Stourbridge 1, St Neots Town 0

STOURBRIDGE continue to consolidate second place but made hard work of beating struggling St Neots who paraded little more than a youth team.

It looked as though Stourbridge would secure a sizeable victory against their young opponents by scoring after just three minutes when Aaron Forde whipped in a right wing cross for Greg Mills to collect and cut inside to smash home from close range.

But St Neots quickly grew in confidence and proceeded to frustrate Stourbridge for the remainder of the half.

Stourbridge came out after the break with much more purpose but were kept at bay by St Neots goalkeeper Finlay Iron.

The keeper dived full stretch to turn a goal bound shot from half time substitute Bilal Yafai round the post and then repeated his heroics to keep out a close range Leon Broadhurst header.

However Iron was completely beaten on 56 minutes when Forde fired against the post and the ball rebounded back out for Luke Benbow who then blazed well wide.

St Neots hit back and pressed for an equaliser in the closing stages.

They nearly succeeded when a free kick from impressive Cambridge United loanee full back Jordan Norville-Williams struck the roof of the net from fully 30 yards out.

St Neots also created late chances for Scott Pollock and Harry Beckley as nervous Stourbridge held out.

Glassboys boss Gary Hackett was less than impressed and admitted: "I don't think I have ever least enjoyed a Stourbridge victory.

"We started well and scored a very good goal and if we'd got a second, it would have killed the game.

"But young lads can play without fear if they don't fall too far behind and with 20 minutes left, they find themselves still in the game.

"At that point good players become nervous and start making mistakes and we lived on a knife-edge towards the end.

"The performance wasn't good enough and there's nothing more to say on it!