Bracknell Town 4 - 0 Longlevens: Two-goal Joe Grant keeps Robins in title race

The Robins still have a lot of ground to make up on current leaders Highworth and second-placed Thatcham, who are arguably the current title favourites, but at the moment they are doing what they have to do, and that is picking up vital points.

Certainly, the top two will be anxiously looking over their shoulders at Bracknell for some time to come as they still have 11 games remaining, compared to six for the Worthians and seven for the Kingfishers.

The recently-appointed management team of Carl Davies and Geoff Warner have got off to a promising start with a 2-0 win at Brackley Town Saints last Wednesday, followed by this success over Longlevens.

“It’s particularly pleasing to win games whilst keeping a clean sheet,” said Warner.

Joe Grant drives Robins forward in the 4-0 win over Longlevens.

Despite fielding mainly their reserves Bracknell had beaten the Gloucestershire side 5-2 in the Perpetua Press Floodlit Cup 10 days earlier, so Saturday’s game looked a home banker. And so it proved, with the points being wrapped up inside the opening 10 minutes.

In front of their lowest crowd of the season of 138, Town could easily have been two up before Grant opened the scoring after five minutes with a neat lob over the advancing keeper, Ash Wintle.

Three minutes later, Seb Bowerman’s left-wing cross was not properly headed clear by Jonty Welch and the ball fell invitingly for Jamie McClurg to fire hard and low into the corner.

Longlevens did start to get themselves better organised in defence, but they rarely looked a threat in attack although Luke Kavanagh’s long-range shot had to be tipped over by keeper Chris Grace.

At times, Town played some excellent one-touch football with midfielders Kensley Maloney and McClurg heavily involved.

Grant skied a shot over the bar before taking his season’s goal tally to 21 for the season following another sweet-flowing attack with Bowerman supplying the cross.

Just before half-time, he got the ball into the net again, only to be denied his hat-trick by the assistant referee’s flag for offside and then he had another effort pushed for a corner by Wintle.

Bracknell's Kensley Malone impressed against Longlevens.

He continued to be by far the busier of the two goalies in the second half, saving from newly-appointed skipper Dave Hancock, Bowerman and Adam Cornell.

With nearly an hour gone, TJ Bohane came off the bench to replace Grant, who was happy to reserve his energy levels for the following day’s Reading half marathon, although that event was later cancelled due to snow.

With youngsters Elliott Legg and Max Herbert also on as substitutes, Bracknell stayed in control and scoring opportunities continued to mount up.

Several fell to Cornell, the side’s leading scorer with 28 goals but now without a goal in six games.

His team-mates were doing their best to get him back on the scoresheet by setting up chances, but it was not to be his day.

But Bohane did take his tally to 22 with a superb left-footer from 30 yards which flew over Wintle into the net to complete the scoring five minutes from time.

The Robins, who remain fifth in the table, are home to another Gloucestershire side this Saturday (3pm) when the visitors are Fairford, who boosted their chances of avoiding relegation with a 6-2 demolition of mid-table Windsor last weekend.

Then on Monday, they are away to Binfield (7.45pm ko) and will be looking to complete a double over their local rivals, having beaten them 6-1 at Larges Lane early in the season.