Northwood Res. 2 Eastbourne Borough Res. 2

Saturday 5th March 2011

Northwood Res.		Suburban League Chestnut Avenue, Northwood
Ben Dowsett	1	Kick Off
Reece Fallon	2	3.00 p.m.
Dwaine Cole-Parkes	3	H/T
Sean Hollowed	4	1-1
Dominic Franklin	5	Scorers
Lucas Williams	6	Northwood
Jack Hutchinson	7	Walker 2
Liam McGrath	8
Timi Salako	9
Romaine Walker	10
Pat Lawrence	11
Prince Alozie (8)	12
Matt Andrews (9)	14
Dujon Desagurante (11)	15
	16
	17

The Suburban League fixtures seem to be coming thick and fast at present, and on Saturday the Woods played host to the club the furthest away from Northwood, Conference side Eastbourne Borough. The return game next weekend will be a challenge! Anyway, the Woods had to make some changes from the side which played in the previous game, and yet more youngsters are being given a chance to shine.

The game started at one minute past 3 o’clock, but the Woods did not start playing until approximately 12 minutes later. To be frank, we were awful: Eastbourne were faster than us and actually trying and we did not seem to have a clue.

But after the opening chaos, we started to string some passes together and it was like someone had switched the Woods on! Jack Hutchinson started spraying passes and Liam McGrath was winning at lot of good ball and now it was game on. The Woods back four were now in charge and Sean Hollowed and Dwaine Cole-Parkes got on top of the visitors. Reece Fallon was outstanding and the football had a lot of purpose.

Bad habits sometimes take a while to get rid of, and the visitors took the lead when bad marking gave them a chance. But the young Northwood heads did not go down, and Jack Hutchinson put Romaine Walker clear, and he levelled the scores with style. During this period, some bad finishing coupled with good goalkeeping denied the Woods their just deserts.

At half-time the players’ commitment was questioned, and they responded by coming out with a different attitude. The Woods were taking the game to Eastbourne, and chances upon chances were coming and going. Eventually justice was done and Romaine Walker – who else? – got his second, although it maybe should have been a hat-trick by now. 

Northwood continued to create, but as usual, towards the end the legs were getting tired, so the subs came on and the Woods continued where they had left off. Into time added on and the Woods conceded a goal against the run of play. However there was still time for the Woods to rescue the game when Romaine had the goal at his mercy, and three other players also could have scored to bring maximum points, but it was not to be.

But this was a giant step forward for the young Woods, and it was good to see the disappointment in the young players faces as this result hurt, and the feeling is that if we pull together we can continue to improve. The lads have a busy week coming up, with first Tooting & Mitcham away, followed with the return fixture at Eastbourne next Saturday.

GEOFF FOSTER - Manager