Battling away win to stay top

The sun was setting on a clear Saturday afternoon in Southall. A chill was both in the air, and in the hearts of the Leighton Buzzard players. They were up against Ramgarhia, some say their bogey team. The home team started well, 'earning' a short corner which luckily came to nothing. Soon the stalwart defending of Liam Wavish, Clive Warncken, and Tim Bellamy helped Leighton gain a foothold in the match, and the pressure on Ramgarhia started.

After 15 minutes of good possession and teamwork, Damian Glendenning passed into the D to Matthew Nash who guided the ball into the back of the 'net'. Leighton kept on coming with excellent work from Tom Handley and Fraser Retford who threaded many passes down the right wing. With the pace of a thousand gazelles, Stephen Fuller would collect these and put 5, 6 crosses into the danger zone.

The second goal came from a short corner, when a characteristically strike by Bellamy clipped David Jackson's stick and went in. The bouncy pitch had been challenging all game for Leighton, whose natural habitat is the beach of Vandyke. It was 2-0 at half time.

This season Buzzards have hugely improved on maintaining pressure after going ahead; they have held onto so many leads the year, even dog handler Clive would be proud. The second half started well, with Martin Bailey running 400 metres with the ball on his reverse stick, a feat that secured him Man of the Match.

Half way through the second half Nash went off injured after talking a blow to the arm leaving the away team with just 11 men. For the rest of the game Leighton held firm and ensured Ramgarhia didn't have sight of Jim Galloway's goal. With 10 minutes remaining Bellamy hit the ball into the D from another infringement by Ramgarhia. Steve Fuller got a touch to it and the ball was past the keeper off the post before he had time to blink. Buzzard then played professionally for the rest of the half and ensured three points were bagged to maintain their promotion push.

Buzzard go into next week's crunch game with Windsor full of confidence and will be hoping to pick up three points at Fortress Vandyke.