I'm trying to create a macro to list descendants where a free text field contains certain text

The property field for ‘startDateText’ is a Textstring field which could have the following entered:

• September
• September 2015
• 5 September 2015
• October

I want to create a list for any that contain ‘September’ in this field.

This is the what I have at the moment which doesn’t produce a list:

@using umbraco.MacroEngines
@inherits DynamicNodeContext
@{
    string startToFind = Parameter.ProgrammeStart;
    string levelToFind = Parameter.ProgrammeLevel;
        var root =Model.AncestorOrSelf(1);
    var programmeNames = root.DescendantsOrSelf("Programme").OrderBy("programmeName").ToList();

<div>
    <ul class="programme-list">
        @foreach(var item in programmeNames)
        {
    string[] startDateText = item.startDateText.ToString().Split(',');
    if ((item.level == levelToFind) && (startDateText.Contains(startToFind)))
            {
            <li>
        <a href="@item.Url">@item.programmeName - @item.qualificationType</a> 
        </li>
        }
        }
    </ul>
</div>

}