A stoppage-time goal ended Spalding United’s stay at the top of the Southern League Premier Central table on Saturday.
A topsy-turvy encounter saw them slip to a 3-2 defeat at home to St Ives Town.
The visitors stunned the Sir Halley Stewart Field crowd with a fifth-minute opener and held the advantage until just past the hour-mark.
Bart Cybulski slid in to level matters after 62 minutes and normal service looked to have been restored when a driving run by Dion Sembie-Ferris saw him fire the ball across goal for Yusifu Ceesay to put the Tulips ahead at the back post.
However, St Ives equalised with 15 minutes to go and then grabbed all the points in the fourth minute of stoppage time.
Frustrated manager Jimmy Dean said his team looked to have done the hard work after a slow start but then gifted the opposition a way back.
“You’re not going to win or get anything playing football like that,” he said. “We go from one extreme to the other.
“They played a diamond and we didn’t take advantage of the vulnerabilities of that formation. It didn’t suit our
skill-set and we just couldn’t get it going.
“In the second half we locked on and were aggressive. We worked hard for our goals and played good football but from there it was absolute madness.
“We were 2-1 up and worked hard but should have killed the game but at 2-2 we were chasing the game.
“We’ve got to make sides work much harder for their goals. If not we’ll have played the season for nothing.
“In the big scheme of things, we’ve got loads still to play but it just feels like we’re chasing our tails at times; nervous, frantic energy.
“We don’t need to. We need cool heads on big shoulders to set us on the right path.”
Two players have left the Tulips to get game time on loan elsewhere. James Clifton has joined Kettering for a month, while Lamine Sherif has gone to AFC Rushden & Diamonds.
Tulips: Dadge, Hart (Sani), Blythe (Bondswell), Moore, Johnson (White), Thompson (Lawlor), Roberts, Bendle, Sembie-Ferris, Cybulski, Ceesay. Sub: Nicholson.
