London Lions beat Croxley to go top - The Jewish Chronicle

LONDON LIONS 3
CROXLEY GUILD 1

A hat-trick of wins saw Lions go joint top of the Herts County Premier League with goals from Daniel Levenfiche, Adam Stolerman and Ben Lauffer.

Lions played their first game away from Rowley Lane on Saturday and continued their impressive start to the season with a well deserved 3-1 win over Croxley Guild.

With Guy Morris and Danny Berg unavailable, Tony Gold’s men started brightly at the guild and took charge of the game early on.

With Michael Sacks and Danny Cole replacing the two absentees both had an effect on the game in a defensive capacity never looking troubled or harassed.

Within seven minutes of his first start of the season, Daniel Levenfiche had the first good opportunity of the game but he shot wide of the target.

Twelve minutes later though the early pressure took its toll on the hosts as Lions went ahead.

Great work from Lee Cash down the right allowed Levenfiche to time his run perfectly into the box and as Cash drilled the ball across the goal Levenfiche made no mistake firing it home - his second of the season.

Cash should have made it two as he fired over from a fantastic position on 24 minutes, with the home side still struggling to get a foot hold in the game.

Ten minutes before half-time, the visitors continued to press whilst playing an excellent passing game and got a deserved second goal - Cole and Cash combined superbly with the latter slipping in a grounded pass to Adam Stolerman who instinctively and ruthlessly buried the ball past the hapless Croxley keeper.

The game was virtually killed off on 68 minutes when Daniel Stanton’s 25 yard pile driver smashed off the cross bar and fell kindly to Ben Lauffer who headed home from eight yards.

The home side pulled a goal back 12 minutes from time albeit controversially as Aron Barnes was seemingly bundled to the ground in the Lions 18 yard box following a Croxley corner.

The referee and linesman somehow missed the infringement and the loose ball was bundled home.

All in all another solid performance especially away from home against a Croxley side who had won their opening two fixtures.

Tony Gold was thrilled with his hard-working Lions team. Speaking after the game, he said: “Croxley is not an easy place to come to especially as they were buzzing after two good early results and promotion from last year.

“I asked the players for a performance like I got the other night (against Met Police) and in the first half today I thought we were even better.

“There’s still a lot for us to learn and get better at, particularly our ball retention.

“The players worked their socks off and in the first half we could have been out of sight”.

Lions: Matt Davis, Daniel Cole, Aron Barnes, Adam Myeroff, Michael Sacks, Rob Glass (sub: Adam Lauffer), Ben Lauffer, Daniel Stanton (sub: Daniel Castle), Daniel Levenfiche, Lee Cash, Adam Stolerman (sub: Matt Stock)