LEIGHTON Town manager Craig Wells is calling on football fans to get down to Bell Close this Saturday and help the club finish the Evo-Stik League Division One season in style.
His in-form side welcome play-off chasing Northwood (3pm kick-off) – a week after they thumped Slough Town 3-0 to end their hopes of automatic promotion.
Second half goals from Ross Hanley, Ben Gallant and Leon Simpson gave Town a fourth win from their last five games as they end the season on a high. And Wells is encouraging as many football fans as possible to get down to Bell Close and help them celebrate one more victory.
“We’re playing some fantastic football,” said the Leighton boss. “Northwood need a win to stand a chance of making the play-offs and it should be a sensational game to watch.
“We’re ending the season really well and we want to spread the word that we’re on the up.”
His team made second placed Slough look distinctly average on Saturday as St Neots hit eight past North Greenford to clinch the title, and leave them to fight it out in the play-offs.
That win followed an impressive draw at fourth placed Uxbridge and wins over Barton Rovers, Bedfont Town and Fleet Town as Wells’ men have climbed away from danger near the foot of the table and could now finish as high as 12th if results go their way on Saturday.
And the Leighton boss is confident that his side have the potential to achieve even greater things next season. So he’s determined to see them carry their momentum over the finishing line by beating Northwood in front of a healthy home crowd.
Leighton made one change to the side that played so well at Uxbridge, with Lewis McBride returning in place of Alex Bradley who had to make do with a place on the bench.
The visitors had the first effort of the game in the 11th minute but Enzo Silvestri’s effort went high over the bar and presented no danger to the home goal.
But Slough were desperate for the three points to give themselves hope of overhauling St Neots in the race for promotion, and came close to opening the scoring from a free-kick after 15 minutes when Sam Chapman had to make a good clearance.
A minute after that Paul Edgeworth fired in a shot from outside the penalty area that flew just over the bar, but in truth Town looked fairly comfortable, and created chances of their own.
Stuart Deaton played Ben Gallant in and the Town striker chipped the ball over the Slough keeper’s head, but only onto the top of the crossbar.
Town looked comfortable as they passed the ball around well and after a left wing cross Silvestri had a shot that the keeper needed two attempts to catch.
A few minutes before the break the visitors went close again as Deaton’s measured header towards the far post had to be cleared off the line by one of the Slough defenders.
Manager Wells was delighted with his side’s first half performance, but even more thrilled after seeing them taking their chances in the second half.
They opened the scoring in the 53rd minute when Ross Hanley received a pass from the right and burst into the area before firing a low left footed shot across the keeper and into the corner of the net.
As Slough’s frustration increased with the news coming through that St Neots were winning, McBride and Silvestri both tested the home keeper as the visitors looked the more likely to get the next goal.
And so it proved as when Town were awarded a free-kick in the 71st minute, the ball was played in by McBride and fell kindly for Gallant to coolly slot past the helpless keeper to double the lead.
Town keeper Haydn Dodge had to pull off a good save to deny the hosts from a free-kick a few moments later, but Wells’ men remained in control of the game and almost scored a third through Leon Simpson, but his close range volley lacked power.
But the big striker would finish with the goal he deserved as with only a couple of minutes left to play, Gallant received the ball wide on the right and ran to the goal line where he crossed for Simpson to make a good contact and find the back of the net.
Town were easily the better team on the day and Slough could have had no complaints about the score. Although the game did threaten to become ugly at times – one incident seeing McBride go down after a clash of heads.
But that – and a coming together between both sets of players after the game – was just “handbags at dawn” according to Wells, who believed his side should have had five or six goals.
“We made them look second rate,” he said. “The most pleasing thing was that we gave the players some advice on what they needed to do to score in the second half, and they went out there and did it.
“We told the back four to make sure they concentrated and didn’t allow any silly mistakes to creep in, and they did that very well to keep another clean sheet.
“We told the midfield three to get in deep crosses and be quicker, and they did that. And the front three needed to play a bit more narrow, and it worked perfectly.
“We’re playing really well and it’s a shame the season is coming to an end now. But we think we can pick up from here next season and give it a good go.
“It would be the perfect finish if we could beat Northwood. They need to win and hope Beaconsfield slip up to make the play-offs, and that should work in our favour. It should be a great game of football to end the season.
“We could finish as high as 12th in the table. Who would have thought we could do that only a few months ago when we were struggling down at the bottom?
“We really want to put on a show on Saturday. We’re getting a lot of young teams in and it would be great to end the season on a big high, on and off the pitch.”