Victory has never been sweeter for Market Drayton Town coach Mick Murphy than this UniBond President’s Cup success at Leek.

For the first person to congratulate him on the end of Town’s recent slump in form was the man who shares his office.

Murphy combines his role as Town’s coach with overseeing the Shropshire Football Association’s development programme – and Leek’s skipper, Andy Taylor, is one of his deputies.

“It was great to end our losing run . . . but nothing was as good as being congratulated by Andy afterwards,” said Murphy, grinning broadly.

“We share the same office and obviously work closely together so we obviously both had plenty riding on the result, especially as Leek have been going well in recent weeks while we’ve hit a bad patch.”

Taylor, who stuck to ‘no comment’ on his boss’s success might have felt it a little churlish to point out that Leek had hit the woodwork three times and missed two absolute sitters, before bowing out to a Town team who battled well without key defender Paul McMullen and ace striker Tom Ward.

And Murphy himself admitted that an own goal by Leek defender Nick Ward was crucial and said: “That was the turning point. The moment we realised that, after suffering weeks of bad luck, the ball was at last running for us.

“We had a little luck, but nothing we did not earn.”

Leek had taken the lead shortly after the break when Leon Ashman, having already hit the bar and post, slid a good low shot under Town keeper Andrew Spooner as he rushed from goal is a desperate bid to save his scattered defence.

Martyn Davies headed a regulation equaliser for Town on the hour and his bustling presence helped persuade Ward to loft the ball into his own net on 72 minutes. But the Town striker’s best moment came two minutes later when he scored a remarkable solo goal.

As Leek threatened to break away down their left, Davies raced in with a well-timed tackle then turned back inside, cheekily flipped the ball over the head of an advancing defender and nipped around him to rifle a left foot shot into the net.

Both sides had their moments to win the game in the closing 15 minutes, but Town kept their noses in front with some conviction, Leek’s second goal – by Daniel Cope in in the 89th minute – doing nothing to shake their conviction that the good times could be coming back to Greenfields.

By Terry Morris