A bit of an unusual opener to the season today. The opposition only had 10 players, so we agreed to play with 10 players as well to follow the league guidance.

As new season starts go, ours couldn’t have gone much worse, with Kingswood scoring only a couple of minutes into the game. A ball through the middle to the big lad they had playing up front seemed to cause us all sorts of problems before he poked it past Daniel Gillam to make it 1-0.

The Badgers didn't seem to let this phase them, from the restart there was really good play on display with the boys looking after the ball well and working it around to find openings.

In the 11th minute Abbey switched the play from left to right quickly with Dylan Kittle finding Samuel Weston in space who knocked it past the keeper to make it 1-1.

Abbey made use of their bench at the first half drinks break to bring on some fresh legs, and this immediately appeared to turn the tide even more in our favour with Lucas Crook putting a nice cross in from the right which Nathan Southam headed home from close range. 2-1 Abbey!

Soon after Abbey were at it again with the ball again being worked in from the right, this time into Nathan Southam's feet, some quick thinking and equally quick fit saw him lay it back to William Ibbott who placed the ball in the back of the net to make it 3-1.

It was clear the 10 men of Kingswood were already tiring in the warm weather without substitutes when Abbey capitalised 2 more times Firstly through Ronan Creaner assisted by Lucas Crook and then Ryan Dent-Burnett finished up the scoring.

Just before half time a Kingswood player got injured and couldn't carry on. It was agreed the match itself was over as a contest at this point so the score was finalised at 5-1 before a second half friendly took place with some Abbey players making up the numbers on the Kingswood team.

A great start to the season with 3 points on the board for Abbey with an away trip to Manocroft Utd next up for them.