Costessey Crown 1, Mousehold 3

Mousehold turned up at Longdale knowing there would be no easy win, with Costessey Crown first team having taken all 18 available points from their first six games of the season.

Mousehold started well and strongly, and if anything the balance of play suggested that they would be the first to score, with several near misses from Gareth Crick and convincing attacks on the Costessey goal.

But the first half ended with neither team making the breakthrough.

It wasn’t until 10 minutes into the second half that the first goal came, and it came from Costessey: they had a corner, and although keeper Ben Moore initially blocked it the Costessey player followed it up and gently tapped it in.

Shortly afterwards manager Ryan Slatford made a change up front, taking Dwayne Batley off and putting on new signing Dan Payne. Just three minutes later, on 64 minutes, his decision was vindicated when Dan put in a cross that set Duane Green up perfectly to finish with his head, with the keeper completely wrong-sided.

On 73 minutes Duane Green got his second goal with his head: the keeper had saved Peter Wilkes’ shot, sending the ball straight up, Duane took his chance and got his head to it to take Mousehold into the lead.

With just three minutes to go, Ryan made another change, taking Gareth off for Matt Taylor, and just two minutes later Dan Payne took a shot from 20 yards out, a beautiful ball into the bottom-left corner, on his debut for Mousehold.

Man of the Match: Duane Green, and a welcome, hard-won and deserved three points from the league leaders.

Mousehold Reserves 4, Costessey Crown Reserves 5

Mousehold Reserves were strengthened by the return of a few players they have been missing for some weeks.

They started really well, with their first goal after about 10 minutes; a poor clearance from Costessey landed at Damon Claxton’s feet, and he kicked it hard and low under the keeper to take Mousehold a goal up.

Five minutes later a penalty was awarded to Mousehold for a foul on Damon, James ‘Billy’ Bowden took it and scored for 2-0.

About 10 minutes after that Damon ran onto a long through-ball and slotted it past the keeper for 3-0. Costessey then put an extra player forward, put on the pressure and managed to get two goals back before half-time; 3-2.

In the second half Costessey had scored within six minutes – the equaliser – with a good shot from the edge of the penalty area; it took a deflection and went past the keeper.

About 10 minutes later when Costessey was pilling forward, Mousehold was so sure it was offside that they stopped – Costessey didn’t, and scored another to go into the lead.

With about 20 minutes to play Costessey got a penalty and scored, but with about five minutes to go Kelvin Mayhew got a header from close range, to take the score to 4-5.

Mousehold tried for the equaliser but just couldn’t find it. It was a good performance all round, but Mousehold just needed a little bit of luck.

Man of the Match: Damon Claxton.