Match Preview – Staveley Miners Welfare vs Sleaford Town, Saturday 16th August 2025

Town are back on the road this Saturday, as they make the journey to Derbyshire to face Staveley Miners Welfare FC.

Sleaford will be visiting Inkersall Road buoyed on confidence, after a successful week that provided four points as well as consecutive clean sheets. Staveley will be a different test for The Greens however, as the hosts currently find themselves high flying early doors.

Staveley MWFC were founded in 1962 as a literal pub team under the name “Nags Head”, and after a couple of decades competing as a Sunday league side, they moved to the Saturday leagues in 1989. The Trojans would eventually bounce around the lower regional leagues, until they entered the NCEL and made it into the FA Cup and Vase for the first time. Their best FA Vase finish to date was in the 2011/12 season, where they were defeated in the semi-final stage. Staveley will now face their second season in the UCL D1, though they have competed at step six for a number of years before that.

This season, Saturday’s hosts have started excellently, winning four times out of the first five fixtures in a run of form that has left them second place. In that run, Staveley have swept away Holwell, Gedling, Pinxton and Radford whilst keeping clean sheets against all of them. The only loss suffered was a 3-0 defeat to promotion favourites Retford United. They will be hoping to continue this form if they want to improve on their sixth place last campaign.

Sleaford manager Matt Evans is under no illusions that the game will be a challenge; “Staveley seem to be a tough team to score against.” he says, “Their resilience in recent games could be a good learning opportunity for our boys.” “We are also excited about playing on their 3G pitch and having the opportunity to show a different side to our game”.

Despite recent defensive success in the last two, Evans understands it was not all plain sailing: “Clean sheets are great and breed confidence, but we must not get over-confident.” he comments, “There were moments in both of those games where a more ruthless opponent would have scored so we must keep working hard”. Under a lot of chopping and changing, Matt has been happy with the players who have stepped up: “The defensive unit (1 to 6) has changed in every game.” he adds, “Until everyone is available, we won’t know what our best is, however the lads that have come in to the last two games have done very well and will retain their shirt whilst they play well”.

The gaffer has also provided some updates on his squad, during what he describes as a hectic time of the season: “Of the missing lads last week, 3 possibly 4 are set to return but a different 3 are absent, it’s a crazy time of year for everyone!” he reveals, “A couple with longer absences will need to get some minutes with the development team before they can return. It’s fantastic that we have that option now”.

The appropriate details for any Greens wishing to give their backing will be updated to Sleaford Town FC’s relevant media pages in due course.

Words by Olly Burton