Dorchester's 4-0 defeat at home to Kintbury Rangers threw the North Berks League Division 1 title race wide open on Saturday, writes Phil Annets.

Doubles for Charlie Allsop and Adam Drake brought unbeaten Kintbury to within four points of the leaders with two games in hand.

The match got off to an explosive start with Kintbury taking the lead within two minutes.

Drake delivered a corner right into the heart of the Dorchester six- yard area and a combination of Allsop and a defender’s toe steered the ball into the net.

On the stroke of half-time, Drake collected a loose ball out of defence more than 25 yards from goal.

He speculatively lobbed the ball back towards the goal and saw it sail over the head of Dorchester’s keeper Jon Lever and nestle in the net to double his side’s lead.

The third Kintbury goal goal arrived on 72 minutes when Shaun Thorp half-vol-leyed the ball to an un-marked Charlie Allsop, who controlled it before shooting under Lever’s body.

There was still time for another freak goal from Adam Drake, who saw his 90th minute corner sailed into the net.

In the only match played in Division 2, Steventon won 3-0 at ‘home’ to Marcham with the fixture having been switched due to waterlogging of the Steventon pitch.

Shaun Bray, Stuart Cop-pock and Martin Trower were all on target for Steventon.

In Division 4, Benson AFC failed to take advantage of their title rivals’ matches being called off, by going down 4-0 at home to Grove Rangers.

The victory rekindles Gro-ve’s promotion hopes.

Matt Cramp helped himself to a hat-trick alongside a Grant Summersbee strike.

In Division 5, Challow won 4-2 against Grove Ran-gers Res in a match switched to Lambourn Sports’ ground.

Joe Braham and Danny Ferguson scored for Grove, but Oliver Floyd, Kurtis Shaw, Simon Davison and Cameron Rankin all netted for Challow to seal the victory.

Most of the rest of the local weekend football programme was washed out by waterlogged pitches after the recent heavy tain.