Kingstonian 0-1 Forest Green Rovers
FOREST GET THE RUB OF THE GREEN

The curtain finally fell on Kingstonian's 3 season stay in the Conference this afternoon with a disappointing home defeat at the hands of Forest Green Rovers. A few weeks ago all things were pointing towards a final day relegation settler, but recent results meant that todays game was purely academic and all K's were playing for was pride - a commodity seldom seen at Kingsmeadow this season.

K's started the brighter, Colin Luckett flashing a shot wide after a good lay off from Winston. Luckett's teasing cross a few moments later forced the first of half a dozen first half corners, but not a single chance resulted from any of them as the Rovers defence stood firm.

Both sides had a rather depleted look about them as they prepared for Cup Finals and K's were forced to alter their line up after just a quarter of an hour when Ronnie Green replaced the limping Phil Wingfield.

The two sides traded speculative efforts from free kicks, the K's chance arising following a good run from Boyce seeing him skip past two defenders before being fouled by the third.

Half time saw Eddie Saunders come off the bench to replace Bass with K's reverting to 3 at the back and just ten minutes after the interval the games deciding moment arrived. Jason Eaton heading home at the near post to leave Blake no chance.

Forest Green were unlucky not to double their advantage soon after when Derek Allen cleared off the line and then Eaton forced an excellent one handed save from Blake with a low drive after a neat one two.

K's almost stole an equaliser in the dying minutes when a tantalising cross from Mark Jones was nipped away from Winstons head at the last minute by an on rushing defender.

A draw may have been a fairer result but then Forest Green managed two more on target attempts than the home side so maybe just about edged it. That the visitors did only have two on target leaves a quick dose of mental arithmetic to deduce that K's had zero, bad even by their standards at home this year.

Into which league K's will drop is still uncertain, but after 3 years of unbridled success it will not be the Conference. One thing was sure though, and that was the show of support for Geoff Chapple. You get the impression that if the Board make the right decisions on who stays or goes over the summer that this year could be nothing more than a temporary blip on Chapple's otherwise exemplarily record and that with him at the helm we could soon be back.