Kings Langley outplayed local rivals Hendon to record the win that they simply had to achieve to not only keep their slim survival hopes alive, but take the outcome to the final day of the season next Saturday. Being Kings, they took their long suffering fans through the wringer of emotions as they raced into a 2-0 half time lead, conceded immediately on the restart, bounced back courtesy of a contested penalty, were pulled back again by a defensive error and ensured the points in the fourth minute of time added on.

Chris Cummins made one change, with Bradley Wadkins back to lead the line an Aryan Tajbakhsh narrowly passing a fitness test to resume as the holding midfielder. After the lack-lustre performance of the last home game, the question of which Kings would turn up on the day was answered in the first few minutes as they launched a series of attacks that saw Jorell Johnson, Alfie Williams and Ryan Case all go close, with a free kick just over by Quba Gordon the sole reply from the visitors.

Then, as the half hour mark approached, Jamie Jellis’ pass out to Alie Bangura received a short first time pass into the path of Alfie Williams, who beat a tackle to pick his spot to give Kings a vital lead. As the pressure continued, the scorer turned provider to send over a cross that Alie Bangura controlled by flicking the ball up and volleying the ball past Ethan Wady with minutes to go to half time.

If the home support thought that the tension was eased, that was dispelled within a minute of the restart when Matt Hall headed across goal for Joe White to pick his spot and revive uncomfortable memories of Dorchester’s two goals in the opening four minutes a month ago. But Kings rose to the challenge and when the effervescent Bangura raced into the box, he was body checked by Gordon and referee Michael Smith pointed immediately to the spot. Nearly three minutes of protestation gave Jamie Jellis a long wait, but he kept his nerve remarkably well and although Wady got a hand to it, the power of the shot took it into the roof of the net.

Spurred on by a lively home crowd, there was some neat interpassing between Jellis and Wadkins, before the latter fired over, but as the game entered the last ten, disaster struck the usually reliable Alfie Marriott as a routine shot from Sam Corcoran bobbled as he collected it and spun over the line. There was immediate redemption as he held a thunderbolt from the same player, but the referee added a nerve jangling five additional minutes. But with four of those elapsed, Jamie Jellis won the ball, Edu collected and fed Gary Connolly, who sent over a first time low cross for Alie Bangura to slot home and ensure Kings live to fight another day!

And so to Salisbury for the final game, when the Langley faithful will be bizarrely monitoring the Isthmian Premier results as the key to survival. In a finish that master of suspense Alfred Hitchcock would be challenged to match, the restructuring of the pyramid decrees that the bottom two of the four Step 3 divisions will go down. They also require one third to bottom team across the four divisions with the worst points per game record to join them. Kings occupy this position in the Southern Premier South, their counterparts in the Southern Premier Central and the Northern Premier are home and dry and the Isthmian Premier is so close that five teams are trying to avoid the bottom three positions.

Simply put, a Kings defeat would almost certainly condemn them to relegation, a draw could not be enough, and a win wouldn’t necessarily guarantee survival. What sort of script could possibly beat that for suspense?