Sports edge it

Rovers suffered their fifth home defeat in six league games this season at the hands of a spirited Peterborough Sports side pushing hard at the top end of the table.

Having restored the senior players to the starting line up, Rovers gave a first start to Aaron King, following his brief cameo against Dunstable Town.

The game started slowly and took until the twentieth minute for a serious effort on goal to materialise. Sports’ McCammon cutting back to Moreman who flashed his effort wide at the near post. Moments later, Rovers had a glorious chance to open the scoring when a Ben Shepherd free kick was allowed to travel all the way through to the back post where Alex Collard couldn’t get enough on the ball to direct it back goalwards. On the half hour, Tom Wyant had to be alert to smother an attack, Jones’ follow up effort was weak and comfortably gathered by Rovers new number one. Ten minutes before the break, Shepherd whipped a dangerous free kick inches wide of the post. Ben Acquaye combined beautifully with Aaron King on the edge of the box to set up the latter with a powerful shot, which required a block on the line to deny Rovers a goal. Right on half time, Sports’ Avelino Viera was millimetres from making contact at the far post from a free kick knockdown. The two sides left the field level at the break.

The second half began just as the first had ended, with both teams playing some attractive football and looking to win the game. Josh Crawley was denied by a last ditch block early on after Shepherd played in King to provide the cross which led to the block. King was again in the thick of things on the hour mark when he was fed by Crawley to go clear one on one by he was thwarted by Moat. Moments later the deadlock was broken when Kyal McNulty lofted the ball into King who unleashed a shot across goal, which was diverted back out into the middle where Ben Acquaye was on hand to tap the ball home for the opening goal. With fifteen minutes to play Sports deservedly got themselves level, a deep cross from the left was turned back across goal by the impressive Viera for sub Sano-Sani to chest home on the goal line. With five minutes to play it looked as though Tom Wyant had saved a point for Rovers when he made a point blank range save from Mark Jones’ header. It was not to be however, two minutes from time, Viera found space to whip in a right wing cross for Jones to head home from eight yards to snatch the win for the visitors and break Kempston hearts after a terrific battling performance.

Other results conspired to drop Kempston down to fifteenth place in the table ahead of next weekends’ trip to Didcot Town. On Tuesday, Rovers have the pleasure of hosting Luton Town in the Bedfordshire Senior Cup, kick off at seven forty five.