There was little to like or enjoy about this feisty and ill-tempered encounter in the Woods first-ever meeting with their Northamptonshire hosts. Mark Barnham went into the game without Jamie Lindsay, Kyle Matthews, Danny Power, Sam Sharples and Ryan Tackley, so there was a call-up for reserve full-back Tom Kennedy in the left-back position. For the home side, they welcomed back their former ace goalscorer Tom Berwick on-loan from Nuneaton Town, where he has failed to win a regular place in their Conference North side.

The Woods started well, with home goalkeeper Andrew Kemp failing to hold a long-range effort from Rodney Hicks but without cost, and then Anthony Page forced Kemp into a similar save which he held onto well.
But Daventry clearly had the edge in aerial power and strength and when they started to pump long-balls towards the box, it caused problems for the Woods defence. Having scrambled one ball away and blocked the following Adam Confue shot, the tall Russell Dunkley rose unopposed to head home the resulting corner and give the Town a tenth minute lead.

The home side took control of the first-half at this point, taking advantage of their height up front but also moving the ball around confidently. This was backed up by the constant appeals for free-kicks at every challenge in the midfield area as Daventry Assistant Manager Paul Lamb was allowed free rein to run the game by the Referee, also somehow avoiding a caution despite three incidents of delaying the restart in quick succession.

Dunckley and Berwick both tested Mitch Swain in quick succession with the only respite being a Hicks free-kick that was met by an Anthony Page header which lacked any direction. Eventually the pressure told as Ryan Howell and Berwick took advantage of space gained by what looked like a foul on Kennedy to combine neatly with the result being a delightful chip from Howell that gave Swain no chance.

It was after 31 minutes that Daventry’s Confue picked up the first yellow card of the afternoon for a foul on Page but there would be plenty more to follow after the break. Just before half-time, Josh Urquhart combined with Page to again fire in a shot which was well held by a diving Kemp while Aaron Parkinson flicked a header just over the top from another set-piece.

The game was pretty much all-over just ninety seconds into the second-half when the home side scored again in similar fashion to their second goal. This time Scott Raper was left injured on the floor following a clear foul that went unseen by the officials and Berwick held the ball up well before setting up Josh O’Grady to score with an accurate drive across the goal into the far corner.

The Woods made a concerted effort to get back into the match with Leon Osei finally making a contribution when cutting in from the left and beating two defenders before his cross was cut out by Kemp at the near-post. Then a ball chipped forward saw Scott Orphanou’s hard work pay off as he got between defender and goalkeeper only to be taken down by a combination of the two. Despite falling about twelve feet inside the area, a free-kick and a yellow card for the ‘keeper was one of the outcomes. The other was Orphanou being helped off with what has turned out to be a broken ankle, being replaced by Aaron Cato. On the brighter side, Dean Wallace stepped up to curl the free-kick up and over the wall to convert his first goal for the club.

Sadly, that was a good as it got. John Christian went to retrieve the ball from the net to get the game moving and in the usual confrontation that follows such action, Kemp went down as if pole-axed and a tedious melee followed, the first of several, involving a coming together of virtually every player on the field. Why teams do this is somewhat mystifying, as it merely serves to allow the Match Officials to liberally issue cards to players deemed to have become too involved and they rarely see everything, so the result is pretty random. On this occasion it was Northwood’s Osei and Daventry’s Jason Lee whose turn it was for the yellow card; neither being particularly involved.

It was downhill from there. Mark Burgess and Berwick were both cautioned after squaring up to each other as the atmosphere, not helped by the baying crowd of drinkers watching from the home side’s balcony area above the main stand, began to turn sour.

Back to the game, and the Woods went close to reducing the arrears further when Osei knocked down a Kennedy cross to Wallace and his shot saw Kemp dive to push the ball round the post. The stuffing was knocked out of the Northwood comeback after 75 minutes when when Lamb took a quick free-kick which caught the defence off-guard and O’Grady netted again, this time with a curling cross-shot which flew in at the far post.

While it was the Woods who went closest to scoring in the following ten minutes with Cato and  Wallace and both seeing their good efforts well saved by Kemp, the game was always on the verge of boiling over and it finally did after 87 minutes. A simple offside decision against Daventry and suddenly there was another free-for-all. The Referee again appeared to have to rely on his assistant to make any decision on what action to take and the upshot at first appeared to be just a yellow card for Urquhart, who had pushed Daventry sub Andy Baird when trying to retrieve the ball. But it didn’t end there as the assistant from the other diagonal intervened and advised two more yellow cards, to Baird and Burgess, the latter converting to a red for the Woods defender.

As he traipsed off to the dressing-room he reacted to further words from a home player which resulted in another altercation. Then, as he was leaving the pitch Burgess was soaked in beer thrown by one individual from the howling balcony above, before being confronted by another spectator who jumped the pitch barrier. Thankfully, a few words were all that were exchanged at that point and what could have been a nasty incident passed by. Ironically, it was some of the people from the balcony that then donned steward’s jackets to patrol the tunnel area for the remainder of the game.

Romaine Walker made a telling effort on goal just into stoppage-time, dancing his way through the Daventry defence and hitting a shot which was deflected inches wide by the ‘keeper, while the home side could have added a fifth in the final minute as substitute Simieon Williams skied his shot after a mistake from Swain.

Report by ALAN EVANS

Photos by James Brown