LEIGHTON Buzzard’s ladies enjoyed a fairly comfortable 2-0 home win over West Herts on Saturday.
They made a great start with fine link up play from the midfield through to the forward line – leading to Vicki Scholes scoring from a Gail Wright cross.
With Leighton starting off with such positive play it wasn’t long before Anna Kerr touched the ball round the defence to score Leighton’s second goal.
They once again made a good start to the second half, but the game quickly turned as Leighton were forced onto the backfoot, but player of the match Rachel Lambert-Forsyth kept them from conceding with her strong performance in defence, countless tackles and feeding the ball to midfield as they held on for a cleansheet.
The ladies’ 2nds drew 2-2 with their West Herts counterparts in their first game of the weekend.
West Herts opened the scoring through a rebound shot after some quick open play. But Leighton responded with some good team work between Emily Smith and Gabbie Avola, resulting in Smith finding the backboard.
The rest of the first half saw end-to-end play, with opportunities being narrowly missed by Leighton’s attack.
In the second half it was Leighton who took the lead with a strike from the top of the D from Avola. However, West Herts forced their way back into it and scored an equaliser inside the final five minutes.
The 2nds were then held to another 2-2 draw in their second game of the weekend, this time against Harpendon.
Harpendon made a bright start but the home side were able to calmly defend and keep them at bay. As Leighton battled to keep the ball up in the opposition’s D, Harpendon had a lucky break, and with a great deal of pace, their striker created a one-on-one chance and found the back of the net.
Leighton didn’t let this affect their game though and continued to battle hard and managed to bag a short corner, which was successfully converted into a goal by Becky O’Connor on the right post.
Leighton were clearly lifted by the goal and had Harpendon pinned down fighting for another. But Harpendon managed to get a long ball through to their loan striker who slipped the ball home.
Leighton kept fighting hard and won another short corner, which thanks to their defender’s foot on the line, was converted to a penalty flick, which man of the match Katie Jackson confidently scored to make it 2-2 at the break.
The second half was battled hard and both sides created numerous chances to score, but all the drama had come in the first half and there were no more goals.
The ladies’ 3rds recorded a convincing 3-0 win over Stevenage, with their opening goal coming from a penalty corner scored by Siobhan Hennessey.
Leighton were in charge and added a second goal on the counter attack with Chloe Alecock setting up Hennessey to score her second.
The second half saw Stevenage step it up, pushing through Leighton’s defence and finding the backboard, however the goal was disallowed as the ball was played off the back of the stick.
This shocked Leighton into action, and encouraged Hennessey to find Stevenage’s goal once more to secure her hat-trick.
Leighton’s Buzzard’s men were involved in a seven-goal thriller on Saturday, but were on the wrong end of it as they went down to Oxford.
From the first whistle Leighton seemed to be two steps behind hosts Oxford, with them taking an early lead. And immediately after the restart Oxford were once again the more alert of the two teams as they scored a second to take complete control.
And things continued to go from bad to worse for the visitors as some fast passing and moving saw Oxford go three goals up.
Unfortunately it took a fourth Oxford goal to finally wake Leighton up with some fast counter attacking and an accurate ball across the goal finding Stuart Boneham’s stick, but the ball went narrowly wide.
Leighton continued to apply pressure on the Oxford defence and were rewarded with a short corner, with Moja man of the match Andrew Spence deflecting the ball past the goalkeeper at the post to put Leighton on the scoresheet before half time.
The second half started much better for Leighton and a series of quick passes and aggressive attacking play resulted in a number of short corners being won. And they were able to convert one of these via a well worked routine with Mark Stephenson finding Nick Marshall free on the penalty spot to slot the ball underneath the keeper.
Oxford replied with a number of attacks with Leighton keeping them at bay, most notably from two off the line clearances by Clive Warncken.
Leighton’s persistence paid off when a third goal was scored by Alex Lombino who calmly placed the ball past the keeper.
With 10 minutes to go Leighton were struggling to find the equalising goal that they needed when they were awarded a penalty flick. Unfortunately Marshall was unable to make the most of the opportunity and sent the ball wide of the target.
The closing minutes of the game saw Oxford attempt to run down the clock and Leighton continue to come close to scoring through Stephenson, Tommy Lakins and David Fry. But Oxford had done enough in the first half and were able to see the game out.
The men’s 2nds were also on the end of a narrow defeat as they went down 2-1 to West Hampstead.
After a slow start, Leighton picked up the pace with quick passing and great defensive play all round. But for a moment they lost concentration and let an unmarked player into the D and he gave Hampstead the lead.
And Leighton were unable to find the equaliser, David Jackson came the closest but his shot hit the post and there was no follow-up on the rebound.
The second half started well with some great passing from Damian Glendenning and David Jackson leading to a goal from man of the match Glendenning.
However, unfortunately for Leighton, they conceded a second goal after a quick break which they were never quite able to recover from despite their best efforts.
Play had to be stopped briefly after Marc Scott was struck in the face whilst tackling a West Hampstead player, however even after play commenced Leighton couldn’t summon quite enough quality to get back into the game with the game.
The Fledglings enjoyed an incredible 11-1 thrashing of Eastcote. After the previous weekend’s hard fought win, they started brightly with an early goal from Hugh Britt which settled the nerves.
The Fledglings continued to dominate the early stages of the game and the goals came regularly throughout the first period.
One goal came from a direct penalty corner strike via Matt Rust, and another courtesy of a penalty corner from man of the match Laurence Leech. A further open play goal from the impressive Britt gave Leighton a 4-0 half time lead.
The second half started with a shock for the Fledglings, as Eastcote found their form and scored against a re-organised defence.
However, they didn’t panic and kept to their game plan of sharp short passes to allow Hugh to score his third goal which enabled the Fledglings to calm down.
They continued to dominate the second period, so completely that Eastcote were unable to penetrate the all-junior player defence.
This allowed the Fledglings to continue to dominate the second half with goals coming at regular intervals – a direct penalty corner goal from Matt Rust and one for Laurence, plus open play goals from Stuart Retford and two more for Laurence before Tristan Hardy completed the rout.
>> Sunday saw the Leighton Buzzard Junior section host their annual junior’s tournament at Vandyke. This consisted of teams from Leighton Buzzard, Luton, Tring and Shefford & Sandy playing a series of matches against each other in the U10s, U12s and U14s age groups.
In the U10s age group Leighton, Luton, and Tring played a round robin consisting of two games against each other. Leighton showed great perseverance and effort but were unfortunate to finish third out of the three teams, with Tring being crowned overall winners.
In the U12s age group Leighton played against Luton, Shefford & Sandy and two teams from Tring. Although Leighton were never out classed, they unfortunately were unable to find the back of the net.
The team spirit and commitment the team showed was a credit to the club but it was Luton who won the group as Leighton finished fifth.
The U14s age group also played a round robin consisting of two games against each team, taking on Luton and Tring.
Leighton were victorious against both sides, with the goal scorers being Joshua Wavish (2), Sam Gale (3), Will Giltrow (2), Ben Smith (3) and Sarah Plumer as they won their age group.
A big thank you goes to all who helped make the day a great success.