Bourne Town and Blackstones reach play-off finals, but Stamford AFC and Spalding United miss out on post-season action
Bourne Town and Blackstones will contest United Counties League play-off finals next weekend.
Both recorded comfortable semi-final wins on Saturday. Bourne will now host Boston Town in the Premier Division North Final at the Abbey Lawn on Saturday, May 3 when Blackstones will visit Retford FC in the Division One decider (3pm kick offs).
Bourne beat AFC Mansfield 4-0 at home in their semi-final with goals from Tom Siddons (2), Zac Allen and Jack Wilson. Siddons and Allen both converted spot-kicks. A fantastic crowd of over 900 watched Bourne score twice in each half while the visitors had a men sent off late in the contest. Mansfield also lost their manager to a red card and saw two players sent to the sin bin for dissent so finished the match with eight men.
Bourne are taking ticket bookings for the final against a Boston team who won their semi-final 2-1 at Eastwood CFC. Bourne finished two places and five points above Boston in the regular season.
Blackstones, who finished fourth in Division One, won 3-0 at third-placed finishers Retford United. Kieran Duffy-Weekes and Will Bestwick scored first-half goals with Ed Thorpe completing the scoring after the break.
Retford FC will be a much tougher nut to crack on their own patch after their 4-0 semi-final win over Clipstone. They gained 17 more points than Stones over a 38-game season.
March Town failed to make it a local UCL hat-trick. They went down 2-0 in their Premier Division South semi-final at Rugby Borough on Sunday.
An excellent Southern Premier Division season for Stamford AFC ended in a sixth-place finish, just one place and two points outside the play-off places. They drew their final game 2-2 at home to Halesowen after leading twice through goals from Jimmy Blunden and Charlie Marzano. Marzano scored with a ‘wonder strike.’ It’s the highest league finish in Stamford’s history.
Spalding United finished seventh, a point further back, after a 7-1 romp at relegated Barwell. James Clifton bagged a hat-trick with Jack Roberts (2), Liam Moore and Jason Law also on target. ‘The Tulips’ can be proud of their efforts under manager Jimmy Dean as they spent much of the first half of the season in the relegation zone.