Football

Baldock win the title, but then lose heavily at home to Goffs Oak

Baldock Town 1 Goffs Oak 6

It was a real bittersweet couple of days for Baldock Town as they secured the league title on Thursday night and then suffered an embarrassing defeat on Saturday which somewhat dampened the celebrations.

After Met Police lost to Codicote last Thursday this meant that Baldock could not be caught at the top of the table and the title was wrapped up with four games to go.

Yet Town must have been in party mood on Saturday afternoon as they turned in their worst performance of the season as they fell apart at the hands of fourth-placed Goffs Oak.

The warning signs were there early on in the game as Goffs Oak took control from the beginning, doing to Baldock what they have done to many teams this season.

Baldock were trying to match their opponents but their usual crisp football was missing and they were struggling to find any rhythm to their game, and just before half time Goffs Oak got their reward for playing some neat attacking football with a well taken opening goal that sent them in with a 1-0 lead at half time.

Baldock manager Scott Grant had some work to do at half time, to try and raise his team from their over-relaxed, end of season mode. Unfortunately though he was not able to for once as Town turned in their worst spell of football for a long time.

They were un-done in both the 53 and 55th minutes and this was the start of the downward spiral. Baldock lost all shape and hope and looked more like relegation candidates than champions.

By the time they were thrown a lifeline of a penalty in the 64th minute they were already 4-0 down, and although Anthony Bowskill tucked the penalty away this still didn’t get The Reds going.

The game finished 6-1 to Goffs Oak as they ran rampant in the last 15 minutes and could have scored more, but this was a one-off result that did stop the title celebrations in their tracks and bring the Baldock players and management back down to earth with a thud!

Baldock: Stilwell, Bowskill, Haskins, Rennie (Morrison), Morgan, Payne (Furness), Taylor, Rogers, Aldrin (Dougherty), Christie, Newton.