Beeston AFC 2–0 Wigston FC: a professional distance

Match report

The opener arrives in the 24th minute. It comes the way Beeston enjoy it most: from a free kick that is suspiciously well-worked. Reuben Edgcumbe lays it off square. Jean-Baptiste Levavasseur takes one touch to set himself and another to find the corner. One-nil. For a side eighth in the table with eyes on the top six, that is enough.

Wigston's response is not a response. They have the ball, then they don't. Beeston drop into something between a block and a shrug. Wigston lack the nerve to do much about it. Levavasseur spends the half teasing the left-back with the sort of patience usually reserved for opening a jar of pickles.

The second goal comes on the hour. It is the kind that ends a game and then refuses to let it start again. Levavasseur crosses from the left. Samuel Crawley heads it home. Two-nil. Wigston's dreadful form stretches another day. Crawley had a hand in goals against Sussex and Hitchin recently, but he saves the actual header for the side who can least afford it.

Wigston never lay a glove on Beeston. No sending-off, no controversial penalty, no drama. Just a team in 13th with a growing suspicion that the season is starting to write its own conclusion. The earlier meeting between these two finished 1–0, which at the time felt tight. This one is never tight, just early and then settled.

Tomorrow brings the next matchday. Beeston try to build on a win that feels like a statement. Wigston try to find a pulse. One of those is easier than the other.