Kingstonian 4-2 Telford United
TEL-FOUR-ED

On the day that the Premiership Trophy was paraded at Kingsmeadow, the K's team finally managed to find some semblance of form. Out for the first time ever went Matt Crossley, and Joe O'Connor also did the honourable thing and stood (sat?) down to make way for the return of Leworthy. Telford headed South on the back of a 6-2 victory, but that fact was wiped from the minds of all present after less than a minute.

With most of the huge 1,026 crowd still attempting to head to the right ends, Phil Wingfield ran down the left. His cross was headed out by a defender but managed to land at the feet of the maestro. Pitcher hit his left foot volley sweetly, the ball landed in the bottom right hand corner of the net and K's led on just 45 seconds. K's hadn't led a league game since that fateful day on November 6th when mighty Welling were dispatched one nil, and it came as something of a shock to the system. How exactly do you celebrate taking the lead again?

It almost got better soon after, when Eddie Akuamoah played Wingfield in. He had a great chance to double the K's lead, but managed only to repeat his "Nuneaton special" by simply running into the goalkeeper.

It definitely got worse soon after, when Jake Edwards collected the ball on the Telford left. One shimmy sent him past Luke Basford, another saw Mark Harris land on his rear end. He shot past Farrelly into the bottom left and the lead was wiped out, after 13 blissful minutes. Yet for some reason, K's repeated their earlier efforts. This time it was a good ball from Leworthy which found Eddie through on goal. Hopefully Wingfield was watching, as the number 9 showed him how to act in a one-on-one. With two touches he was round Price and he slid the ball in from the left. Just what was going on? For over two whole months we'd seen a collection of three shots, and now K's had already surpassed that - within 16 minutes.

Charlie Hartfield almost equalised again just before the break, but headed a Fitzpatrick cross wide when he should have done better. And so to the second half. It started amusingly, with Wingfield receiving a booking. Next, he headed a Mustafa cross over the bar, when Leworthy was much better placed for a knock down. Leworthy screamed bloody murder at Wingers, then slammed the ball into the ground. All quite funny really.

The third goal came on 61 minutes, when Pitcher crossed brilliantly from the left. Wingfield picked the ball up, but managed to mis-control enough to lose the chance of getting in a shot. However, he redeemed himself by turning the ball back into the middle, where Eddie finished off for his second of the match, regaining the two goal lead. However, the lead still didn't last long, when referee Mr. R.Desmond awarded Telford a penalty, supposedly for a foul by Mark Harris. Some people disagreed, but then they always do. Hartfield dispatched the penalty to Farrelly's right and it was 3-2 and nail biting time again.

Luke Basford, still deputising for recently-become-a-father Colin Luckett, was having a pretty good game going forward, and had the chance to cross late on. However, the chance was taken away when Albrighton hacked him down. Punishment was executed when Pitcher crossed for (uh-uh) Skipper Stewart to head home.

To keep the amusement level up, Eddie had a bit of a punch-up with Simon Travis in the K's bench, and Richard Hurst dived out to come to his rescue. From this point on, it was pretty clear that K's would be claiming all three points. McGorry went close, as did Edwards with his head, followed by a goal line clearance by Patterson. Yet still chances fell to K's. Leworthy had a header well saved late on, although he would have been given offside, and Mustafa shot wide.

But the score stayed at 4-2, and K's won their first league game in 63 days. The funny thing is that they totally deserved it too. The defence looked slightly more solid with Allan, Harris and Stewart there, and up-front looked much better with the return of Leworthy. And looking at the league table reveals that the dip in form hasn't harmed K's promotion chances too much. If they can make this the start of a good lengthy run, then the pessimists who said that the "lights had gone out on K's season" just a few days ago will be proved totally wrong. As usual.