Leicestershire Senior League
Premier Division
Saturday 16th September 2023
Kick Off 15.00 Actual 14.59
Sileby Town 3 Ashby Ivanhoe Knights 2, attendance 32
18’ 0-1 (pen)
33’ 0-2
41’ 1-2
62’ 2-2
64’ 3-2
@ Sileby Sports Club
Southfield Avenue
Sileby
LE12 7WL
£3 Admission, including raffle ticket
No Programme.
When I last saw Sileby Town play at home, back in March 1995, they beat Loughborough Dynamo 4-1 in a Leicestershire Senior League Division 1 match, played at Memorial Park, in the town centre. Nowadays, they play at Sileby Sports Club, on the north east fringes of the town. There is a modern clubhouse/changing room building (tea bar inside, with various filled rolls available) and a ground that is developing into a very good Step 7 venue. There is a seated kit stand on the entrance side and the pitch is fully railed. Hard standing only needs to be completed behind the right hand goal and on the far side from the dugouts to the corner at that same end. It has to be said, the pitch looked excellent too! There were at least a dozen who watched through the mesh fencing from outside the ground, all of whom managed to find their way inside once once the pay hut had closed!
The match was 9th versus 16th (bottom) in the league table. I wouldn’t normally chose a game where the away team are bottom of the table, but despite having lost all six games this season, Ashby have only been losing narrowly. Four of those games have only been by a one goal margin, so they aren’t doing too much wrong. Today was another narrow defeat, but if they keep competing like this their first win won’t be too far away. They deservedly built up a 0-2 lead, opening the scoring with a penalty, before a header back across the six yard box was swept in to double their advantage. Sileby were given a lifeline when a shot on the turn went in off the far post to pull it back to 1-2 four minutes before halftime. The second half saw Sileby push hard for an equaliser and it duly came just after the hour mark and two minutes later they got what turned out to be the winner, when a cross from the right was touched in at the near post.
Today’s visit now sees the top division of this league completed.
Above : Ashby open the scoring from the penalty spot.
