Colin Payne took his Northwood squad the few miles down the road to play Spartan South Midlands League neighbours Harefield United on Tuesday night for what has always been a tough pre-season fixture.

The Hares finished last season as runners-up to promoted Edgware Town so it would be a good tester for the Woods, even at this early stage of the season.

It was pretty much the same squad as played against the Metropolitan Police on Saturday but Douglas Kissule and Aryan Taj were away in a tournament, while Danny Murphy and Chris Mills returned from holiday and injury respectively. Goalkeeper Bill Fishenden also made his first appearance of the campaign.

Harefield’s side included former Northwood players in the legendary Gary Williams, Luke Eldridge and Craig Totton.

Northwood started strongly and Dean Clark wasn’t far away with an audacious lob from 40 yards which almost caught out the ‘keeper. But Harefield looked confident going forward, too, though their efforts on goal were a little wayward.

After 17 minutes, the home side were gifted the opening goal when Kevin McKenna’s quick free-kick was intercepted and, as the Hares striker burst into the area, he was brought down by goalkeeper Liam Watson. A penalty was the inevitable result and Sean Sonner scored from the spot.

Harefield went close to adding to that scoreline and the Woods then lost Elliott Buchanan to injury on the half-hour. A change of formation though then led to the equalising goal. Jerome Hall was the architect with a mazy dribble which took him past three defenders before he slipped an excellent ball through to Dean Clark, who slotted home.

Clark almost added his second a couple of minutes later when some excellent play from Danny Murphy and Lee Holland set him up close in, but his shot found the side-netting.

Just before the end of the half, the Hares came into it again and after Liam Watson had made one good save at the foot of the post, Sean Sonner added a second Harefield goal with a shot which deflected past Watson off Perry Norman.

The second-half saw Bill Fishenden, Terry Hogan, Dave Tilbury and Chris Mills replace Liam Watson, James Elliott, Perry Norman and Kevin McKenna, while Harefield made a similar number of changes themselves.

It was after 59 minutes that the best move of the game saw Ollie Goodwin level the scores again following excellent work from Chris Mills and Dean Clark.

Clark had a stinging shot saved five minutes later but after 66 minutes, the Woods forced their way in front.

Following a corner, the ball fell to Chris Mills just outside the box and he had two goes at getting in a shot at goal, the second crashing in off the underside of the crossbar.

Northwood held on comfortably from then, and went closest to adding to the score when Goodwin burst through but saw his shot well-saved.