We'd played Amersham and Chalfont last week and managed to get a deserved draw so we just needed to make sure that we played like we did in the second half of that game

As we expected, Leighton Buzzard came at us hard in the first 20 minutes. Jerry Fogg was marshalling the defence with Ben Ferguson and Amnaik Soomal building the play up from the back. A penalty corner was awarded to Leighton Buzzard. They got a good hit on it and it went sailing through the air past Jerry and Max Ellis in goal. Not much you can do about those ones.

As the game went on Leighton Buzzard looked like they were starting to tire in midfield. We were starting to more and more build up play in that area with Jack Barber and Joe Daniel getting the better of a few of their players. A short corner was awarded to Marlow after Duncan Turner and Bernard Tyler had made a nuisance of themselves in the D. Out it came and after a bit of frantic hitting Myles Reece got on to it and pulled us the equaliser back. The half time whistle blew and Marlow were looking in the ascendancy

The second half started and Marlow were on top. We were getting the ball down the left and right channels, Hayden McEwen was putting in some lovely crosses from the right and Charlie Peplow (more of him later) was putting the oppo players to shame with some of his play

Leighton Buzzard again came back at Marlow and managed to get a freakish goal. Their player hit a pretty incongruous looking hit from the top of our D hoping for the best and somehow it managed to slip underneath Max. This was with ten minutes left to at least get a draw from the game. We needed someone to step up and get us a goal

Step up Charlie Peplow (see, I said I'd come onto him). Charlie had been subbed up front for most of the game and has been moved up from the fives into the fours for the last couple of games. Our previous goalscorer, Myles, was off the pitch so Charlie had stepped into the central midfield role. For a 14 year old he was looking like he'd been playing in the seniors for years. Charlie went into the D and the keeper came rushing out trying to put Charlie off

A simple reverse of the stick took the ball away from the keeper at the top of the D, took Charlie away from the goal to the right, and I was thinking the chance was gone but Oh No! A nice calm look up, a sweet hit of the ball from a tight angle and the ball went through their defence and away from the keeper who was desperately running back to the goal line. An equaliser with the last few minutes to go and a thoroughly demoralised opposition. Can we get the win from this?

Tragically the answer was no

Despite our best efforts we couldn't get the winning goal but everyone played a great game all around the pitch. Great game and a good way to finish before the Easter break.