wayman, Fitch, M Ward, R Ward, Congreve, N Treacher, Breide, Lawrence, Cawthorn, Allen. Subs used: Brothwell, Gomes, Moses, Williamson.
