Agony for Sleaford Town as relegation is confirmed on goal difference
Sleaford Town suffered the agony of relegation on Easter Monday as they fell to a 3-2 defeat at home to Boston Town.
That result, coupled with a 3-0 win for Kimberley Miners Welfare at Hucknall, meant the Greens finished second-from-bottom in the UCL Premier North, level on points with third-bottom Gresley Rovers but with an inferior goal difference.
The outcome was even more gut-wrenching for the Greens, who led Monday’s game 2-0 thanks to Andy Whalen’s brace before the visitors fought back to win with their third goal coming just five minutes from time, that strike proving the one to send Sleaford down.
And it brings to an end a tough season for Sleaford, who were forced to make budget cuts a third of the way through the campaign which ultimately saw them fielding a much younger side for the remainder and not having quite enough to secure safety.
Speaking to the club’s media after Monday’s game, which had followed a 0-0 draw at Newark & Sherwood on Good Friday, Sleaford boss Matt Evans said: “Firstly, congratulations to Kimberley, Gresley and Deeping who have turned it on when they really needed to and got themselves out of it.
"I was delighted with our lads’ effort to take it to the last quarter of the game and give us some hope we could maybe do it, but it took their stronger players coming on to kill us off.
"I’ve been saying for a while that we don’t score enough goals, and sure enough it’s the goal difference that’s got us.
"We all learn from these things. When you’re down you have to pick yourselves up and learn from these experiences. The way we’ve played in the last couple of months was better than in the first couple of months after we came in, but at the end of the day we haven’t been good enough to win the games in key moments at step five.
"That’s no criticism, it’s just where people are in their development and the difficulty we’ve had in getting the side together and developing it.
"The board have backed us and the fans have been fantastic, so it hurts even more to go down as we wanted to succeed for that big crowd today.”
Sleaford will therefore drop into the UCL Division One next season.