Sleaford Town FC
Eslaforde Park
Boston Road
Sleaford
Lincolnshire
NG34 9GH
Official Website
Ground: 115
Date: Saturday 14th August 2021
Sleaford Town 0-2 Heather St John's
United Counties League Premier Division North
Attendance: 115 (official)
Sleaford Town - History
Sleaford Town were founded in 1923 and have spent most of their history in the Lincolnshire League. After finishing as runners-up of this league at the end of the 2002/03 season (the second time they had recorded this finish, the first coming in the 1989/90 season), the club announced plans to move up to the United Counties League. After winning the title the following season and moving to RAF Cranwell, the club earned promotion to Division 1 of the United Counties League.
The club went on to win the Division 1 title in the 2005/06 season, but had to wait twelve months for Eslaforde Park to be ready before they could take promotion to the Premier Division. The 2006/07 season saw the club finish as runners-up to secure promotion to the Premier Division, losing just one game all season but having three points deducted. In the club's twelve completed seasons in the Premier Division (2007/08 to 2018/19), they generally finished in the bottom half, but managed a 9th-place finish in the 2009/10 season and a 7th-place finish in the 2015/16 season.
In the two seasons disrupted by covid, the club seriously struggled on the pitch, picking up just 15 points from the 40 league games they managed to play in that time. However, with the last two seasons declared null and void, relegation did not occur and instead the club were placed in the newly-formed United Counties League Premier Division North for the 2021/22 season as part of the FA's restructuring of the non-league pyramid.
Since the club first competed in the FA Cup in the 2008/09 season, they have progressed as far as the 1st Qualifying Round on three occasions, most recently in the 2013/14 season: in that season, they beat Ely City and Godmanchester Rovers but were then disqualified along with opponents Huntingdon Town after their 1st Qualifying Round match was abandoned. As for the FA Vase, the club's best run saw them reach the 4th Round in the 2015/16 season: they beat Peterborough Sports, Downham Town, Raunds Town, Sporting Bengal United and Yaxley before losing to Sunderland RCA.
My Visit
With my mum and stepdad planning to head into London yesterday and Yaxley away at Sporting Khalsa in Walsall, I needed to find somewhere else to go if I wanted to get a match in this weekend. To get anywhere, I'd have to take the bus into Peterborough first and then the train to go somewhere from there, so I didn't want to go too far if I could avoid it. As such, Whittlesey Athletic initially seemed ideal, taking just ten minutes on the train from Peterborough.
However, a combination of factors made me slightly reluctant to commit to the plan. Firstly, last Sunday's visit to Arlesey Town involved a lot of walking and I wanted to do a little less walking this time. Whittlesey's ground was noted on Google Maps as a 25-minute walk from the station (so, closer to 20 minutes at my walking pace) and, on top of this, I'd have to walk around 10 minutes from the house to the bus stop (and vice-versa on my return). This, combined with the fact that Whittlesey is, to the best of my knowledge, the cheapest train journey I can do to tick a new ground, meant I started looking for other options.
The problem with this was that, even at the time of typing this, my Word document of football grounds I can realistically visit by train is far from complete, so finding other options was trickier than I would have liked it to be. Furthermore, I was limited by not wanting to go too far, as there doesn't seem to be anywhere near as many cheap options doable from Peterborough as there was in Guildford, and I was also even more limited by not wanting to pay too much in terms of admission (thereby more or less ruling out anything above Step 4).
In the end, after looking at fixtures on the Futbology App and doing some research, two new options emerged: this and Nuneaton Griff. However, I was quick to rule out the latter as going there would mean I wouldn't be back in the house until close to 8pm when accounting for time to get the bus back and then walking back from the bus stop. So that secured this match as first choice, though I did keep Whittlesey in mind as a back-up in case the weather took a sudden and drastic turn for the worse.
The evening before the match, I did some very thorough research into the bus timetables and cross-referenced that with the train timetables to get proper plans in place for both of my options. Normally, I'd just do this on the morning of the match, but I don't use buses all too often so am far less confident with them than I am with trains. Even more so given I had to get the timing correct, otherwise I'd be waiting an hour for the next train heading to Sleaford (trains there to and from Peterborough only run once per hour).
On the morning of the match, I ordered my train tickets (costing me £13) before getting ready by packing some lunch (as I'd be leaving the house before midday) and double-checking the schedule I had drawn up. I then left the house at 11:45am - 10 minutes later than I had initially planned - to head to the bus stop. First, though, I headed into Serpentine Green and popped into Poundland to buy some sweets (Poundland still the place to go for my favourite Vimto Fizzy Pencils) and another cold drink to get me through the afternoon. As I was coming back out to head to the bus stop, the bus I needed to get on was rolling on so I had to run a bit to catch it.
15 minutes later, the bus rolled into the temporary bus station behind the Brewery Tap (due to ongoing works in Queensgate Shopping Centre) and from there it was a short walk to the train station, with more time spent waiting for the traffic lights to change than actually walking. I collected my train tickets and still had more than half an hour to spare as I made my way onto the platform. I used this time to eat the lunch I had prepared before the train eventually arrived a few minutes later than planned. With just 8 minutes between my train arriving in Grantham and my connection to Sleaford arriving and departing, this was somewhat worrying.
As it turned out, my train arrived in Grantham just as the connection to Sleaford was doing the same, so I had to move quickly across the platforms to get on my connection before it left. This arrived in Sleaford about half an hour later, just before 2pm and from there it was a simple 15-minute walk to the ground. As I reached the ground and took a couple photos from the outside, I ran into someone I've seen a few times at Yaxley matches in the past, and we had a brief conversation about the restructuring and what that has meant for local sides before heading into the ground itself, paying £6 for admission and £1 for the programme (an excellent effort from Castle Print, very impressive at that price point and in general).
With forty minutes still to go before kick-off, I went around to do my circuit of photos while the ground was still largely empty. Once that was done, I had a brief look inside the clubhouse before paying £1.50 for an excellent portion of chips. I took my seat in the main stand as I ate these and read the programme before kick-off.
As usual for these early stages of the season, I took a quick look at how both teams had started their seasons to get some sort of idea of what to expect in this match: Sleaford had drawn their opening league match 1-1 before losing 1-0 in the FA Cup to league rivals Anstey Nomads, while Heather St John's won their league opener 4-2 but lost 3-0 to Westfields in the FA Cup.
Date: Saturday 14th August 2021
Sleaford Town 0-2 Heather St John's
United Counties League Premier Division North
Attendance: 115 (official)
Sleaford Town - History
Sleaford Town were founded in 1923 and have spent most of their history in the Lincolnshire League. After finishing as runners-up of this league at the end of the 2002/03 season (the second time they had recorded this finish, the first coming in the 1989/90 season), the club announced plans to move up to the United Counties League. After winning the title the following season and moving to RAF Cranwell, the club earned promotion to Division 1 of the United Counties League.
The club went on to win the Division 1 title in the 2005/06 season, but had to wait twelve months for Eslaforde Park to be ready before they could take promotion to the Premier Division. The 2006/07 season saw the club finish as runners-up to secure promotion to the Premier Division, losing just one game all season but having three points deducted. In the club's twelve completed seasons in the Premier Division (2007/08 to 2018/19), they generally finished in the bottom half, but managed a 9th-place finish in the 2009/10 season and a 7th-place finish in the 2015/16 season.
In the two seasons disrupted by covid, the club seriously struggled on the pitch, picking up just 15 points from the 40 league games they managed to play in that time. However, with the last two seasons declared null and void, relegation did not occur and instead the club were placed in the newly-formed United Counties League Premier Division North for the 2021/22 season as part of the FA's restructuring of the non-league pyramid.
Since the club first competed in the FA Cup in the 2008/09 season, they have progressed as far as the 1st Qualifying Round on three occasions, most recently in the 2013/14 season: in that season, they beat Ely City and Godmanchester Rovers but were then disqualified along with opponents Huntingdon Town after their 1st Qualifying Round match was abandoned. As for the FA Vase, the club's best run saw them reach the 4th Round in the 2015/16 season: they beat Peterborough Sports, Downham Town, Raunds Town, Sporting Bengal United and Yaxley before losing to Sunderland RCA.
My Visit
With my mum and stepdad planning to head into London yesterday and Yaxley away at Sporting Khalsa in Walsall, I needed to find somewhere else to go if I wanted to get a match in this weekend. To get anywhere, I'd have to take the bus into Peterborough first and then the train to go somewhere from there, so I didn't want to go too far if I could avoid it. As such, Whittlesey Athletic initially seemed ideal, taking just ten minutes on the train from Peterborough.
However, a combination of factors made me slightly reluctant to commit to the plan. Firstly, last Sunday's visit to Arlesey Town involved a lot of walking and I wanted to do a little less walking this time. Whittlesey's ground was noted on Google Maps as a 25-minute walk from the station (so, closer to 20 minutes at my walking pace) and, on top of this, I'd have to walk around 10 minutes from the house to the bus stop (and vice-versa on my return). This, combined with the fact that Whittlesey is, to the best of my knowledge, the cheapest train journey I can do to tick a new ground, meant I started looking for other options.
The problem with this was that, even at the time of typing this, my Word document of football grounds I can realistically visit by train is far from complete, so finding other options was trickier than I would have liked it to be. Furthermore, I was limited by not wanting to go too far, as there doesn't seem to be anywhere near as many cheap options doable from Peterborough as there was in Guildford, and I was also even more limited by not wanting to pay too much in terms of admission (thereby more or less ruling out anything above Step 4).
In the end, after looking at fixtures on the Futbology App and doing some research, two new options emerged: this and Nuneaton Griff. However, I was quick to rule out the latter as going there would mean I wouldn't be back in the house until close to 8pm when accounting for time to get the bus back and then walking back from the bus stop. So that secured this match as first choice, though I did keep Whittlesey in mind as a back-up in case the weather took a sudden and drastic turn for the worse.
The evening before the match, I did some very thorough research into the bus timetables and cross-referenced that with the train timetables to get proper plans in place for both of my options. Normally, I'd just do this on the morning of the match, but I don't use buses all too often so am far less confident with them than I am with trains. Even more so given I had to get the timing correct, otherwise I'd be waiting an hour for the next train heading to Sleaford (trains there to and from Peterborough only run once per hour).
On the morning of the match, I ordered my train tickets (costing me £13) before getting ready by packing some lunch (as I'd be leaving the house before midday) and double-checking the schedule I had drawn up. I then left the house at 11:45am - 10 minutes later than I had initially planned - to head to the bus stop. First, though, I headed into Serpentine Green and popped into Poundland to buy some sweets (Poundland still the place to go for my favourite Vimto Fizzy Pencils) and another cold drink to get me through the afternoon. As I was coming back out to head to the bus stop, the bus I needed to get on was rolling on so I had to run a bit to catch it.
15 minutes later, the bus rolled into the temporary bus station behind the Brewery Tap (due to ongoing works in Queensgate Shopping Centre) and from there it was a short walk to the train station, with more time spent waiting for the traffic lights to change than actually walking. I collected my train tickets and still had more than half an hour to spare as I made my way onto the platform. I used this time to eat the lunch I had prepared before the train eventually arrived a few minutes later than planned. With just 8 minutes between my train arriving in Grantham and my connection to Sleaford arriving and departing, this was somewhat worrying.
As it turned out, my train arrived in Grantham just as the connection to Sleaford was doing the same, so I had to move quickly across the platforms to get on my connection before it left. This arrived in Sleaford about half an hour later, just before 2pm and from there it was a simple 15-minute walk to the ground. As I reached the ground and took a couple photos from the outside, I ran into someone I've seen a few times at Yaxley matches in the past, and we had a brief conversation about the restructuring and what that has meant for local sides before heading into the ground itself, paying £6 for admission and £1 for the programme (an excellent effort from Castle Print, very impressive at that price point and in general).
With forty minutes still to go before kick-off, I went around to do my circuit of photos while the ground was still largely empty. Once that was done, I had a brief look inside the clubhouse before paying £1.50 for an excellent portion of chips. I took my seat in the main stand as I ate these and read the programme before kick-off.
As usual for these early stages of the season, I took a quick look at how both teams had started their seasons to get some sort of idea of what to expect in this match: Sleaford had drawn their opening league match 1-1 before losing 1-0 in the FA Cup to league rivals Anstey Nomads, while Heather St John's won their league opener 4-2 but lost 3-0 to Westfields in the FA Cup.
Heather St John's almost took the lead within 30 seconds of kick-off as James Spruce was set through on goal by a quick through ball. Fortunately for Sleaford, keeper Garry Doran was wise to the danger and charged out of his box to slice the ball clear before Spruce could get the shot away. This set the tone for the match's early proceedings as Heather dominated the attacking play and kept Sleaford largely pinned in their own half. In the 8th minute, Sam Ellis had Heather's next chance to take the lead, but his low shot was blocked inside the box. Then, in the 15th minute, Aaron Dickens picked up the ball in space on the left wing and set up Oliver Jarrett to shoot just wide from the edge of the box.
In the 20th minute, Ellis found himself with space in the box after an impressive Heather team move across the field, but Kieran Wiles sprinted across the box to get his body in the way and block the shot. After this, Sleaford began to grow into the match and had their first clear-cut chance in the 23rd minute when Abubaker Wadada robbed the ball off a Heather defender on the edge of the box and set Liam Mead up to shoot on goal, only for Aidan Jeynes to deny him with a good save with his foot. Wadada then tried to head in the rebound, but his effort was off-target. Then, on the half-hour mark, Ben Newman went close with a powerful free header from a corner, but it was narrowly wide.
The final third of the first half saw the momentum shift once again as Heather had two chances in quick succession: in the 39th minute, Ellis charged into space on the left-wing and squared the ball across the box to Spruce, who was only denied a goal by a fantastic reflex save from Doran; almost immediately after this, Jarrett turned and shot inches over from the edge of the box. From the goal kick that followed, Sleaford quickly went on the attack and earned themselves a corner. Once again, the ball into the box was excellent and a Sleaford player headed the ball towards goal, only for a defender to block on the line and scramble clear; there were some appeals from the Sleaford players for handball, but nothing was given.
The second half was initially quieter on the goalmouth action as Sleaford upped the pressure and Heather were forced to defend in numbers, but that changed on the hour mark when a flurry of Heather chances eventually led to a goal: first, Ellis got a shot away from the edge of the box after a brief period of pressure in that area, but his effort was saved and bounced back into play; then, as I was noting that first chance down, someone else got a shot away and forced another good save out of Doran; then, when the Sleaford defence failed to clear, Jarrett was there to shoot low across goal and in at the far post.
The away side almost doubled their lead in the 67th minute when Daniel Hanson decided to have a go from 35 yards and managed to hit the crossbar. After this, there was another period of respite for both goalkeepers as both teams made changes to try and swing the match in their favour. In the 81st minute, Sleaford were unlucky not to equalise when Wadada had a shot blocked on the line after being unable to work the space to chip Jeynes after he came out to meet a through ball.
As we entered stoppage time, Sleaford continued to press high in search of an equaliser and they were eventually caught out on the counter in the 91st minute when Mitchell Woakes went on a driving run down the right wing and crossed to the far post, only for his teammate in the box to poke wide. 60 seconds later, Heather broke on the counter again and this time made it count, Spruce finding space to turn onto his right foot and tap a cross in at the far post.
While it may not be immediately apparent from the scoreline, this was an excellent and entertaining contest between two closely-matched sides who exchanged attacking blows throughout. The only real difference was that Heather St John's tended to look more likely to score with the chances they did create. Regardless, a good advert for the newly-regionalised United Counties League Premier Division structure.
The journey back home after the match was similar to the way there, the only real difference being that I took a direct train back to Peterborough from Sleaford rather than changing at Grantham as I did on the way there. This train got back into Peterborough at 6:20pm, just after my bus departed. This meant I had a twenty-minute wait for the bus and, when all was said and done, I got back into the house at 7:15pm and ordered a KFC while I went for an early shower. This meant I didn't get started on sorting out my photos and writing my match report until around 8pm.
My current plan for my next groundhop is to head to Hitchin Town on Bank Holiday Monday, but I might hold off on that if Yaxley progress in the FA Cup and get an interesting away tie, or if something else pops up during September.
The Ground
Eslaforde Park is a relatively new ground - having only opened in 2006 - and as a result is a basic but functional venue. The only areas of cover at the ground are a 200-seater Arena stand on the far side and a small Arena terrace behind the near goal providing covered standing for around 100 people. The terrace is decked out in Castle Print signage which makes it a bit more interesting to look at, not least because their colours happen to match the club's green.
Near this Arena terrace is a small building with a table and some club signage on the wall. According to this Tweet from the club's official Twitter account, this building is called the Greens Lounge and is set to be used for hospitality after its recent refurbishment. A couple of benches are positioned in front of this to provide uncovered seating. The clubhouse is on the dugouts side of the ground and also houses the changing rooms. There is a tea bar hatch on the outside and a range of hot and cold food and drinks is available.
The rest of the ground is open hard standing and it has an overall capacity of 1,000. The ground is very similar to that of fellow Step 5 side Cogenhoe United.
Photos
