Match Report

MATCH REPORT
Peckham Town 3 Enfield Borough 2

Enfield Borough had their first run out of the season on Saturday when they lost 3-2 at Peckham Town. Fielding a team with a backbone of four first team regulars supplemented by a mixture of youth team players and trialists, Borough took the lead in just eight minutes. A half-cleared corner was returned to the goalmouth where Mitch Goddard mishit his shot but the ball landed perfectly for Malachi Soile who drove it into the roof of the net. The lead was short-lived as four minutes later a ball through the Borough defence was collected by Hamid Bangura who calmly slotted it past the advancing Dragos Stefanoaica. With both teams playing their first games of the season in such warm conditions, the pace of the match was a credit to the fitness of all of the players. Peckham had the majority of the chances with Stefanoaica called to action on several occasions to keep his goal intact. It was approaching half-time when Borough took the lead again when Rinidie Lokilo was given a reward for his hard work in closing down as one of the defenders lost his footing and the striker was on hand to drill the ball into the corner of the net.

At the interval Borough made a number of changes in personnel but dispute the disruption they nearly increased their lead when Lokilo connected with a left wing cross but his attempt crashed against the post and rebounded to safety. Peckham levelled ten minutes after the break when a free-kick from thirty-five yards was driven into the penalty box where it ricocheted into the path of David Gabor who fired low past Harry Cooke. More substitutions were made by both sides as the match progressed and some of the continuity was lost. Borough’s best opportunity was created by Albion Begaj who picked up the ball on halfway before heading for goal. Keeping his marker at bay, the striker got to the edge of the penalty area where he shot only to see the ball deflected for corner. But it was Peckham who got the decisive strike ten minutes from time when Gabor was given too much time and space to lay the ball off to the unmarked Fidele Kassindi whose shot beat Cooke and nestled in the back of the net.

Manager Anthony McNamee was happy with the workout. “It was a good match in very testing conditions. It was important to see the lads in a match situation rather than just on the training pitch. Results at this stage are not the most important thing, we need to build up match fitness in the next few games and give all the trialists a good opportunity to show us what they can do. But this was a decent start to the season.”

Team; Stefanoaica (Cooke), K.Jordan, T.Jordan (Penn), Soile (Goddard), Goddard (Wane), Hassan, Wopara (Ndongaoa) Mwamba-Whitney (Pollock), Lokilo (Borges), Bailey (Polledri), Begaj.