Match Report: North Leigh 4:1 Kings Langley

Kings suffered their second successive defeat, going down heavily to high flying North Leigh. In truth Kings started much the brighter and only a brilliant save by home custodian James Foster from Louie Collier’s sharp turn and shot denied the visitors an early lead. Unfortunately, that was as good as it got for Kings as a ten minute period of shambolic defending allowed the home side to surge into a three goal lead.

In the twelfth minute, with the home side’s first foray into Kings box, a routine free kick was nodded down to the unmarked Lance Williams who steered the ball past Alex Tokarczyk with the minimum of difficulty. Next to take centre stage was nippy winger, Owen James, who, under no pressure, carefully picked his spot to drill a low drive past the despairing Tokarczyk. It got worse just two minutes later when in true biblical fashion Kings red clad defenders parted like the Red Sea to allow Dan West to scamper through unhindered before rounding Alex Tokarczyk to gleefully tap into an empty net. Kings were shellshocked but rallied sufficiently to stem the flow of defensive errors and navigate the rest of the half without falling into further arrears.

Any thoughts of an unlikely comeback were quickly extinguished just a minute into the restart when the predatory West climbed unchallenged to nod home Dore’s in swinging corner. Only a superb reflex save by Alex Tokarczyk denied the Millers a nap hand when he tipped over a close range header as Kings fragility from corners continued seemingly unabated.
King’s management rang the changes and, to be fair, Kings remained an attacking threat throughout. Sub Kieran Patterson was desperately unlucky when redirecting Louie Collier’s snap shot as Kings fought manfully to reduce the arrears. Their efforts were finally rewarded when, following a period of sustained pressure, Rayan Clarke seized on a loose ball to squeeze itl past Foster from a tight angle.
That proved to be the only consolation for Kings and they will need to recover quickly from this chastening result if they are to remain contenders in this season’s promotion race.

Derry Edgar