HUNG OVER!

Clearly struggling from a reaction to their F A Cup exit, Kings slumped to a humiliating home defeat against bottom of the table Leiston, who chalked up their first away win of the season with a battling performance. The first few minutes saw Kings fashion some good approach play, but when a strange Melvin Minter clearance fell straight to Josh Hitter and the forward put the ball past the post, the away team’s confidence went up a notch and they forced a series of corners. An uncharacteristically jittery defence just about dealt with these, surviving a looping ricochet that Minter athletically tipped over the bar and it felt almost against the run of play when Jorell Johnson played the ball out of defence, Mitchell Weiss collected and found Harry Crawford on the right wing and a glancing Stevie Ward header completed a textbook move and gave Kings a platform to build on. But this Leiston side, which had a single point after eleven games, have taken four from the last two and showed an intensity that will surely serve them to good effect as they resumed their attacks and equalised ten minutes later. Kings had been wasteful in possession and guilty of giving away needless free kicks and one of these was headed out by the defence and looked to have been collected by Harry Crawford. However, he had it taken off his toe by Noel Aitkins who’s driving run and shot was parried by Minter and fell straight to Harry Knights, for the defender to finish with a thunderous shot from twelve yards. Langley attempted to repair the damage in the second half, Harry Crawford pulling a superb save from Charlie Beckwith, while Mitchell Weiss had at least three chances, but was, like so many of his team-mates, having one of those games, with his finishing not up to his usual standard. Gradually, the tide of the Langley attacks was diminishing on a resolute Leiston defence and the scene was set for the classic smash and grab scenario, which inevitably arrived in the eighty first minute. Kings had forced another corner, which was collected by Beckwith and his long, high clearance saw Kyle Connolly miss his trap and Will Davies take advantage to put in a driving run through three Kings Langley players and slip the ball out to substitute Ben Stannard on the left wing in acres of space. His shot on the run seemed to be covered by Minter, but he spilled it into the path of the livewire Davies and Kings night of woe was complete, undone by a collective error-strewn performance that was light years away from their previous League game when they demolished the League leaders.