UCL Premier Division St Ives Town 2 Sleaford Town 5 WEMBLEY must seem a million miles away to followers of St Ives Town at the moment. Dumped out of the FA Vase at the quarter final stage by Needham Market last week, Saints looked sluggish as their visit

UCL Premier Division

St Ives Town 2 Sleaford Town 5

WEMBLEY must seem a million miles away to followers of St Ives Town at the moment.

Dumped out of the FA Vase at the quarter final stage by Needham Market last week, Saints looked sluggish as their visitors Sleaford ran out comfortable winners.

St Ives started brightly enough and created chances in the first 15 minutes but from a corner it was the visitors that broke away and took a surprise lead on 16 minutes.

The visitors increased their lead on 32 minutes and made it three on 48 minutes as the home side's defence at times became non-existent.

Joint-manager Warren Everdall said: "At that point we needed to get something going so we changed to a 3-5-2 formation, after a little time to settle we started to play some decent stuff."

The change finally brought its rewards when Barry Albone made some room in the box and managed to scramble the ball over the line.

Four minutes later Saints pulled another goal back when Dan Pilsworth followed in after the usually-reliable Will Fordham had his spot-kick saved.

It only seemed a matter of time before an equaliser would come but disaster struck on 80 minutes when Town were caught on the break and the visitors grabbed a fourth.

Three minutes from full-time, yet another break caught out the over-stretched St Ives defence and Sleaford made it five.

Everdall said: "The team are still struggling to come to terms with the defeat in the Vase but we have to move on. We cannot let the season drift from now as there is a lot still to be played for."

* St Ives go to Huntingdon tonight (Wednesday) for a Senior Cup tie, they host star-studded Boston Town on Saturday and go to Wellingborough on Tuesday.