In the end a seemingly impossible task proved just that – however, Spalding United gave it a real go in their surge up the table to the brink of the Southern League Premier Central Division play-offs.
The Tulips upheld their half of the bargain in their final match, romping to a 7-1 win at Barwell. However, they needed other results to go in their favour and it was not to be as Jimmy Dean’s men failed to improve on their seventh spot placing.
That is still a club high since the introduction of the non-league system in 1979.
“We’ve scored 12 goals in the last two games and if a couple of those had gone in in the matches before it then things would have looked different,” said manager Dean, looking back at draws against AFC Telford United, Alvechurch and AFC Sudbury in April.
As it was, Spalding went into their final game needing a nine-goal switch in goal difference with the addition of rivals Harborough Town and Stamford both losing.
However, Harborough romped in 5-1 winners at Sudbury, while Stamford drew with Halesowen, leaving the Tulips two places, three points and seven goals short of the play-offs.
“I think we could have got the nine goals we needed if we had to do,” said Dean. “But we needed our friends at Harborough to lose but they didn’t and I wish them every success in the play-offs.”
Even so, Dean was satisfied with the progress made by his team after they started the season slowly and were in a relegation battle for the opening months.
“When we came in, the remit was really just to stay up and there were times early on when we were in the bottom three and I doubted if we could do that,” admitted Dean.
“Andrew Killingsworth (chairman) has put his neck out and helped me to get some good players and we’ve turned it around. We had to be near-on perfect to make the play-offs but we probably drew a few too many in all truth. Maybe we lost a couple of games too that we shouldn’t have done on the balance of play. Even so, we’ve finished a very reputable seventh.
“If you had offered me that when I came in after losing a couple of games early doors, thinking this is going to be really tough, I would have snapped your hand off.”
Veteran striker James Clifton was again the lynchpin of Spalding’s resounding victory at Barwell, adding three more goals to his impressive career tally.
His first came after 33 minutes when he converted Nathan Fox’s cross and within four minutes he had doubled the score, again getting on the end of Fox’s cross.
Jack Roberts made it 3-0 a minute after the break and it was one-way traffic after that with captain Liam Moore striking after 56 minutes and substitute Jason Law bringing up the nap-hand within four minutes of leaving the bench.
Clifton headed in Dan Lawlor’s cross to complete his hat-trick before the hosts notched a consolation.
However, the last word was with the Tulips as Roberts cut in after 88 minutes to score his sixth goal since his arrival in March from Bishop’s Stortford.
Dean is now switching focus to next season and is confident his team will be at the top end of the table throughout.
“We’ll be having a meeting as a staff to look at things properly and see what we’ve done and start looking towards next season but we’ve got a good solid foundation here” he said.
“The chairman has got some big plans going into next year, especially as regards the playing surface but I’ll leave that for the club to announce. I just want everyone to keep sticking with us.”
Tulips: Chapman (West), Brown (Freeman), Fox, Moore, Cartwright, Lawlor, Sembie-Ferris (Chettle), Sherif, Clifton (Cybulski), Roberts, Nyahwema (Law).
Attendance: 417.
Pictures by Adrian Smith.
