Kings Langley did what was required on the pitch, beating Staines Town 3-1 on an emotional afternoon as more than 1,000 people packed into the Sadiku Stadium to pay their respects to Matt Allcock.

The club sponsor and fan died following the previous weekend’s game at Weymouth and the opportunity to remember and pay tribute to the 46-year-old saw the club’s normal attendance more than quadrupled.

The occasion seemed to affect and the first half was a flat affair with Steve Conroy’s side spurning the few chances they created and basement outfit Staines defending in depth.

The closest Kings came to breaking the deadlock in the opening period was when Andronicos Georgiou's fierce shot was superbly tipped over by Louis Dixon.

The opening goal finally arrived on the hour when Gary Connolly, seeming to tire of the stalemate, surged forward down the right and fed Mitchell Weiss whose pulled back low cross gave Georgiou time and space to coolly drive the ball home.

Three minutes later Weiss broke from the halfway line, put the ball round the defender and passed unselfishly to give Rene Howe the easiest of conversions to double the home side’s lead.

It was now all Kings as their attacks came in waves and Howe could have netted a hat-trick with more accuracy.

To their credit, the Swans stuck to their task and were rewarded with a low drive from Luke Wright finding the corner of the net with 10 minutes to go to reduce the arrears.

But any hopes of salvage were quickly extinguished when Weiss deservedly had the last word with a solo run from the halfway line, scything through the retreating defence and slipping the ball past Dixon to seal the victory that they so wanted to dedicate to an absent friend.

The victory leaves Kings seventh in the Southern Premier Division South table, four points outside the play-off zone but with as many as three games in hand on the two clubs directly in the table.

They will hope to close that gap still further tomorrow night when they entertain Basingstoke Town.

Kings Langley: Tokarczyk; Connolly, Johnson, Adebiyi, O’Keefe (Osborne 72); Ward (Ofosu 76), Cook, Coldicott-Stevens (Collier 88), Georgiou; Howe, Weiss. Subs not used: Syme, Harvey.