Match Report: AFC Dunstable 5:6 Kings Langley

Louie Collier blitzed his old club with a stunning hat trick, completed in the opening 9 minutes of this extraordinary match, where both teams scorned anything that was not attack related and served up the equivalent of cricket’s Bazball!
Louie was on the scoresheet in the fourth minute when Rene Howe headed down a cross into the path pf Sonny French, whose shot was blocked, only for the alert Collier to stab the rebound home. Two minutes later he netted again, put through one on one with the keeper by a ball from Cheyce Grant. A shell-shocked Dunstable rallied and Tra Lucas seized on a defensive error to pull one back, only for young debutante Liam Greville to be felled in the box at the other end. Louie Collier gave the excellent Zak Demetriades no time to blow his whistle, ramming the ball home to complete what must be one of the fastest hat tricks in the Club’s history. Still the spirited home side came back and a clumsy tackle by Michael Gabblah saw the ODs’ lively number 9, John Shamalo score from the spot. With five goals in the first eleven minutes, there was a relative lull until seven minutes from the break when Rene Howe was brought down and got up to convert the penalty. Fast forward three minutes and a Sonny French cross was firmly headed home by Howe to give an interval scoreline of 2-5.
Job done, you would have thought, but the home side had other ideas and again pulled one back on the hour when another clumsy tackle, this time by Will Bishop, saw the same outcome, the penalty converted by Shamalo. The Kings’ rearguard was now looking as vulnerable as their opponents but there was no further score until the clock signalled four minutes of normal time remaining. Lorenzo Johnson, on for Rene Howe, withdrawn with Monday’s game in mind, won a midfield ball he had no right to win and sent fellow sub Rayan Clarke through to finish with aplomb and restore the three goal buffer. However, keeping to the script of this roller coaster, no-one was particularly surprised when Dunstable immediately cancelled that out with a scrambled finish to a melee. The referee signalled seven minutes of added time (which turned into ten due to a stoppage) and Dunstable sensed that a miracle could still happen, especially when Shamalo breached the ramparts once again on 97 to ensure that Kings were relieved to heat the final whistle.
So the new look Kings have taken maximum points from two away games that have produced a stunning 17 goals and sit second in the embryo table. The open-ness of this division has so far been a revelation after last season’s Premier and if it continues at this sort of pace, there may well be a few elderly supporters who won’t see the season out!

Roy Mitchard