Kings Langley acknowledged that their play-off bid is effectively over as they went down to
a 1-0 defeat at relegation haunted Walton Casuals on a sunny Easter Monday by the
Thames. With Poole going a point ahead after a draw with League leaders Weymouth,
Kings had to win this match as Poole’s last game is at Staines Town, whose miserable
season of 36 defeats in 40 games continued with a 9-1 thrashing at Harrow. While Kings
have a mathematical chance, it would take a miracle of the proportions of the origins of
Easter itself to see Poole fail to win, while Kings would still have to beat Frome Town on
Saturday.
A good-sized crowd, with equally divided vocal support, had gathered for what was
effectively a cup final for both sides, but after Rene Howe had glanced the post with a
header, it became apparent that the fear of relegation was producing more adrenaline than
the prize of promotion, as Casuals were anything but, contesting every ball as if their lives
depended on it and harrying Kings into giving the ball away and forcing them into living
dangerously. Kings roused themselves when an astute Gary Connolly pass saw
Andronicos Georgiou fire in an acute shot that Denzel Gerrar managed to tip round the
post, but when Cole Brown and James Ewington combined to test Alex Tokarczyk, it was to
be the pre-cursor for another intricate combination that set Ewington one-on-one with the
keeper and the prolific marksman made no mistake. Kings replied immediately, with a
Callum Adebiyi header hooked off the line by Brown, but the early part of the second half
had Taureen Roberts running riot down the left, albeit with little end result. There was a
move of quality between Connor Smith and Mitchell Weiss that ended in a corner, but
straight away Ewington was guilty of the miss of the match when he blazed Roberts cross
over the bar from six yards. When Jerome Beckles held the ball behind his back to prevent
the restart, he was dismissed for a second yellow eight minutes from the end, but apart
from a looping Georgiou deflected shot surprising everyone by hitting the bar, it failed to
galvanise a below par Kings, while the Stags thoroughly deserved to take their fight to the
final day. RM