Northwood Res. 4  Merstham Res. 1

Saturday 17th September 2011

Northwood Res.		Suburban League Chestnut Ave, Northwood
Derek Lewis	1	Kick Off
Junior Osborne	2	3.00 p.m.
Harry Wright	3	H/T
Doug Fitzgerald	4	2-0
Peter Lyall	5	Scorers
Sam Sharples	6	Northwood
Gary Meakin	7	Morlese, Froud, Asombang, Alexander
Jimmy Froud	8
Victor Asombang	9
Kurt Morlese	10
Rodney Hicks	11
Dominic Franklyn	12
Marcus Sawyer	14
Julian Smith (8)	15
Ben Alexander (10)	16
Ben Hiney	17

With the first team having been knocked out of the FA Cup against Beaconsfield SYCOB a couple of weeks ago, Manager Gary Meakin took the opportunity to give some of his first team squad some game time in this fixture against Surrey outfit Merstham, whilst at the same time having a first hand look at the players that are pushing for a place in his starting eleven.

It was Merstham who came out of the blocks the quickest, and they had much the better of the early exchanges as the home side struggled to settle down. Having weathered the early storm, Northwood settled down and pretty much from then on controlled most of the game.

There were some early chances for the home side, notably Kurt Morlese latching on to a through ball from Gary Meakin, but his pull back was cleared, and Meakin himself should have done better when he shot over from 18 yards.

Northwood opened the scoring when Kurt Morlese pulled off a defender to receive Harry Wright's pass and coolly finshed off with a shot into the corner of the net. Woods doubled their lead shortly after when Jimmy Froud broke from midfield and slide in to finish a Sam Sharples through ball.

Ben Alexander came on after the break, and he looked very sharp throughout, as did Julian Smith who replaced Jimmy Froud, and he did his chances of a first team call up no harm at all with some clever touches.

Victor Asombang made it three when he finished well after latching on to Meakin's through ball. Merstham did pull a goal back when Derek Lewis, who had hardly touched the ball all game, under-hit a clearance to the visiting forward, who finished well.

The three goal cushion was restored after a great turn and finish from Ben Alexander. Merstham finished the game well, and probably had their best spell in the last ten minutes - which was coincidentally the same time that their manager sat quietly in the dug out after verbally abusing his players for the previous 80 minutes!