You might think that a game against a team of vampires would require special measures, calls to Buffy or Van Helsing perhaps, putting a wooden stake and a pistol loaded with silver bullets into the kit bag even. The reality is somewhat different, we had played them before in the first league game of the season, at their leafy suburban home in Muswell Hill, on that day no less than six players got on the score sheet as we ran out 7-1 winners.

More to the point was to avoid complacency, concentrating instead on playing our game and taking the chances against a team which might be very different from the one we faced that day. As it was, it took some 23 minutes to break the deadlock as Andrew Robson slotted a laser-like early pass from the right wing to the run of Akim Tiyamiyu into the box who took a touch before a clinical finish to open the scoring. It was a shorter wait for the second although a magnificent effort which was widely thought to have crossed the line had not been awarded, a free kick, the large part of 40 yards out, was given and as the set piece was driven into the far post by Robson it managed to miss attempts to divert it but hit the inside of the side netting to register a second. At last we had the cushion to show for our almost complete domination of the play, this was plumped up by a third, just 4 minutes later. A rare foray into our box was repelled by keeper Dan Bank who took a knock to his head for his trouble, after a short break to check whether there were any lasting effects the ball was rolled out to Atiba Jackson who carried the ball forward feeding Luke Moore, he found Robson in the very corner of their half and his driving run toward their box was punctuated by a perfectly weighted, slide rule pass into Jake King who continued his run and measured the finish past the despairing dive of their goalie. The last moments of the half were soured slightly as the visitors got a consolation as, not one but two players managed to find each other in space to get away a postage stamp effort which found its way to the top corner of our goal.

No doubt buoyed by their consolation Crouch End came out and started to threaten our end but a superb save from Bank and a hooked clearance were enough to repel the invaders and we resumed the pass and move play which had served us so well. Twenty minutes into the half we were firmly back in the ascendancy as a sustained period of pressure led to a characteristic line breaking run down the left by Scott Moore which drove deeper in toward goal and a short pass into the centre was met by Denislav Petrov who outmuscled a couple of defenders to tap home. With the game effectively sealed it was now important not to relinquish control and that was maintained with crisp passing, frequent recycling and a continuation to threaten the opposition goal from every angle. With only ten minutes of regulation remaining yet another promising build up was capped as a headed ball from the edge of the penalty area by Flavien Stierien met the incoming run of Louis Brown who held off the challenge to slip a finish wide of the helpless goalkeeper. The remaining time was relatively uneventful and thoughts will now be entirely focussed on the home leg against South Bank Cuaco, we lost the away fixture 4-2 but missed so many chances that day that there's a bit of a score to settle, if we can continue our good recent run then it is hoped that there will be no repeat of that day's particular frustrations, our continued challenge on the top two depends on it. COYP.