Northwood 2 Metropolitan Police 1
Tuesday 25th July 2017
| NORTHWOOD | Pre-season friendly | |
 |
Chestnut Avenue | |
| Team line-up | Scorers A Triallist 2 |
|
| 1 | A Triallist | |
| 2 | Pat Kelly | |
| 3 | Pat Adamson | |
| 4 | Wilson Chingoka | |
| 5 | Brad Hewitt | |
| 6 | Lewis Hobbs | |
| 7 | A Triallist | |
| 8 | Tom McDonnell | |
| 9 | Ryan Debattista | |
| 10 | Tayshan Hayden-Smith | |
| 11 | Harry Newman | |
| Substitutes | ||
| 12 | Kojo Gyimah | |
| 14 | James Gurteen | |
| 15 | Cameron Lyttle | |
| 16 | Taku Mashingaidze | |
| 17 | Hamza Miezou | |
| 18 | Jamie Doolan | |
| 19 | A Triallist | |
| 20 | A Triallist | |
| 21 | ||
The Woods enjoyed success in their first match back at their Northwood Park ground this pre-season with an enjoyable 2-1 success over Bostik League (formerly Ryman) Premier side Metropolitan Police.
Both sides are building for the new campaign which is still a couple of weeks away, so both had a handful of triallists on show but it was one of the Northwood triallists who shone most as he bagged both goals for the Woods.
Simon Lane’s charges set up with a formation of four at the back and knocked the ball around well throughout the first half, with Harry Newman impressing on the left and creating a couple of opportunities which were well saved by Mets keeper Mohammed Mostafa.
The visitors had veteran ex-Fulham and Brentford (and many others) striker Calum Willock up front alongside Lewis Putnam but they were well harnessed by returning Woods favourite Brad Hewitt alongside Barnet loanee Lewis Hobbs.
The opening goal came on 35 minutes as some good work on the right led to a shot that crept in past Mostafa and then early in the second half the same player fired into an empty net after successfully beating the keeper to a cross and then sweeping in the loose ball.
The Police did hit back almost immediately, though, when the Woods got caught short at the back and a flicked header allowed Anthony Kosakis to fire home past Northwood’s otherwise untroubled triallist goalkeeper.
A number of substitutions followed and as tends to be the way, the performance dropped off a little but the Woods could have added further goals, missing a couple of excellent opportunities from shots that flashed wide of the target.
Overall, Lane can be fairly pleased with the pre-season campaign to date, with the Woods winning each of the five games played, mainly by a narrow margin, as he looks to finalise his squad, though he is also aware that there are improvements still to be made in certain areas.
