Date	Saturday 25 January 2014
Match	Chalfont St Peter v Royston Town
Competition	Calor League: Central Division One
Result	Won 1-0
Attendance	71
Royston Scorers	Murray
Crows MoM	Kaan Fehmi

Credit to Chalfont ground staff for getting this game on – the pitch was in good condition at the start of play and coped remarkably well with the deluge seen early in the second half.

The home side matched their higher placed opponents in the first half with chances on goal being seen at both ends with both keepers impressing with alert and acrobatic shot stopping. Young Crows keeper Nick Thompson made two superb saves, the first a brilliant one handed parry from a snap-shot by Danilson Vincente and then Vincente was thwarted again with Thompson blocking well. In the Chalfont goal, Michael Power-Simpson had a fantastic game making at least four important saves over the ninety minutes.

Whilst the keepers had featured heavily in the first 45 minutes, everyone played a supporting role in the second half to the vicious storm that set in for twenty minutes, making the pitch heavy and the cold monsoon rain, whilst not stopping the game, led to suggest this match would be decided by perhaps an error rather than a moment of brilliance.

It was all Royston pressure in the second period, with the wind behind the Crows toiled to create an effort that would beat the resilient Power-Simpson. Antonio Murray was linking well with Kaan Fehmi and this combination fed Murray with an opportunity to round the Chalfont keeper but he couldn’t quite move the ball quickly enough and the chance was gone. Murray didn’t show the same hesitation a second time when on 62 minutes he ran onto a fine through ball, shifting the ball left to create space around the out-coming keeper and passed a long seemingly slow-motion accurate finish low into the bottom right hand corner for the only goal of the game.

Chalfont struggled to get out of their own half in the latter part of this match as Royston continued to play their passing football on this sticky pitch and the score-line could have been more emphatic but I am sure they will settle for an important three away points on what could have proved to be a proverbial banana skin.

Team: Thompson, Collins, Parr, De La Salle, Endacott, Spencer, Mentis (Cambridge), Murray, Fehmi, Bryant (Edwards), Ingrey (Robins).
Subs not used – Hammond, Darlow