Close season movements had seen the arrival of Lewis Thorpe and BJ Christie from Leighton Town, Guiseppe Delgaudio from AFC Welwyn, Mike Evans from Cockfosters, Kieran Patterson from Oxhey Jets and youngster Sam Matthews, fresh from the US of A. Outgoings were Charlie Crowley to AFC Welwyn, Liam Greville to Harpenden Town, Ezra Forde to Potton United, Dan Green to Radbourne and disappointingly, Izzy Hilaire to Barton Rovers.

The hearts of Kings’ supporters were lifted a mere five minutes in when Louie Collier was
brought down in the box by a clumsy tackle from Paul Ogunboye, but the defender’s blushes were spared when George Edgeworth guessed correctly to thwart the striker’s penalty.

The play then ebbed and flowed with Enfield looking dangerous on the break and George Hughes narrowly wide with a curling drive onto the roof of the net, but the winger used his devastating pace to open the scoring on 35 minutes. An astute pass out of defence set him free wide left and as his run took him inside, he had two options to his right, but chose to shoot and his low drive was perfectly placed to beat Edgeworth.

Two minutes later, Louie Collier atoned, when he darted between two dithering defenders to the ball and himself over the outcoming keeper to slot home and the visitors were visibly
reeling. However, they survived further punishment before the break and made a triple
substitution for the second half.

That period was only a minute old when the aftermath of a coming together took officialdom an extraordinary four minutes to sort out, and that set the pattern for a scrappy fifteen minutes of play before Dwade James jolted Kings out of any complacency with an almost unchallenged header that went in off the post.

Steve Heath reacted with a triple substitution that was a prelude to a brief but spectacular
seven minute cameo from goalkeeper Connor Coulson. No stranger to coming on as an
emergency striker last season, he was on hand to backheel a shot from Collier past the off
balance keeper, to the delight of his team mates and the home support, Four minutes later he tweaked his knee and exited to a standing ovation. As stated, brief, but spectacular!

Fellow substitute, seventeen year old Bobby Lowe was a revelation on the left wing, turning
his full back inside out and ending runs with shots well saved or inches wide, while George
Hughes was performing likewise on the opposite wing and the result was that Kings now free flowing attacks had put them in control.

It was a surprise therefore, when Jeremy Obi scored a 99th minute goal with virtually the last kick of the match to give some consolation to a spirited opposition.

Roy Mitchard