Stafford Town miss out on promotion with heartbreaking penalty shoot-out

Adam Wall's side won 5-4 in a remarkable semi-final against Sandbach United and Stafford, who finished third in the league, travelled to second-placed Abbey Hulton United for the final.

The visitors had a difficult start to the game when Abbey Hulton took the lead within eight minutes.

A powerful run from striker Kieran Brown saw him rifle the ball into the bottom corner.

But Town persevered and after Patryk Mazurkiewicz was tripped in the box, they were awarded a penalty in the 26th minute, which Jayden Hunter calmly dispatched by sending the goalkeeper the wrong way.

They were only level for five minutes, however, when Abbey Hulton's Lewis Holdham charged down the left flank and scored with a shot from a tight angle.

Stafford had it all to do in the second half but they came out fighting and just six minutes after the restart they found themselves level again.

Hunter and Mazurkiewicz combined again and a lovely through ball from the former, allowed the latter to find the bottom corner.

The visitors came close to winning it in the 65th minute when a dangerous corner from Max Van Der Laan took a touch off Joe Perry, but it was somehow cleared off the line by Abbey Hulton.

Goalkeeper Adam Jenkins then kept them in it when he got across to save from a half volley that looked destined for the back of the net.

In the back-and-forth contest, Mitchell Glover almost won it for Stafford but Abbey Hulton goalkeeper Daniel Roberts clawed it away.

At full-time the game went straight to penalties and Stafford suffered heartbreak by missing all three of their spot-kicks, having two saved by goalkeeper Roberts, while the hosts scored all three.

In the Midland League Division One play-off semi-final, Cradley Town threw away a two-goal lead to dash their hopes of promotion.

After finishing fourth in the division Cradley were drawn away at third-placed Leicester St Andrews.

They made the perfect start with a goal inside five minutes as Daniel Harvey found the bottom corner from the edge of the box for his first of the season.

That lead was doubled 22 minutes later when Aaron Bishop struck, to put the visitors in control.

However, before the nerves could settle, Leicester got a goal back just before half-time.

And it only took eight minutes of the second half for them to equalise after a long ball over the top caught the Cradley defence out.

A tense half of football saw both sides create chances but it was the hosts, just over 10 minutes from the end of normal time, that found the winner after a corner.

Cradley were unable to bounce back and fell to defeat following a strong Leicester second half, knocking them out of the play-offs at the semi-final stage and killing any hopes of achieving promotion this season.