FOLLOWING THE SALTMEN

Droitwich Spa 2-1 Longlevens

Hellenic League Premier Division

Sat 16 August 2025.

The day this happened….

Oh…and this happened…..

There has been a lot of excitement about the start of the Premier League, this weekend. It seems that lots of people up and down the country can’t wait for the opportunity to pay more for a ticket than I paid for my first car. For that you get a cramped seat, located somewhere in the same postcode as the game, the chance to pay £10 for a half pint plastic bottle of warm Carlsberg, which you cannot consume within sight of the pitch.

Alternatively, for a fraction of the cost you could go to watch your local non-league team, have a few beers, buy a scarf and a programme and still have enough change to buy a small family hatchback. And here’s the stinger, the non-league game is likely to be just as exciting and incident packed as the game at the Rights Abuse Airlines Stadium.

Today’s game at Kingys is a good example. It may not have been a classic but there was plenty of incident to keep the 202 in attendance interested right to the end.

The visitors started the brighter of the two sides. They had two good chances within the first 10 minutes with a shot coming back off the woodwork and another attempt on goal narrowly missed the target.

The Saltmen weathered that particular storm and, with ten minutes gone, took the lead. A Dugmore flick on was spectacularly converted by skipper James Lemon with an unstoppable howitzer of a finish from fully 40 out.

Cue the Joe Hurdman Show. Replacing brother Josh in the starting line up, Joe enjoyed a purple patch of about ten minutes when nobody could lay a glove on him. Sublime ball control and some mazy runs into the box had the visiting defenders scratching their heads. All that Joe didn’t do was find the net but he came about as close as you can get. On 17 minutes he was denied by smart save from Billy Thomas in the ‘Levens’ goal. Less than a minute later, after beating all the players on the field and about half of the crowd, he slammed a shot against the angle of the woodwork.

Five or six minutes later, new signing Reiss Taylor-Randle opened his goalscoring account at The Droitwich Goal Bank. A moment’s lapse of concentration in the visitors’ defence printed Reiss with the opportunity to drive into the box and slide the ball past the onrushing Thomas for a 2-0 lead to the Saltmen. Chances came and went for both sides but the score remained 2-0 as the referee blew the halftime whistle and the players returned to the changing rooms for afternoon tea.

Not much happened in the second half.

OK! One or two things happened in the second half. Longlevens got a goal back following a spell of about two minutes where, like an idea in Keir Starmers’s brain, the ball ricocheted around without anyone getting hold of it. It eventually fell to Bradley Martin who carpe’d the diem* and halved the arrears.

The visitors showed little sign of fatigue and pushed for the equaliser. And it looked like it had arrived on 65 minutes when a relatively routine overhit through-ball turned into a calamity. Between them, Dom Hill in goal and his two centre backs should have dealt with it comfortably. Instead everyone waited for somebody else to take charge and Levens got the ball on the edge the box. The attacker was up-ended and a penalty awarded. To add insult to injury Dom Hill was shown a red card and, for the second consecutive week, The Saltmen were left without a goalkeeper! Cometh the hour, cometh the man who has played in pretty much every position for Droitwich. But not goalkeeper. Step forward our very own action man, Sir Alex Dugmore who donned the green jersey and headed for the goal line to face the penalty. He needn’t have worried though. The spot kick was blazed wide.

When he was called upon, Duggers did not disappoint making a couple of timely interventions to collect the ball safely and smother dangerous situations.

The ten remaining Saltmen managed to hang on and even forced Thomas into making one or two impressive saves.

A final score of 2-1 saw Spa extend the run to 4 consecutive league wins. Other results and FA Cup involvement meant that Spa’s 12 points take them to the top of the table, albeit having played more league games than most of the chasing pack.

The FTS Man of the Match goes to Joe Hurdman. A constant threat and not afraid to do the hard work without the ball.

FTS doesn’t know how many games Dom Hill will miss or when the suspension will begin. It seems that the club will be on the look out to get another keeper lined up.

Next up, Slimbridge at Kingys on Tuesday evening at 7.45pm.

See you there.

FTS

*Bit of Latin for a game between two former Roman strongholds.