Two absentees from the squad were Danny Bent who missed out through injury and Michael Harness who was unavailable. Ollie Johnson was only fit enough for a place on the bench after returning from an ankle injury.

Town couldn’t have thought up a more disastrous start to the game when after 60 seconds Gainsborough took the lead. A cross from the right was headed into the bottom corner by the winger. After ten minutes Town had a great chance to level the scores. Tony Edwards got to a through ball first and was took down by the defender. The referee adjudged the defender of not being the last man so only showed him a yellow card. Carl Smith stepped up to take the resulting penalty but the ball rebounded back off the cross bar and away to safety. Five minutes later the same defender that had been booked took out Gaz Melia with another bad challenge but the referee inexplicably declined to produce a second yellow card and let him off with a final warning. Town were growing into the game and were enjoying a lot of possession without creating any clear cut chances. The closest they came to an equaliser was when Melia sent in a cross that just avoided everyone as well as the far post.

The second half started with Gainsborough on the front foot. There was five minutes gone when they doubled the lead. The left winger found some space and his shot found the bottom corner via a deflection. On 60 minutes the lead was extended to 3-0. Steve Lovett lost possession on the half way line and although it looked like a blatant foul the referee didn’t blow and the midfielder played the ball through to the striker who rounded Will Wood in the town goal before slotting the ball into the unguarded net. Alec Enderby, Jamie Lamming and Callum Low came on to replace Dave Marshall, Steve Brown and Nathan Rawdon with 20 minutes to go. In the final 10 minutes Town kept pushing to try and find a consolation goal but this left gaps in the defensive line and Gainsborough exploited this and scored three more times to make the final score 6-0.

A very disappointing end to the season for Towns first XI but had some of the major decisions in the game gone their way the final outcome could have been very different but all credit due to Gainsborough who were ruthless throughout.

Line up: Wood, Rawdon(Low), Marshall(Enderby), C.Johnson , Shinn, Melia, Lovett, Brown (Lamming), Smith, Lowman, Edwards. Unused subs: O.Johnson, Burchnall.

*** Photos kindly provided by Nigel West Photography ***