Beaconsfield Town 1 Northwood 2
Saturday 19th October 2024
| NORTHWOOD | |||
 |
|||
| 1 | Ryan Hopping | ||
| 2 | Junior Paiva | ||
| 3 | Kelechi Etienne | ||
| 4 | Jack Smith | ||
| 5 | Callum Morris | ||
| 6 | Jeremy Stewart | ||
| 7 | Archie James © (84m) | ||
| 8 | Danny Vincent | ||
| 9 | Ade Gbolahan (61m) | ||
| 10 | Godlove Oppong (90m) | ||
| 11 | Harry McKenna | ||
| Substitutes | |||
| 12 | Kojo Gyimah (90m) | ||
| 14 | Yahaya Kamara (84m) | ||
| 15 | Denislav Konstantinov | ||
| 16 | Mattheus Santana (61m) | ||
| 17 | Brian McGovern | ||
The Woods finally notched their first three points of their Southern League season, coming from behind to secure victory at Beaconsfield in the return of their opening-day fixture against the Rams.
There was hope that the Woods would be able to use the confidence of their midweek County Cup win over Brentford B to follow-up in this game against a side who had gone eight games and two months without a win themselves and so it proved.
Ryan Hopping returned in goal after Dan Hosier’s appearance in the Cup game while Junior Paiva started in place of the injured Price Mbengui. The Rams fielded an unchanged side from the one that had got a point at Ware the previous week.
But Northwood got off to the worst possible start as there was less than a minute on the clock when the home side forced an early corner and that was met by a hooked effort from skipper Ben Tricker who got between two defenders to wrongfoot Hopping and beat him at the near-post.
The Woods worked hard to get a foot in the game and after six minutes, Jack Smith touched a free-kick off to Danny Vincent, making his league debut, but his shot flew wide of the far post. A minute later, the tricky Jo Lawal got in a good cross from the left to find the head of Josh Marcon but his header down was comfortably sabed by Hopping.
Neither side managed to gain an advantage in midfield in the first half-hour but then the Woods started to get an edge with Harry McKenna having a shot that was deflected wide and then Vincent tried his luck with a volley that was always climbing too high.
And the equalising goal soon followed on 33 minutes as Smith dispossessed former Woods striker Manu Oke-William, turned and sent a neat ball through into the path of Godlove Oppong who took a touch into the box and then fired past goalkeeper Ed Brearey.
Four minutes later, Kasway Burton tested Hopping from just outside the box but the Woods ‘keeper was equal to it and the scores looked like being level at the break before the Woods grabbed a second in stoppage-time. Vincent led a charge from midfield but an attempted wide ball was cut out by Yonis Farah. However, the defender dallied too long and McKenna, nicked it and played it wide to Archie James. The Woods skipper then slipped it back to McKenna who cut it back from the right where James’s attempt to score actually fell to Ade Gbolahan and he flicked it into the roof of the net for his first Woods goal.
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PHOTOS by James Brown
On 52 minutes, the Rams should have been level as Maksym Jarzabek raced down the left and sent over an inviting cross. Oke-William stretched to divert the ball goalwards but Hopping managed to kick the ball wide. From the resulting corner, Oke-William headed well over.
The Woods were generally defending well though but after Gbolahan picked up a yellow card, he was substituted by Matheus Santana and soon after a well-directed free-kick was again headed over by Oke-William.
The Rams continued to look for an equaliser and their best move of the game saw them break from a Woods corner with a good passing move between Matt Harriot, Burton and substitute Elias Grant saw Jarzabek played into the box down the left but his shot was superbly pushed away by a diving Hopping.
Northwood went close to wrapping up the points on 71 minutes as Vincent latched onto a half-cleared Smith free-kick with a great strike that look destined for the top corner until Brearey flew across to tip it wide of the target.
Back came the Rams again. Substitute Avtandili Akhsiashvili saw a goalbound shot cleared off the line by Paiva, Grant had an effort well saved by Hopping again and then a brilliant overhead-kick attempt from Akiel Raffie flew just wide of the post with Hopping only able to spectate and hope.
But the Woods managed to see out the closing-stages and another eight minutes of stoppage-time to claim all three points. It was the club’s first League win since March, their first away win since February and the first time they had come from behind to win any game since Boxing Day 2022 when they won 2-1 at Southall.
REPORT by Alan Evans
