Northwood’s long unbeaten away run covering over five months, came to an end with this narrow defeat at promotion chasers St Ives Town, in a game played in high winds on a drying and bumpy pitch that neither side really got to grips with.

After the home keeper Brendan Brown had taken Joakim Ehui’s cross comfortably to settle any home nerves, St Ives pushed forward and Danny Watson had a shot blocked a minute later. Myles Stephenson tried a first-time shot that flew miles wide before Alex Nolan was robbed of the ball by Watson who fed Phil Draycott but his effort was also wild and wayward.

The Woods had their best chance of the half though on 11 minutes when Andy Lomas delivered a far post free-kick that was met by Steve Brown’s header back across goal that drifted just of the far post with no-one close enough to add the required touch. But the turning point came after 18 minutes when Niko Muir slotted a superb ball through for Stephenson to run onto and he moved into the box before going down under a challenge from Jordan Jarrold. Penalty claims were waved away by the referee and St Ives countered quickly moving the ball down the left before a far post was headed down by Watson, for skipper Luke Knight to bundle the ball home for the opening goal.

Berkley Laurencin kept his side in the game five minutes later when a corner was met by Andrew Phillips at close-range but the Woods keeper managed to push his shot over the bar. Laurencin also made another good save to deny Phillips before the break while Northwood were restricted to just one drifting Muir effort as half-time arrived.

The second half kicked off with a James Burgess long-range effort that Brown took high but there was little goalmouth action. Jack Higgs hit a good strike that had power but was always travelling wide of the target while Stephenson’s shot on the turn flew across goal at the other end. The quality of the football continued to be affected by the surface and neither side managed to get shots on target, with Muir firing wide for the Woods and Watson latching onto a long ball but chipping it gently to Laurencin before Draycott sliced another effort miles over for the home side.

Jermaine Heron became the only substitution for the Woods, replacing Ehui, but the Woods failed to find any way past a St Ives defence which could now boast to be the best in the division and it was into stoppage time before hopes of an equaliser were briefly raised. Brown had pushed forward and played a ball wide to Muir and when his excellent ball came in, there were four Northwood players closing in on it but they left it to each other and the half-chance was gone.