Aylesbury Mens 1s move joint top with clinical performance at Marlow

Aylesbury Men’s 1s travelled to Pound Lane to play Mid table Marlow in Round 18 of the MBBO Regional 2 season. Aylesbury sat in second place after beating Banbury the week before. Marlow were sitting in 7th and were looking for a win to pull them away from the drop. Aylesbury were still without Iain Mclean and Jake Hodgins and this week travelled with 13 after Matt Kiely was also unavailable.
Aylesbury began the game at a high intensity and was not long before they were 1-0 up. Austin Greenlee hit a direct pass to Chris Hunter by the right hand post who deflected the ball pass the Marlow keeper. Soon after this Aylesbury found themselves 2-0 up when a breakaway lead by James Penson who found Austin Greenlee on top D who rounded the keeper and put the ball into an empty net. Marlow began to grow into the game creating some good chances of their own. Marlow did grab a goal back through a short corner sent high into the top right corner of the goal past Stephen Best in goal.

Marlow nearly drew level soon after but Ben Ireson and Mark Bowes held firm and soaked up the pressure to keep Aylesbury in the lead. Aylesbury regained their two goal lead when Austin Greenlee picked up the ball on top D and a reverse stick strike beat the Marlow keeper. Just before half time Marlow pulled back to within one from another short corner. This time low into the bottow left which wrong footed Best in goal. Aylesbury went into the half time interval 3-2 in the lead.

The Second half started with Marlow on the front foot putting the Aylesbury back line under a lot of pressure. The task of keeping Marlow at bay because harder when Aylesbury lost Clive Chandler to a yellow card for a mistimed tackle in the 25. From the resulting short corner, it took a good save from keeper Stephen Best diving low to his right to deflect the drag flick behind to keep Aylesbury in the lead. Aylesbury grew back into the half and won themselves a short corner. A slightly off target drag out saw trapper Chris Hunter have to take the strike and slot it passed the left foot of the Marlow keeper for his second goal of the game.

Aylesbury lost Mark Bowes after saying one too many words to the umpire but this did not seem to faze Aylesbury who score two goals in very quick succession. Firstly, good work down the right flank from Oli Hassall who found James Penson who’s shot was saved right into the path of Dan Lindars who scored his eleventh goal of the season and Aylesbury’s fifth of the game. Soon after the ball again came to Austin Greenlee on top D who had his back to goal with the keeper right behind him. Greenlee faked moving to the right and switched to the left which unbalanced the keeper. Greenlee then cleverly switched the ball under his arm to find Marc Hignell on the baseline who swept the ball into an empty net from a tight angle.

Aylesbury sawed in second place but with Milton Keynes losing have drawn level on point with a game in hand which would take them 3 points clear if they win. Aylesbury welcome British Airways 1s to RAF Halton next Saturday who sit four points behind the A’s in the league so Aylesbury will be looking to extend the gap to keep their title hopes in tacked.