TNORTHERN PREMIER LEAGUE – MIDLAND DIVISION

Boldmere St Michaels 5 St Neots Town 1

With every point now vital as St Neots strive to maintain their survival at Step Four this was a pallid performance against an in-form Boldmere relishing their debut season at this level. Then the news came through that Dereham had won at Loughborough to dump St Neots back to 18th in the table. That made it a bad day all round with a second heaviest away defeat of the season suffered and the only chink of consolation was that Robbie Mason’s goal was the only one scored in five visits to Birmingham this season. With matches to come against the top two sides in the table points will be hard to come by. Again, multiple team changes made it difficult for the side to settle but with Joe Rider and Lewis Hook still injured and Panny Boxer unavailable some changes were inevitable. Into the starting line-up came top scorer Trey Charles along with Robbie Mason, Joe Tarpey, and Charlie Lewis with Manny Osei and Albert Adu on the bench.

What St Neots did not want was to concede an early goal but that happened in Boldmere’s first serious attack after just six minutes as full back Aris Christopherorou picked up a loose defensive clearance to cross for Curvin Sanderson to beat Tom Finch from close range.Back in the side Robbie Mason was making his presence felt for the visitors shooting narrowly wide before bringing a good save from home keeper Kieran Harrison. After 28 minutes a St Neots attack broke down and a long clearance was flicked on to Owen Parry who added a second goal for the home side.St Neots replied with a Tommy Boxer effort that flew over the crossbar but there was no holding the rampant home forwards as ten minutes before the break a lengthy free kick by Jack Burgess seemed to take an awkward bounce inside the far post as it eluded Tom Finch’s desperate dive. Boxer was upended in a St Neots attack but the free kick from the edge of the box by Trey Charles was blocked by the defensive wall and the first half ended with Finch atoning for his earlier error with a good save from Andre Brown.