The last weekend in February saw me travel to North London to watch an Southern League Division One Central fixture between Waltham Abbey FC and AFC Dunstable.

Capershotts Ground boasts decent facilities. It has a capacity of with two seated and covered grandstands, as well as two covered standing areas and a refreshment stand. The ground also has an electronic scoreboard and access across the car park to a welcoming clubhouse and bar.

The attendances at Capershotts this season range from 220 to 128. Interestingly, the main stand has sky blue seats, secured when Manchester City left Maine Road in 2005.

Waltham Abbey FC came into the fixture in fourth place, six points ahead of their opponents today, although Dunstable had three games in hand. Player manager Billy Holland would know that a sustained run would be required to overturn the four point gap between the home side and the league leaders, Bedford Town, especially when Waltham Abbey FC have played four more games already.

AFC Dunstable found themselves in a very similar position to Waltham Abbey FC at kick off, requiring an away win to kick start their efforts to join the top six. Manager Joe Evans has seen his side take only eight points from the previous six matches, so wanted his team to start positively today, in order to secure some confidence.

The game opened with action when in the first minute AFC Dunstable were awarded a penalty after a rash challenge. The resulting spot kick was saved by Waltham Abbey’s Bradley Robinson.

Despite this let off, in the 16th minute the visitors were ahead, when Ben Weyman curled a free kick from 20 yards past Bradley Robinson in the Waltham Abbey goal.

In the 26th minute the visitors took a two goal advantage when Daniel Idiakhoa scored after some lovely passing play, to make the score 0-2.

In the 35th minute, a corner for Waltham Abbey fell to player-manager Billy Holland, who drove the ball ferociously into the Dunstable net, to make it 1-2, putting the home side back in the game. The scores remained the same at the half time break.

Within three minutes of the restart, Waltham Abbey were level when Prince Domafriye hit the ball home, from close range, after some fine build up play down the left side.

On 58 minutes a pile driving shot from 25 yards by Callum Nicolson, put AFC Dunstable 2-3 ahead and in doing so, caught out my filming!

When Arnold Matshazi made it 2-4 on 67 minutes, the game looked to have moved back securely to be in Dunstable’s control.

In the 73rd minute it was 2-5 when Arnold Matshazi made it a brace to turn the screw on the Abbots.

Two minutes later AFC Dunstable were celebrating again, when Ethan Holt ran unchallenged into the box to slam home and make it 2-6.

At full time the crowd were left reflecting on a game which Waltham Abbey had fought their way back into, before a capitulation in the last third left the score looking like a mismatch. AFC Dunstable will surely push on for a promotion place, if they play like this in the coming two months.Waltham Abbey need to play better as they clearly have some fine forward players, but need to avoid fading away for key phases, or as happened today, teams will punish them.