Leighton rise to victory away from home

After Leightons impressive 2-2 draw with league leaders Dunstable last Tuesday night, tonight they take on North Greenford United (one of their many re-arranged fixtures due to the bad weather) who are one place below them in the Calor League. In previous seasons, games against North Greenford have always been tricky for Leighton Town but tonight they hope to carry on from last weeks performance and pull something out the bag.

North Greenford kicked off the match and for the first 15 minutes nothing much could be said about either side, both had equal possession and a couple of shots at goal. Some good defending took place between Jake Bewley and Sam Chapman when they fought valiantly to keep the ball away from the net.

As more and more tackles and free kicks were taking place the pitch began to churn up and the surface become unreliable with the ball bouncing in various directions. Sean Bishop gave away a silly free kick which resulted in him receiving the first yellow card of the match, thankfully nothing much became of the kick and Leighton regained possession almost immediately.

There was some mis-communication between Matt Griggs and Warren Plowright as Griggs failed to come out for a ball that Plowright had passed back to him, resulting in a bit of a scramble, when they saw the opposition close behind them, this lead to a corner and thankfully was cleared.

A foul on one of the North Greenford players just outside the box saw some dispute on whether the incident actually took place inside the box and North Greenford were appealing for a penalty, luckily only a free kick was awarded.

Leightons time finally came in the 40th minute when Enzo Silvestri successfully managed to distract the keeper while Ben Gallant slotted the ball into the net, Leighton were 1-0 up but unfortunately not for long.

The second half brought disappointment straight from the word go with the North Greenfords substitute Bradley Morris scored for the side, making it 1-1. Bewley managed to find a way through down the left hand side in the 49th minute and found Dom Marsala in the box but unfortunately Marsala was met by North Greenfords defence and his attempts at scoring were blocked.

Griggs continued to make vital saves throughout the second half to keep the score level. Leighton started to give away silly free kicks with shirt pulling and pushing and one of these incidents resulted in a tumble between Plowright and the opposition, seeing Leighton receive their second yellow card of the game. Shane Bush, Grant Fryer and Jack Downes were constantly trying to find the back of the net from various free kicks and corners, that were awarded to Leighton but only managed to find the goal keepers hands or the feet of the opposition.

The 67th minute saw one of the floodlight pylons fail and play was stopped until a solution could be found, fortunately the game was restarted 5 minutes later with the floodlight back in action, however the heavens had opened and the pitch was becoming more boggy by the second.

The rain seemed to bring Leighton some luck however with Gallant cleverly sneaking past the keeper after a mistake from the North Greenfords' defence to slot home Leightons second goal of the evening in the 69th minute. At this stage Leighton decided to make a substitution bringing Silvestri off and replacing him with Ryan Plowright.

Another goal shortly followed for Leighton but this time was scored by Dom Marsala in the 72nd minute after beating several of the opposition. Leightons' second and final substitution of the game was swapping Marsala for Masiri in the closing minutes.

The last few minutes of the match saw Gallant making a spectacular slide in the mud to try and stop the ball from going out of play, North Greenfords' Liam Hind sent off after receiving his second yellow card and the home side scoring their second of the evening in the 89th minute making the finally score line 3-2.

Overall Leighton Town can look back on this game and be proud of their win over what should have been an easy team to beat, however both teams fought to the end and thankfully Leighton Town managed to end up on top.

Leighton Towns' next game is on Saturday 25th January when they are away to Uxbridge, kick off 3pm.

By Hannah Sellman

Team lineup- Griggs, Fryer, Bewley, W Plowright, Chapman, Bishop, Gallant, Downes, Bush, Silvestri, Marsala

Subs- Kirkwood, R Plowright, Stephens, Maisiri

Attendance- 38