Royston Town 3 Bedford Town Res 1 A RAMPANT Royston routed Bedford Reserves to leapfrog their rivals to go second in Division One. The Crows took a valuable three points at Garden Walk as manager Paul Attfield celebrated 12 months in charge, but in truth

Royston Town 3 Bedford Town Res 1

A RAMPANT Royston routed Bedford Reserves to leapfrog their rivals to go second in Division One.

The Crows took a valuable three points at Garden Walk as manager Paul Attfield celebrated 12 months in charge, but in truth the scoreline could have been much wider.

Royston went ahead after just two minutes when Ross Collins, making one of his many forays into the opposition half, hit a hopeful cross into the opposition's box only for a Bedford defender to flick the ball into his own goal from eight yards out.

From then on Royston dominated possession and their slick passing and movement caused far too many problems for their opponents.

In reply, all Bedford could manage was an occasional long ball to their Jason Lee look-a-like Xenon Paul whose two left feet were seemingly encased in boots carved from butter, such was his inability to control any of the passes pinged his way.

Even without the missing David Cain, Royston's centre backs coped with relative ease and this allowed the team's full backs to bomb forward.

It was one of these attacks by right back Danny Apostolos which almost led to a second goal on 16 minutes.

Apostolos burst forward down the flank, cut inside and whipped in a wonderful cross which was a hair's width from being headed home.

A minute later Royston were 2-0 up when a long ball hit over the heads of Bedford's back four was leapt upon by Tom Malins who rounded the 'keeper 25 yards out and scored his first of the game.

The score remained 2-0 until halftime, but within four minutes of restart Royston had extended their lead to three.

Left back Ross Collins flicked the bell with the outside of his right foot down the line to Luke Robins who outpaced his marker and crossed the ball into the penalty area where it dropped to Malins to score his second of the game.

Bedford pulled a goal back from the penalty spot after a Jamie Babbage foul and Robins hit the post late on with a well-controlled volley, but the game finished 3-1.

Manager Paul Attfield said getting an early goal was vital in putting pressure on the opposition.

He said: "The last few games we've been starting games off well. It's a problem we had at the beginning of the season when we weren't playing too well in the first half but it takes the pressure off you big time if you can start games well.

"I felt we were always in control of the game. When you're playing a team that are second and they haven't actually created anything from open play over 90 minutes, that's fair credit to our lads. They defended very well."

Royston Town: Williamson, Apostolos, Collins, Babbage, Endacott, De Lacey (capt), Edwards, Welch, Jackson, Malins, Robins. Subs: Lockett, Turl, Stephens, Debnam

* Tom Galvin has left the club to join Potton United and Alan Reid is being relocated in his army capacity sow ill be moving away from the area.