Three goals in seven wonderful second-half minutes gave Welwyn Garden City a winning start to their Southern League Division One Central season, away at MK Irish.
The 4-2 win followed on from the Citizens' 2-0 FA Cup replay win over Biggleswade in the week.
But the game against the champions of last season's Spartan South Midlands League Premier Division got off poorly.
They too had won in the FA Cup extra-preliminary round and the confidence that gave would have seen them in front had it not been for the reflexes of Donny Green, making a fine block to deny Kyle Boyce.
But the reprieve didn’t last long and with four minutes played, Aiden Read was beaten at the back post by the leaping Jimmy Meadows and his knock back across goal was turned home by Clinton Zawe.
But the reaction to the set-back was swift and WGC were level six minutes later.
Eddie Corbit collected the ball in midfield and slipped a peach of a pass through for Lewis Taaffe to hold off a couple of challenges and shoot home the equaliser past home keeper Tom Ladyman.
From that point on, WGC took over and created countless chances.
Firstly, Taaffe became creator, to set up Bailey Stevenson, but the returned striker’s effort was blocked in the goalmouth.
Stevenson then tried to return the favour, latching onto a misplaced Irish pass and trying to slide Taaffe in.
Zawe blocked it at the expense of a corner with the set-piece headed just wide by Read.
Corbit produced another defence-splitting ball that sent Stevenson through, but he crashed his shot past a post and it was Stevenson again, who closed the half with the best effort of the 45 minutes, a fearsome 30 yarder that flew inches wide.
But seven minutes into the second-half, WGC made up for all this wastefulness, with a devastating goal burst that shook Irish to the core.
Stevenson, proving a constant danger to the home defence, burrowed his way through several tackles to get in a shot that Ladyman blocked.
It bounced up for a Corbit header, that the keeper could only half save and from the third attempt, Steve Cawley crashed the rebound home.
Three minutes later it was 3-1. Taaffe collected in midfield and sent Stevenson away, to overlap around him down the left.
Taaffe collected the return and played it in to the near post, where Cawley came in to slip home his second goal in quick succession.
The goal spree continued with a fourth on 58 minutes.
Stevenson set up raiding wing back Brad Bell down the right and from his far post cross, skipper Layne Eadie came in to net a well placed header for 4-1.
The home side didn’t know what had hit them and the damage could have been worse, 10 minutes or so later, Stevenson cutting in from the left but hitting the post for a second time with a strike that flew past Ladyman.
Irish did manage to pull one back when Meadows was left unmarked to put a header on a corner but WGC came perilously close to restoring their three goal lead almost immediately, a Stevenson dink found the head of Read who looked a certain scorer until Ladyman made a miraculous tip-over save.
And with only one MK shot that hit the post, Welwyn were comfortable in seeing the remainder of the game out.
WGC: D.Green, Bell, Ejjayha, Read, J.Green (Jones 65), Eadie, Corbit, Bruno, Taaffe (Mendes 78), Cawley, Stevenson.
Subs (not used): Pollock, Adeoti, Weatherstone.
