The game was, in the large part, evenly balanced but the Railwaymen wilted in the final quarter of an hour and were subsequently punished with a late decisive goal. Nonetheless, this was an encouraging performance, suggesting the first league win should not be long in coming.

Many of North Leigh’s squad are former Didcot players and unsurprisingly the early stages were cagey, but as the contest reached the mid-point of the first half, the home side opened the scoring. Jacob Walcott’s centre was partially cleared to Millers’ captain Wayne Turk, lurking some twenty yards out. The red shirts were not quick enough to close him down and the ensuing strike took a wicked deflection to wrong-foot keeper Gareth Tucker and nestled into the bottom corner.

Didcot refused to be cowed by the setback and their counter-attacking style unlocked the North Leigh rearguard on more than one occasion as the half wore on. Adam Morris’s long range effort drew a decent block from home stopper Sam Warrell before both Morris and Louis Joyce got within fractions of applying finishing touches to flowing moves.

A Morgan Williams free-kick forced a fingertip save out of Tucker at the beginning of the second period but Didcot were beginning to have the greater amount of possession and they made it count in the sixty-third minute. Two Didcot youngsters, Joyce and Taylor Janes, combined down the left and the final ball picked out Michael McKirnan on the edge of the area. McKirnan had only been on the pitch a matter of thirty seconds but he made no mistake in drilling his finish beyond Warrell.

As the match wore on, effective substitutions were swinging the pendulum back in North Leigh’s favour and as Didcot tired, gaps began to appear in their defence. Aaron Woodley was twice put through on goal, only to be denied by Tucker’s smart positioning. However, on the second occasion ten minutes from time, the ball ran loose and Elliott Osborne-Ricketts was eventually felled on the edge of the area. Stuart Hole crashed the subsequent free-kick towards the bottom left corner and although Tucker got a hand to it, he could not keep it out.

North Leigh came close to adding some gloss on the scoreline but Tucker denied Conor McDonagh with another fine block whilst at the other end a Luke Carnell flick-on could not fall to a Didcot player and after a goalmouth scramble, the danger was cleared.

Didcot must turn their attentions onto the FA Cup, a competition that they covered themselves in glory last season. The first hurdle is a tricky looking Friday night trip to Wantage Town, who currently boast a 100% winning record after five games of the Hellenic League Premier Division.