Haverhill Rovers attacker Luke Lindsay receives six-game ban for spitting at Haverhill Borough player
Haverhill Rovers attacker Luke Lindsay has received a six-game ban from the FA for spitting at Borough player Milo Holmes in the New Croft derby on Friday night, boss Ben Cowling has revealed.
Lindsay, who joined Rovers from Histon in July, was shown a straight red card in the second half of his side’s 2-1 victory over their local rivals and has also been fined internally by the club.
In the same incident, Borough’s Sonny Tully (second yellow card) was also sent off after a Rovers player was fouled on the edge of the opposition’s penalty area.
Cowling, speaking on the actions of his own player, said: “My opinion, the club’s opinion, is that no, it’s not acceptable.
“Spitting in football is one of the most offensive things you can do, we’ve made that perfectly clear.
“Luke’s received a six-game ban from the FA as a result. Internally, we’ve fined him, so I think it’s safe to say that nobody is in any way shape or form happy or condones what happened.
“Luke has made contact with the player and the player’s father to apologise since and there are mitigating circumstances we are aware of. But it’s not acceptable and the actions taken since show that.
“Luke’s apologised to the club, to myself, to the players. He’s devastated about what’s happened, but it has, he’s taken ownership of it and I don’t think we can do anymore.
“He’s not made any excuses for his behaviour and he understands what’s happened.”
Lindsay’s ban will commence when Rovers host FC Parson Drove on Saturday in the Thurlow Nunn League First Division North.
Cowling hails Rovers’ ‘professional’ second-half performance
Boss Cowling was impressed with the way his Rovers side stepped up their performance in the second half of the Haverhill derby.
The red side of the town claimed the bragging rights courtesy of substitute Ryan Twinn’s late header, which came after Micky Cipriani cancelled out Lindsay’s opener, which came on the stroke of half-time.
The match-winner latched onto fellow substitute Kai Nicholls’ teasing right-footed delivery to claim Rovers the bragging rights and maintain their unbeaten start at the top of the Thurlow Nunn League First Division North standings, where they have a two-point lead and a game in hand over second-placed Stanway Pegasus.
“It has been a bit of a theme this year, we’ve got late goals a lot of the time,” said Cowling. “Again, I don’t think we’ve been at our best and we were fortunate to go in 1-0 at half-time, but in the second half we played really well.
“It was disappointing to have the red card because we would have been in total control at that time. It was unnecessary and it put us under a lot of pressure.
“Ultimately, it was all about the result. For Borough, this is the game of their season, I’m sure Harry would have loved nothing more than to have beaten us today and earned the bragging rights, despite being the club’s under-18s manager.
“But I thought they played well, they’ve got some really good young players and it’s another game we’ve won, and we’re top of the table.”
The winner at The New Croft was Twinn’s ninth goal of the campaign, who remains Rovers’ joint second-top scorer with Lindsay, who is also on nine, and Shaun Avis on 11.
Asked why Twinn was demoted to the bench on Friday night, Cowling said: “He had a little bit of an off week last week (against Holbeach United)
“I think we wanted a little bit more energy in the starting 11. We all know what Twinny’s about, he’s great in those areas, he picks up little pockets of space and he’s a very good finisher.
“It’s not the first time and it won’t be the last time that he scores a winner this year.”
Despite heading into half-time a goal to the good, Rovers were dominated by their neighbours for the majority of the first period. Striker Harry Farrow and winger Brandon McKay crafted a number of good opportunities to put Harry Zachariou’s side ahead, but they were denied by goalkeeper Alex Archer.
“At half-time, I just told them we needed to step it up and I think we did. At the start of the second half we put them under a lot more pressure in good areas.
“I think we’ve got to be a little bit disappointed with the goal that we did concede. Archer’s made a great save initially and we’ve got three or four men around the ball, I think we should have dealt with that a lot better.
“Overall, we’ve come out of it with three points. I think the last 15 minutes were fairly well and we’ve seen it out pretty well and professionally.
“It should have been more comfortable after their red card, it wasn’t to be and we can only blame ourselves for that.”
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