Northwood 1 Wealdstone 4

Saturday 12th July 2025

NORTHWOOD




1	Hafed Al-Droubi
2	Harry McKenna
3	Mack Miskin
4	Manny Folarin
5	Jack Empson
6	Ademide Baruwa
7	Reece Price-Placid
8	Jon-Jo Bates
9	Dylan Kearney
10	Kush Lewis-Thomas
11	Osaretin Otote
Substitutes
12	Jordan Ellis
14	Romario Jonas
15	Rico Clarke-Rowe
16	Nasir Sharifi
17	Brian McGovern
18	Trialist A
19	Trialist B
20	Trialist C
21	Trialist D
22	Trialist E

The Skyline Roofing Stadium was looking resplendent for the opening home pre-season game as the Woods welcomed National League Premier neighbours Wealdstone on a blazing hot and sunny afternoon.

A good crowd were attracted for what was the Stones first warm-up game under new manager Sam Cox and he fielded a pretty strong side for the first forty-five minutes while using more substantially more triallists for
the second-half that followed.

Northwood also fielded more of their already recruited squad in the first-half of the game and there were first starts of the season for both Joint Manager Jon-Jo Bates and the returning Osaretin Otote.

The Woods started well and recorded the first effort on goal as Kush Lewis-Thomas saw a shot kept out at the near post by Dante Baptiste but it was generally the Stones who controlled things and Hafed Al-Droubi had to do well to block and effort from Sam Adarkwa after 6 minutes. He could do nothing to prevent Wealdstone from taking the lead on 11 minutes though as a clever move and a close-range finish from a triallist gave him no chance.

The Stones doubled their lead just three minutes later with triallist netting a second goal and it seemed as if the visitors might run away with things. But both Adarkwa and Max Kretzschmar both saw efforts come back off the crossbar as the half progressed and on 35 minutes Osaretin was adjudged to have been tripped in the area and a penalty was awarded which was tucked away by Dylan Kearney.

It seemed as if there was only going to be one goal in it at the break but in the first minute of stoppage-time, a good long-range finish from Stones recent signing Dylan Kadji put his side 3-1 ahead at half-time.

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PHOTOS by James Brown

Wealdstone fielded a completely different side for the second half with seven triallists while the Woods gave some of their players an extra fifteen minutes before making their full number of changes which also included five triallists so it was no real surprise that this period of forty-five minutes lacked the flair of what had already been witnessed.

Chances were few and far between at either end and there was just one goal – with another Stones triallist grabbing the goal on 64 minutes.

The Stones now move on to a home game against Football League side MK Dons while the Woods play Harrow Borough at a neutral venue as the build-up to the season continues.

REPORT by Alan Evans



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