Northwood U18s 2 Ashford Town U18s 2 (4-3 pens.)

Thursday 25th October 2012

NORTHWOOD UNDER 18s		Lucas Fettes Cup Rd 1
		Chestnut Avenue, Northwood
Team line-up
1	Garry Malone
2	Alex Nolan
3	Issac Alawode
4	Alex Delasalle
5	Alex Ishola (c)
6	David Palmer
7	Tom Ellis
8	Denis Nortey
9	Aaron Garrick
10	Lewis Davies
11	Matt Cooper
Substitutes
12	Neil Bignell (9, 67m)
14	Michael Elderfield (7, 67m)
15	Ronnie Blagden (10, 75m)
16	-
17	-

Ashford Town travelled to Chestnut Avenue for the second time within three weeks looking for a third win over Woods this season. Buoyed by a great win against Staines Town a week earlier, this Lucas Fettes League Cup first round tie was always going to be a close encounter, and that's exactly the way things worked out.
The early stages were pretty even until the 15th minute when Matt Cooper opened the scoring for Northwood. In what was a half of some real quality football, Ashford deservedly levelled things up on the half hour when Joel Large scored after some excellent improvisation.

The game continued to ebb and flow and 1-1 at half time was just about right.

The start of the second half saw Ashford really take hold of the game, but because Woods now look like a team that know each other, they stood firm and against the run of play Lewis Davies scored an absolute screamer after sixty minutes.

The game was now very even again, and both sides had chances, but it was to be Ashford who would take the game to penalties with just over five minutes or so remaining; their hard working number nine and top goalscorer Eva Batsoul evened things up.
Having already won one cup game on penalties this season, Woods had no reason not be confident of the outcome, and after Garry Malone had made one tremendous penalty save, Northwood held their nerve to go through 4-3 on penalties.

To beat Ashford Town having already lost to them twice this season was no mean accomplishment as they had some very good players in their team, and on Monday evening Woods travel to Bedfont Sports with renewed confidence.