Peterborough Sports can't find a win for retiring stalwart and are now sweating on a ground inspection

Richard Jones (with trophy) has called time on an outstanding Peterborough Sports career. Photo: James Richardson.

They continued their poor finish to the campaign with a third straight defeat on Saturday as they went down 1-0 to Darlington in a game played at Kettering Town FC to give Sports more time to finish their upgrade to the Bee Arena.

Those improvements will now be tested by league officials and if they are not deemed adequate Sports will go down and Kettering, who slipped into the relegation places today, will be reprieved.

Darlington still had an outside chance of finishing in a play-off place, but a 68th-minute strike from Jacob Hazel wasn’t enough for better than a 10th-place finish.

It was Darlington who had the first real chance of the game when Hazel was found unmarked at the back post, but he drove his shot into the ground and it went flying over the bar.

Sports’ star Dan Jarvis then saw a speculative first time volley nearly catch Darlington’s goalkeper out on 21 minutes. Darlington’s Jack Lambert then also saw his own speculative effort from just outside the area nearly sneak inside of Sports’ keeper Pete Crook’s far post, but luckily for him it trickled just wide.

Darlington took the lead when the ball fell kindly to the feet of Hazel in the area and he was able to volley on the turn and completely catch Crook out.

The away goal seemed to give The Turbines a bit more firepower with Jordon Crawford and Jarvis acting as the catalysts for a number of the Sports attacking chances down the right hand side.

The equaliser never came and Darlington took the final three points of the season home with them.

Sports’ stalwart centre-back Richard Jones played the final game of his career. The veteran has now retired.

Peterborough Sports (4-3-3): Crook 6; Jarvis 7, R. Jones 7, Johnson 7, Fox 6; Lawlor 6, Kennedy 7, McCammon 6; Crawford 7 (Sano Sani 88’), M. Jones 6 (Gash 76’), Gyamfi 6 (Alban-Jones 57’ 7).

Subs not used: Bazeley & Williams-Lowe.

Darlington FC (4-5-1): Taylor 7; Sukar 7, Cooper 7, Lawlor 7, Griffiths 6; Felix 7, Liddle 7 (Newall 51’ 7), Lambert 7 (Nelson 88’), Purver 7, Moke 8; Hazel 8

Subs not used: Rose, Howe & Wheater.