Undoubtedly one of our better performances inflicting Royston Towns first home league defeat of the season . Having spent a large part of the week trying to sort out an acceptable squad having lost James Shaw and Connor Church to injury and Nick Holden and Dan Smethers to "other causes" we then lost custodian Mark Richardson who pulled a groin in the warm up and James "The Cat" Butler had to take his place between the sticks .

To make matters worse in the second minute debutant James Byerley, one of four from our U 18 team in today's squad who otherwise had a promising debut, was caught in possession and from the resultant penalty Royston Town took a lead.

Having recovered from this blow we slowly worked our way back into the game without really troubling their keeper. Ollie Ruttle was stopped by a foul on the edge of the area and Tom Shaw put a free kick over. Too often the final pass was too ambitious especially bearing in mind the shape we were playing.

After 25 mins a cross from our left hand side after a throw in resulted in a tidy volley on the far post and it seemed we were in for a long afternoon trying to keep our opponents within sight.

Playing up the slope should have made it worse but a Tom Shaw corner and a non- header from Les Barkers Obua resulted in a handball in the area which Ryan McMahon duly converted.

Within 5 mins a pass from another debutant Will Bisney resulted in a delicious cross from Kieran Goldberg which Ollie "Giroud" Ruttle headed in.

Returnee Richard "Dickie" Smith noticed Royston had gone to 3 at the back so we reacted by pushing Callum Gregory further up the pitch. We then broke from their corner and Joe Naylor scored his customary goal and then missed a one on one.

Callum Gregory scored our 4th with a scuffed shot from the edge of the area.

A shell shocked Royston reacted well and put us under pressure and scored a 3rd with 10 mins left but apart from one save by The Cat we managed the game through to the final whistle for a highly satisfactory squad victory but a special mention to Teddie Paul, Paolo Bagatti and Les Barkers- Obua together of course with our "custodian".

Team: J.Butler, J.Byerley, P.Bagatti, L.Barkers-Obua, M.Bulpit (G.Terblanche), R.McMahon, T.Paul ( R.Hazel), K.Goldberg (C.Gregory), T.Shaw, O.Ruttle (W.Bisney), J.Naylor.

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