MATCHDAY – SATURDAY 19TH OCTOBER 2024 SPALDING UNITED VERSUS BANBURY UNITED

Inclement weather necessitates an early start for the small band of “Tulips” volunteers. Gary Kent, club secretary arrives at the ground at 8.45am to meet up with the ground-staff. Pitch inspected and very wet, however, definitely playable thanks to all the pitch preparation work (brushing, cutting and line marking) put in by Pete Clare on Friday afternoon.

We now get to mid-morning, still raining but easing off, back onto the pitch for Pete with his mower for a final cut. Following on from this the ground-staff are now walking the pitch with forks in hand spiking and diviting to ensure the ground is in as good a condition as possible considering the weather conditions.

The time is marching on and the rest of the match day team of volunteers have now arrived busying themselves with all the duties required of them to make sure the stadium is fully ready for the upcoming match. Organisation is so important now to ensure the spectators and fans from both team along with all staff and match officials enjoy the event and everything runs smoothly.

Eddie Reeve, turnstile operator has noticed a build-up of fallen leaves around this area. It seems it had been forgotten that the volunteer who normally clears the spectator areas of leaves etc, had been away all week and this task had been missed. A sub group was quickly put together. Brushes, shovels and bins in hand and this soon has the issue around the turnstiles resolved. The remainder of the ground, however, would have to be left on this occasion as time had “run out”.

All now relaxed again until the first paying customer arrives at the entrance to the ground at 1pm and wants to pay for admission by card. Martin Fisher on the second turnstile flags up the card reader is not working. Try the second card reader from the programme and 50/50 ticket hut is the call, alas, this machine also not working! Lots of head scratching, then it was decided to do what is always best in these circumstances, turn off and reboot. Success, all back up and running.

Gary Kent, now working in overdrive as he prepares all team sheets and administrative forms to be uploaded onto the southern league computer system. He then meets up with Banbury United’s match day secretary. They both attend the pre-match meeting with the match referee and exchange paperwork. All now “good to go”. Zoe, from the social media team, who has been working tirelessly all week on promoting the fixture can’t wait to get hold of the team sheets. Excitement building to see who is in the team today and who will be on the bench. This, she immediately uploads to all the social media channels.

Rob Russell, ground public address, interrupts his music play list to announce the teams to the spectators who are already in the ground. Jimmy Dean, it can be seen has made two changes to the starting line up from the mid-week 3-0 success at Royston Town, replacing both the injured players of Nathan Stainfield and Jordan Nicholson with Sam Warburton and Connor Tomlinson.

Tulips full Team sheet, 1 Breeden, 2 Brown, 3 Walker, 4 Dawes, 5 Cartwright, 6 Warburton, 7 Sherif, 8 Barker, 9 Cybulski, 10 Tomlinson, 11 Hilliard. Substitutes 12 Winters, 13 West (GK) 14 Chettle, 15 Sano Sani, 16 Nyahwema.

Dale and all his staff in the “Tulips club and bar along with the food outlets around the ground” are busy serving drinks and refreshments. All seems to be going down very well as the excitement amongst the fans builds up as kick off time approaches.

Nick Beck in the club shop also seems to have a steady stream of customers looking at all the club merchandise. Vikki at the match day programme and 50/50 ticket sales hut is experiencing a last minute rush.

All action stations now for Sharla Slayven, head of youth. She has her team of young mascots all in place at the tunnel ready to walk onto the pitch with the Spalding United team. A real picture as there excited faces light up as the players come out and each mascot joins a player to walk onto the pitch. Photos taken at the centre circle and hopefully memories of the experience will stay with the mascots for a long time.

3pm arrives, the wait is over and the match starts.

Banbury, who played at step two last season and currently sit 7th in the league are lively and I am sure will be aiming to bounce straight back up. They, however, are not showing any signs of being able to break down the Tulips defences. Soon becomes apparent that we have two evenly matched teams with few chances being created. Tulips best early chance followed good midfield play releasing Connor Tomlinson down the left wing, his mazy run beats the defender and crosses the ball, unfortunately the run through the middle from Bart Cybulski is not quite quick enough and fails to connect with the ball and it runs out of play. Following this Banbury manage to create a couple of chances as they break forward quickly but the Tulip’s re-guard repels any real threats. Spalding then create another great chance from the free kick fired in by Warburton, Cybulski heads the ball back across the penalty area for Cartwright to head towards goal, it loops over the Banbury Keeper but lands on top of the bar and out of play. Banbury then are awarded a free kick which is curled in to the far post, the ball is headed back into the danger area and Banbury’s centre-forward, Jaanai Gordon fires the ball into Spalding net, however, he had wandered into an offside position and goal was ruled out by the raised flag of the referee’s assistant. Spalding back on the attack and win a corner. Lewis Hilliard takes the corner and cleverly picks out Bart Cybulski who had made himself space fire the ball towards the Banbury goal, it takes a deflection on its way and ends up in the bottom corner of the net. 30 minutes play Tulips 1 -0 up. For the remainder of the first half both teams were cancelling each other out with very few opening.

Second half begins, few chances again with both teams defences strong and repelling any attacks. A few niggly fouls and the referee starts to get carried away dishing out yellows cards for what appeared very little as seen from the side lines. Tulips defence who had been guilty of giving away silly goals in previous games this season were all up to the challenge on this occasion and protected the one goal lead resolutely. With 15 minutes of play remaining Banbury again were awarded a free kick. Lamine Sherif made up the “one man” wall, but as he jumped as the free kick was riffled towards him his arm made contact with the ball. The referee, who had already cautioned Sherif produced a second yellow and Spalding were reduced to ten men. Tied legs now made it the right time for the Manager to introduce players from the bench. Tyler Winters on for Bart Cybulski, Callum Chettle on for Connor Tomlinson and Sano Sani on for Lewis Hilliard. Substitutes slotted in seamlessly and the Tulips were up for the challenge, didn’t yield and snuffed out anything that was directed at the goal. 90 minutes up and added time board raised, six minutes...”where did all that time come from was the cry? Can the Tulips hold on? You bet they could and with two minutes of the added time left substitute Sano Sani made his way forward along the right wing and fires a hard cross into the Banbury six yard area which strikes a defender and is turned into his own net. Tulips fans go wild as does Jimmy Dean as he runs down the touch line to celebrate with his players.

Victory and another valuable 3 points. Final score Spalding United 2 Banbury United 0.

Disappointingly, after the final whistle, a few Banbury, so called supporters, who it turns out have been band from attending any Banbury home match, let themselves and their club down by throwing some red smoke flairs which did cause some upset amongst some of the Spalding fans. All handled very well by South Lincs Security who made sure the offenders would leave the ground and kept all the “real fans” back for a few minutes whilst the offenders dispersed.

Zoe, our queen of the social media, was then back hard at work getting the interview with Jimmy Dean. She has now posted on all social media platforms. Makes interesting viewing so try a take a look.

Tulips Man of the Match was Kyle Barker. Well done Kyle for a great performance.

Attendance 440. Thank you to all fans and hope to see you all again soon.

On now to our next home league match, this Tuesday evening with a 7.45pm kick off when we entertain Leiston. We as the fans are all hoping for another 3 points, however, Jimmy Dean will need to shuffle the pack again as added to the long list of injured players will be the suspensions for the three players who have picked up red cards in the past two matches. Jimmy and the team will need all the support possible so please, if you can, get along to the ground Tuesday evening 22nd October and make a noise, help get the team over the line again.

WE ARE SPALDING! Up the TULIPS!!

Photos below : Adrian Smith