Queensway FC withdrew from the league mid-season and its record was expunged.

It’s been nineteen years since the Keys opened their league campaign with a draw but, facing a side against which they won, drew and lost last season, the result of this game might not have been the greatest surprise. Queensway got the better of Crowle in April when they met in the final of the Ted Harrison Cup, the knockout competition for Division Two sides, though neither club will be in this season’s final after both were promoted to Division One.

Crowle began the game with four debutants in the starting XI but it was the familiar figure of Bryn Gosling who had the first serious attempt of the game; Queensway keeper James Mullen gathered the defender’s shot on the turn from around the penalty spot in the twelfth minute. The next clear chance fell to another Keys defender midway through the opening period when Kieran Howitt brought a sharp save from Mullen with a close-range header from Matty Fletcher’s free-kick. Mullen was relieved to see Howitt blaze the rebound high over the crossbar as the home team continued to have the better of the chances in the first half.

Fin Gregory would be denied by another save from Mullen as the game approached its halfway stage without score, but the first goal eventually arrived three minutes before the break when a deep free-kick from Queensway’s left wing was crossed back into the box where Marcus Nicholson had enough space to head into the Keys’ net. It was in the same net that Crowle equalized nine minutes into the second half when Howitt, who had never previously found the net for the Keys, scrambled the ball over the line following a corner from Fletcher.

Neither side would find a winner, but Howitt headed against a post, Will Martinson had a chance cleared from the goalline, and Gosling didn’t connect with enough power to head home from a Sam Shipman throw-in in stoppage time.

Crowle Keys

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