Lorenzo Ferrari made a spectacular introduction as a Kings Langley player on Saturday as Paul Hughes and Ritchie Hanlon’s side beat Petersfield Town 2-0 to move up to fifth in Southern League Division One central.

The Kings management duo signed Ferrari from Dunstable Town following the departures of Alex Campana and Tom Carter to Berkhamsted and it took only 15 minutes for the Gaywood Park faithful to embrace another crowd pleaser.

Picking up a short pass out of defence from Callum Adebiyi in his own half, the debutant set off on a 60-yard solo run with such speed and control that he was deep into opposition territory before they were aware of the danger, and riding a reactive tackle, he drew the keeper to slot home a memorable opener.

Five minutes later, Connor Toomey made contact under pressure with a low cross from the left as he fell and although the shot understandably lacked power, it deceived Anthony Ender and he could only parry it into the path of the alert Stevie Ward, who followed up to double the lead.

Both sides were defying the sodden conditions to play some entertaining, attacking, inter-passing football and Town were ruing a missed Howard Neighbour chance minutes before the opening goal.

However, the next drama came on the cusp of half-time when Langley’s Spanish goalkeeper Xavi Comas suffered a badly dislocated finger and Ant Ladyman, also nursing an injury, had to be drafted in.

This blunted the home performance for the second half, although Mitchell Weiss had an early opportunity for a killer third, but uncharacteristically shot straight at the keeper when played through.

Petersfield, no strangers to coming back from a two-goal deficit, took full advantage to have far by the better of the second 45 minutes and they thought they had closed the gap when the prolific Alek Przespolewski rounded the keeper, only to see his low angled shot cleared off the line by the sliding intervention of Adebiyi.

There was another close call when Manny Folarin blocked an effort on the line, but although the visitors kept pressing to the final whistle, Kings were largely comfortable in closing out the contest.