Holbeach United 1
Newport Pagnell Town 2
Shattered Holbeach United slipped to their sixth ChromaSport UCL Premier Division defeat on Saturday as Newport Pagnell edged a close game 2-1.
First-half goals from Greg Ling (19) and Paul Edgeworth (33) put high-flying Pagnell in command at Carter’s Park.
The hosts did pull one back when Ollie Pinner teed up Jake Clitheroe to fire home, but the Tigers couldn’t find themselves a second-half leveller.
Once again, the Holbeach team was a mixture of first team regulars, reserve team players and young guns, much like Thursday’s loss at Rothwell Corinthians.
Player/boss Tom Roberts was relatively pleased with what he saw from his side as they played their ninth game in 20 days – but admits that league matches are now irrelevant ahead of this Monday’s UCL KO Cup final with Peterborough Sports.
“I thought we did OK,” said Roberts. “Two sloppy goals cost us in the end.
“But the encouraging thing was that there were again signs of the players finding their form.
“The result doesn’t really matter at this point, it’s about finding our form ahead of the cup final.
“I’ll keep on saying it – I’ll be rotating every game before then.
“We probably should have taken a point on Saturday, it was a game of few chances. Neither keeper had anything much to do, but it was certainly an improvement from us.
“It’s not ideal that we’ve lost so many games on the bounce, but all of our thoughts are on the final now – and have been for a while.”
Holbeach will send a patched-up side to leaders Leicester Nirvana on Tuesday night (8pm), before finishing their league season with home games against Wisbech Town on Thursday (7.45pm) and Kirby Muxloe on Saturday (3pm).
Tigers: Portas, Ford, Shepherd, Cartwright (Stevens), Jackson, Newcombe, Davies (Gale), Pinner (Warfield), Tidswell, Dougill, Clitheroe. Not used: Roberts, Russon.
