MATCH REPORTS 2008-09
 

AMERSHAM TOWN TOWN RES. 0    NORTHWOOD RES. 3
 

Northwood reserves were back in action on Saturday, refreshed after their break from action last week, and they were up against Amersham Town, who were sitting just above them in the league table. The game was played on a very heavy pitch and Northwood, with a few players missing, brought along five players from their youth team to make up the numbers.

The game started off quite fast with both teams vying for superiority. Both sides had good possession but Northwood were gaining in confidence and started to dictate the pace of the game.

After 25 minutes, Northwood won a corner that was only half cleared and Amersham pushed up only for one defender to stay deep with Jazz Rose, who neatly finished to give Northwood a lead they just about deserved.

Confidence was now flowing and Northwood were making all the running but could not find the elusive second goal, particularly one effort from John Dailey, where he left five Amersham defenders on the floor with a run reminiscent of Maradona against England -   only for the keeper to get an hand to the shot to keep it out. The half-time whistle came and score remained 1-0 to the reds.

Northwood came out for the second half, continuing to dominate, create chances but fail to take them. With 55 minutes gone Amersham had a player sent off for violent conduct and Northwood tried to make the most of the extra man. When a bad back pass from an Amersham defender was cut out by Carl Hunt, he went round the keeper and had the goal at his mercy but he managed to somehow take part in a crossbar challenge to give Amersham a lucky break!

But it could not last, and a couple of minutes later Fidel Williams broke away down the right-hand side and continued into the box. With the defenders waiting for a cut-back, Williams decided to shoot and finished with aplomb.

Northwood went on to hit the post a further two times and should have killed the game off. On sixty minutes Max Duffy replaced Rose and continued to impress with his intelligent reading of the game. Soon after this Will Hudson replaced John Daily, to make his Suburban League debut, and had a chance to put game beyond doubt when from a surging run he showed a little bit of naivety by looking to pass when he had a clear shot at goal, but this will come with experience.

Amersham would not lie down and continued to press, with only some fine goalkeeping from Simon Dean keeping them out. With the home side pushing forward more and more, Dan Briggs was bought on to shore up the defence and at 16 years old, making his debut at this level, his first action was to hit two big tackles on Amersham forwards (one of them over six foot six tall). Eventually after a good ball from Briggs to Courtney Francis, the big forward turned his defender to put the game beyond doubt at 3-0.

The most pleasing point of the day was the number of young players now coming through the youth side. Of the fourteen players on duty, twelve were under the age of 19, with five seventeen year olds completing the match.

Manager Barney says the future is looking rosy for Northwood when you consider that players like Jake O'Meara, Edward Hatcher, Tom Jansons and Elliott Gibbs all playing Allieds football , and are yet to make their reserve team debuts. It goes to show that the good work done last year by youth team managers Phil Hatcher and Jez Riley was beneficial to the club, so perhaps some people should be a little bit more patient with the younger players this year. We also have two very good under sixteen teams run by Jez Riley and Martin Day and over the next couple of months we will be looking to bring some of these players into training.