Sleaford Town make history with win at Kimberley

​Going into the Easter Monday game at home to Pinchbeck United, played after this week’s Standard went to press, Sleaford are fifth and still in the mix for an inter-step play-off place should they finish in second spot which they currently trail by seven points, but with two games in hand on its current incumbent Loughborough Students.

And assistant manager Louis Bland told the club’s social media channels after Saturday’s win that there is much still to aim at.

He said: “I know the chairman is very happy but I don’t think this is finished. There’s an opportunity to finish even higher and there’s an opportunity to get in that play-off spot and hopefully a cup final as well, so there’s a lot more to come.”

On the win at Kimberley, he added: “We were really good. We came up with a gameplan and it pretty much went down to a tee.

"I felt that with a game Monday and another game Wednesday, if we’d gone out and pressed and been aggressive then those games may have become difficult - so we felt that if we just sat in [at 2-0] we had bodies on the bench - and they killed it at the end.

"We knew that [leading scorer James Shaw] has scored a lot of goals so we tried to nullify his threat.

"We tried to make him go wide of us and resort to crosses in the box - and when you’ve got Tom Ward and Joe Braithwaite as your centre-halves they shouldn’t get beaten in the air, and they didn’t.”

The Greens are quickly back in action again as they go to bottom-of-the-table Selston on Wednesday night (12th) for a rearranged fixture following its postponement a fortnight ago.

They then go to third-placed Quorn in a crucial clash on Saturday, the Leicestershire side being three points ahead but with Sleaford having two games in hand.

League leaders and title favourites Anstey Nomads are then the hosts next Tuesday night, before a home game with Newark & Sherwood United rounds things off on April 22.