Kempston Rovers 0 King's Lynn 1
17th March 2012
LINNETS boss Gary Setchell cut a relieved figure after a huge slice of lady luck kept his side�s title dreams alive on Saturday.
An own goal from Kempston�s Sam Brown four minutes time handed Town a dramatic victory after they looked set to drop two points in their ding-dong battle for the league crown with Long Buckby.
A delighted Setchell said: "Maybe we have got a little bit of luck with the goal with the ball deflecting up over the Kempston keeper�s head, but over the season these things even themselves out.
"When I look back at the game neither goalkeeper has really had that much to do, but I think we had a stonewall penalty in the box given as a free-kick and also hit the underside of the bar."
Setchell admitted that he was forced to take something of a calculated gamble by playing a 3-4-3 for the final 15 minutes of the match. "A point would have been okay, but the position we�re in we really needed all three and we had to take a gamble," said Setchell.
"I wanted to get Jamie (Thurlbourne) higher up the pitch for his quality and the only way I could do that was by replacing Danny (Beaumont) with Dan (Buhlemann) which may have looked something of a strange substitution at the time. "We also had a player like Robbie (Harris) on the bench and it was important to get him on with us looking for a goal.
Setchell was quick to praise Kempston, who put up a fierce fight in a committed contest which could have gone either way before Brown�s unfortunate own goal following a cross from Steve Spriggs.
"It was arguably our hardest away game of the season so far. We were poor in the final third with our quality but you�ve got to praise Kempston for that," admitted Setchell.
"It�s easy to point the finger at my players but they really made it very
difficult for us by working
their socks off.
"If they played like that
every week surely they�d be challenging for the title. They work hard, they�re young, they move the ball around reasonably well and they showed lots of desire.
"I�m baffled about where they are in the table (eighth) as they matched us in every area. It wasn�t a case of my players not giving everything they�ve got, Kempston matched them for the majority of the game. You have to give them credit for that." A fiery end to the game saw Kempston�s Drew Phillips sent-off for stamping on midfielder Luke Thurlbourne.
King�s Lynn: Street, Deeney (Harris, 75), Watson, Wall, J.Thurlbourne, Beaumont (Buhlemann, 66), L.Thurlbourne, White (Hughes, 72), Spriggs, Defty and Turner.
Subs not used: Hails and Fryatt.
Goal: Brown o.g (86).
Kempston: Conway, Grieve, Jarrell, Brown, Cox, McGregor, Farmer (Mould,66), McCrae, Clark, Watson and Phillips.
Subs not used: Stafford, Smith and Hall.
Sent off: Phillips (88).
Referee: D.Pywell. Attendance: 198.