Rushden & Diamonds Youth Team edged out 1-0 winners in the top of the table Football Conference Youth Alliance clash against Hitchin on pitch 3 at Nene Park.

In a tight defensive encounter, the only goal came midway through the second half, a ball played to Nabil Shariff using good strength in the box with his back to goal was laid off to Sean Shields, who went through, beating his defender and put the ball in the net.

Head of Youth Paul Driver commented, "We've done okay, we've won, which puts us top of the league, which is nice. We've defended well, the back four did very well, credit to them - I thought Hitchin were the best team we've played this year, very organised, their back four particularly was good, their keeper did very well.

Its one of those games where we've had lots of possession without really killing it off, which is a negative, but on a positive it's a clean sheet against the team that was top of the league before today. Morgan Phillips, George Artemi, Callum earls and Matt Evans at the back did very very well, they've come and defended well and restricted our chances for all the possession we had. It'd have been nice to get a couple more goals to make the scoreline reflect the possession, but its three points and puts us at the top of the league. They are certainly the most organised and defensively the strongest side we've played this year."