Report: 1st XI Men vs Long Sutton – February 22, 2025

Spalding 1’s 0 – 1 Long Sutton 1’s

On a sunny afternoon Spalding travelled to their local rivals Long Sutton. After an intense prematch team talk from captain Sam Howitt, spalding stormed out the blocks, applying a huge amount of pressure onto the Long Sutton defence.

 Spalding did well to keep Long Sutton penned in their own half, after 5 minutes on the clock spalding got their first chance, when Stu Cunningtons reverse stick pass found Aaron Borst on the back post, Borst deflected his shot goal bound which forced the Sutton keeper into producing his first good save of the day. Spalding kept applying the pressure to the Sutton eleven.

The first half finished with spalding seeing a lot of the ball but nothing to make of it. 

The second half started in similar fashion with spalding seeing a lot of the ball but not being able to find the Sutton net. As the game drew on, cracks started to appear, which allowed Sutton to start stringing some play of their own together, which eventually meant Sutton were awarded with a short corner where Spalding keeper Oscar Haunch was sadly beaten at his near post. 

After the restart spalding carried on pinging the ball around and just when spalding thought they were going to find the net themselves Jacob Baker decided to send his shot to the moon.

With 5 minuets to go, it looked like Sutton were going down to 10 men, after one of their players conceded his second yellow card of the game for the same offense which resulted in a red. With the game being played in such good nature, a quick chat with the umpires from Stu Cunnington and Sam Howitt, they managed to get this overturned which meant to red was crossed off.

The game concluded with all Sutton eleven being penned in their own twenty five desperate to keep their one goal lead.

Spalding can come away from the game with their heads held high, with many shots being saved on the line and others going narrowly wide (nots Jacob’s).

A special mention to Oscar Haunch for some spectacular saves and for demanding his area.

Another special mention to Phil Callow who defend the Spalding goal with everything he had. Keeping a lot of the Sutton attackers quiet.

MOTM – Phil Callow

DOTD – Jacob Baker