Ashford Town (Mx) 2 Northwood U18 3
Wednesday 25th August 2021
| NORTHWOOD | |||
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| 1 | Bogdan Dinulescu | ||
| 2 | Lewis Batten ©  |
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| 3 | Om Ashtikar (sub) | ||
| 4 | Raul Vagdia | ||
| 5 | Daniel Woodward | ||
| 6 | Diogo Fonseca (sub) | ||
| 7 | Kacper Staszewski |
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| 8 | Kwao Amartefio | ||
| 9 | Oscar John | ||
| 10 | Zyion Achiro-Coleman |
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| 11 | Mayvin Vigneswaran | ||
| Substitutes | |||
| 12 | Joshua Ward-Beckles (sub) | ||
| 14 | Bradley Tannian (sub) | ||
| 15 | Benjamin Freeth | ||
After six weeks of preparation and three positive friendly matches it was time to start the 2021/22 league campaign for the Under 18s on Wednesday night, and the first Isthmian Youth League game of the season took Woods away to Ashford Town (Middx).
A very nervy start to the game found Woods trailing after only three minutes. Goalkeeper Bogdan Dinulescu tried to clear his lines and unfortunately the ball ricocheted off his own defender and fell to the Ashford striker for an easy tap in and a 1-0 lead to the home side.
This was the kick up the backside that Northwood needed and with only ten minutes on the clock, Oscar John played a slick one-two with Zyion Achiro-Coleman and took on a shot from the 18 yard line with the keeper fumbling the ball over the line to take the visitors back on level terms.
Northwood then started to move the ball around in the manner they are becoming used to. Ashford tried to stifle Woods' possession with some foul play resulting in Achiro-Coleman picking up a yellow card for retaliation. But Northwood soon got back into their stride and a fantastic through ball from Mayvin Vigneswaran on the left, to Kacper Staszewski on the opposite flank and he finished with aplomb to put the Woods 2-1 in front at half-time.
The second half started just as poorly as the first half and at times Woods rode their luck. Then with 65 minutes on the clock Vignewswaran played another great through ball into the path of Oscar John, who lobbed the keeper to extend the Northwood lead.
This should have been the game sealed but we hit the self destruct button a little and let Ashford back into the game with an unfortunate own goal.
The last 10 minutes were very untidy, with the Woods picking up a couple of cautions but they held on for a 3-2 opening day victory and the game was handled very well by the referee Lee Hermitage.
Next up for the Woods Under 18s is a really tough trip to Uxbridge next Wednesday night in the FA Youth Cup - a 7.45pm kick-off and it would be great to see some support for the lads at Honeycroft.
