Date	Monday 7 January 2013
Match	Huntingdon Town v Royston Town
Competition	Thurlow Nunn Youth League: West Division
Result	Won 3-0
Royston Scorers	Steele, Gair, Leighton
Crows MoM	Connor Malins

2013 started well for Royston Town's youth team as they were victorious against Huntingdon away from home.

Sam Donkin excelled on his debut for the young Crows and Connor Malins produced a man of the match display playing in a unfamiliar right back position. Dan Sizer also made his first start in nearly a year as he recovered from knee surgery.

Both teams took a while to get started and despite both sides giving away some cheap possession it was a case of letting the Christmas laziness get out their system and when this happened Royston produced some smart football and the first chance fell to Jake Leighton after some fine movement down the right hand side involving the young Malins, Dejon Mullings and Jamie Steele, who crossed to find Leighton who narrowly missed.

Steele then produced a moment of fine quality as his thunderous shot from 30 yards beat a helpless diving keeper. 

Huntingdon never really tested the visitors however Donkin was on hand to clear up any potential danger with his good start points.

HT 0-1

Royston started quickly in the second half and within 5 minutes they had the ball into the net after some fine play saw a cut back cross for Gair to calmly slot past the standing keeper.

The game then became open and Royston created several opportunities before Huntingdon's first real opener came when Donkin was on hand to produce a smart save to his right.

Leighton wrapped the game up in injury time when Royston went on a counter attack and smartly put the Young Crows back on the top of the league.
Next week they face a tough challenge against Langford, who will see this game as a big game to their title credentials, Royston can continue to rise to the club's philosophy of producing players rather than winning games.

Manager Jorden Gibson commented afterwards: “We produced some good stuff tonight, considering the pitch was heavy and we hadn’t done anything in the New Year I was pleasantly surprised at the style in which we approached it, sometimes after long breaks it take a while to get all of the real rustiness out of your system but tonight I will go away very pleased and so should they. They can now look forward to title favourites Langford next week, which should be a good game for us”.

Team: Donkin, Malins, Turner, Sizer, Araba, Jackson, Steele(c), Wheeler, Brennan, Mullings, Leighton, Stratton.  Subs: Lane, Hall, Brown, Gair, Brennan.