Yet another player has been added today to Gavin Macpherson’s squad as we look to add numbers and quality to the roster for the new campaign.

Left-back Nino Adom-Malaki, who played as a trialist in the pre-season victory over Spurs under-21, joins us from Millwall where his career was cruelly halted by a serious knee injury but who is now fit and raring to go after his rehabilitation.

During his time at Millwall, where he played primarily in the under-18 and under-21 squads, Nino was loaned out to Sutton United where he made 18 appearances.

“We all saw in the Spurs game what Nino can bring,” said Gavin Macpherson. “Like I said when we signed Tosh Gallimore, it’s all about competition for places and in Nino’s case leftback, wingback and wide midfield.”

“The minute people think they’re going to be picked they can drop a level so it’s all about having a squad that allows me choices with a hell of a lot of games coming up. Having seven subs now also adds to the need to be able to broaden the squad.”

Welcome Nino!

We are delighted to confirm the signing of all-action midfielder T’Sharne “Tosh” Gallimore who came off the bench late on in our opening game of the season at Torquay last Saturday.

Tosh, who turns 25 next week, has joined from Chesham United where he spent five successful years and made 126 appearances.

“I’m trying to build a squad and Tosh has played at this level for a good while,” said Gavin Macpherson.

 “It’s all about competing for positions. Too often last season, we didn’t affect things off the bench and it’s key that everyone fights for their place. Tosh brings another important dynamic to our midfield.”

Welcome Tosh!

Torquay United 3 Enfield Town 1

Report by Andrew Warshaw

Never mind the scoreline, feel the performance. Rarely, if ever, has a two-goal defeat promised so much.

It’s no exaggeration to suggest that on chances alone, Enfield Town’s opening game of the season – on paper one of the toughest trips of the entire campaign – could well have resulted in three points, let alone one.

Instead, we got nothing despite having to field a makeshift back three who had never played together and staging a brave second-half fightback.

Those who weren’t at Torquay on Saturday may question how a 3-1 defeat could be described in such a positive vein but even among the Gulls faithful the narrative at the final whistle was that we were distinctly unfortunate over the 90 minutes.

Such a shame, therefore, that we were playing catch-up so early in the game – the opposite to this time last year when we took a surprise lead on our National League South debut at the same venue, only to ultimately fall short.

Having lost Adam Thompson to a hamstring issue, joining the unavailable Henry Hawkins on the sidelines, Joe Payne was drafted into the back three with Ruaridh Donaldson switching to the middle.

With a couple of others missing too, Town were only able to name five substitutes instead of seven but started on the front foot and looked confident until being hit with a quickfire double blow.

Inside nine minutes, Cody Cooke’s flick-on straight from a Rhys Forster goal-kick found Louis Dennis who supplied the finish and two minutes later, we found ourselves further behind.

When the linesman controversially kept his flag down, Jordan Young ran on to the highly influential Matt Worthington’s inch-perfect pass and produced a sumptuous strike that no keeper was going to save.

Worthington, on whom Torquay have placed great hope this season, was running the show from his deep-lying midfield role and at this point, his team were too slick and too clever for Town, finding pockets of space, timing runs with precision  and exploiting an unfamiliar defence.

 But on 25 minutes Town so nearly halved the deficit when James Hamon pulled off a remarkable save from Lemar Reynolds’ close-range strike. Had the ball twirled the other way, it would have ended up in the Torquay net. Instead it spun against the post before being cleared.

It was indicative of Town’s ill-luck and by halftime we were three down courtesy of Cooke’s perfectly struck side-foot penalty after Payne was beaten on his inside and pulled down Young.

While they controlled much of the first half,  Torquay were nothing if not physical and a couple of crunching challenges on Xavier Benjamin and Billy Leonard resulted in yellow cards though the hit on the latter might easily have resulted in red.

H-T 0-3

The hosts may have been anticipating a landslide  but Town had other ideas and instead of damage limitation, we poured forward.

 Once  Forster had clawed away Sonny Blu Lo-Everton’s  curling effort to save us conceding again, we took over as Torquay’s intensity dropped.  

Just after the hour mark, Mickey Parcell was in the right place at right time with a half-driven tap in – apparently his first goal from open play since his return to the club — and from then on, it was one-way traffic.

Sam Youngs went close to finishing off a sublime four-man move, Tommy Wood’s header found Hamon in sparkling form again, Hayden Bullas had a shot deflected wide and substitute Harry Lodovica‘s first-time effort struck Hamon before bouncing up on to the bar instead of into the net.

There were more lucky escapes for Torquay, who were struggling with Joe Payne’s long throws. With 10 minutes left, Reynolds, clean through on goal moments after seemingly been struck in the face like a clothes line with nothing given, shot agonisingly wide of the far post. Then Avan Jones, during seven minutes of stoppage time,  found himself free at the far post but couldn’t direct Donaldson’s corner towards goal.

One ominous sight for Town was Benjamin limping off with what may have been concussion following a clash of heads with Cooke that delayed the game for five minutes and forced Town into yet another defensive switch.

Late on, there were cameo outings for new signings Matty Macarther and midfielder T’Shane Gallimore and the tremendous ovation the players got from the travelling faithful at the final whistle said everything about the effort and fighting spirit which augurs well for the new campaign.

“When you go 3-0 down, it’s a very difficult road back against any opposition,” said Gavin Macpherson. “We made some poor decisions at the start and that’s massively understandable. I know that’s a weird thing to say because you never accept that. But if we had Tommy and Henry, those goals simply don’t happen. We had a totally makeshift back three, square pegs in round holes, and ended up playing three fullbacks instead of three centrehalves.”

“Once they got themselves together, we stepped up and how we haven’t got at least a draw against top opposition, I don’t know. All in all, I’m absolutely delighted with them.  I never thought we were massively short of Torquay and my over-riding feeling is lots of promising signs.”

“I wasn’t allowing damage limitation. Our supporters are the best in this league, no question. They acknowledged how the team put a shift in and just fell short. The fantastic support from the warmup to the end, you wouldn’t get that at any other club in this division.”

Town:

Forster; Benjamin (Macarthur 79), Donaldson, Payne; Jones, Parcell (Gallimore 88), Bullas (Brown 81), Youngs, Leonard; Wood (Lodovica 75), Reynolds

By Andrew Warshaw

Enfield Town may not be able to match some other clubs in National League South when it comes to full-time status and daily training schedules which is why fitness levels could prove a key element throughout the campaign – starting at Torquay tomorrow.

At various intervals during pre-season on the training pitch, Town employed a strength and development expert in Leon Braithwaite, designed to get us up to speed for the long haul ahead.

Leon, brother of former Olympic sprinter Darren Braithwaite, is close friends with Jon Nurse, the pair having taken their coaching badges together. The rest, as they say, is history.

Leon, who played professionally as a striker with Exeter City but who has widespread non-league experience and a close affinity with ETFC having represented us in 2006-7, spent a number of training sessions in the build-up to Torquay fine-tuning fitness levels in order to improve our ability to compete with the so-called bigger teams in the division.

“If you haven’t got the biggest budget, one way you can compensate for that is fitness to give yourself a fighting chance,” said Leon who is also a qualified sports psychologist and first lent his expertise to Town back in February last season when fitness levels needed a boost for the tough run-in.

It proved such a success in helping Town achieve their goal of survival that he was invited back in pre-season to put the players through their paces.

 “I spoke to Gavin and Nursey earlier in the summer and we devised a plan. Small margins help in football. The fitter you are, the more concentrated you are and you don’t get drawn out of certain positions. Your mindset is stronger in terms of attention to detail and being more adaptable,” explained Leon.

“The players embraced me with open arms. Everyone is fitter and stronger by about 20 percent than when I arrived for my first training session. They might be under the cosh at times in certain games and of course natural ability helps. But I believe you can also accrue points simply through fitness levels, especially when you’re not full-time. They got better and better in pre-season. From what I’ve seen, I have no doubt the club can compete this season.”

We are delighted to announce the signing of Matty Macarthur, who joins us following a successful period on trial.

Matty is an English-Australian winger who has impressed as a trialist, scoring in our recent victory over Spurs U21 and providing an assist in our win at Wingate & Finchley. He featured on 22 occasions for fellow NLS side Farnborough last season, chipping in with 3 goals and 2 assists. The 20-year-old has also worn the shirts of Gillingham, Tonbridge Angels, and Dartford.

“Matty has been with us for a couple of weeks and he wanted to have a look at us as well as vice-versa,” said Gavin Macpherson. “He’ll be a very welcome addition to the squad. He scored a great goal against Spurs, works hard, is tenacious and has ability. Everything I like in a player.”

Welcome, Matty!

Enfield Town 2 Tottenham Hotspur under-21 1

Report by Andrew Warshaw

First Arsenal, then Spurs. As morale boosters go, Enfield Town couldn’t have asked for much more as we ended our pre-season campaign with another impressive showing ahead of the big kick-off at Torquay on Saturday.

A week after beating Arsenal’s under-21 side, another terrific goal from Lamar Reynolds plus a superb strike from the peroxide-haired triallist who has been so eye-catching of late gave us a well-deserved win over our near-neighbours in the annual fixture that has become an integral part of our pre-season campaign.

The management team, who again made wholesale changes in the second half in order to have a final look at a string of hopeful recruits, are bound to have spotted elements that still need tweaking ahead of the daunting trip to Devon but there’s an argument to suggest that we are peaking at the right time which augurs well for the weeks ahead.

Despite their youth, three of the Tottenham side had first-team squad experience on their side but just like against Arsenal, Town were the better side for large periods of the game against full-time opponents.

Tottenham had an early let-off when Reynolds lashed the ball wide after being put clean through but Lamar made no mistake with his second opportunity on 23 minutes, running on to Tommy Wood’s  sublime headed flick to finish with aplomb.

Spurs of course had their moments, Luca Williams-Barnett beating the offside trap and shooting across goal and Xavier Benjamin having to clear his lines  in the nick of time. At the other end, Billy Leonard was a constant threat and only a last-ditch clearance by Malacki Hardy prevented us doubling our lead.

You can’t make mistakes against full-time opponents, however ,and when the otherwise reliable Ruaridh Donaldson was disposssed by Russell-Denny three minutes before the break, the same player ran through to equalise.

Before the halftime whistle, Wood looped a header just over the bar from a corner and within  moments of the restart we should have moved further in front. Halftime sub Harry Ludovica was clipped from behind but smashed his penalty against the top of the bar.

By the end of the game, Town had made a full 11 changes but if anything we were even stronger in the second half as further chances came for Ludovica and Evan Jones though Reiss Elliott-Parris should have scored for Spurs with a bullet header.

The game was won just after the hour mark  when the afore-mentioned blond-haired triallist, put through down the right by Mickey Parcell, checked back on to his left foot and drove the ball expertly into the far corner (pictured).

Ethan Cann, a new name on the Town bench, then conjured up a superb block on the line to keep us in front and Bailey Brown’s header almost extended our advantage late on.

All in all, a highly encouraging evening’s work to get us in the groove.

“The one thing I demand from the players is hard work and energy and I was pleased with that,” said Gavin Macpherson. “We were a bit wasteful but we’ve made huge strides since Wingate and Finchley. You always get a lull in pre-season at some point…but the important thing is to finish pre-season strongly and do the right things. The result tonight was the cherry on the cake.”

“I’ve got to be pleased with where we are but I also have to acknowledge that we’re playing Torquay away in front of a big crowd with everything stacked against us. There’s continuity from the second half of last season which helps going forward and we’ve added some players we’re very happy with. The partnership up front is something we couldn’t produce last season. We are still a couple light but we will plan and prepare for Torquay to try and get the best out of the game we can.”

First-half line-up

Enfield Town: Forster, Benjamin, Thompson, Donaldson, Bullas, Parcell (c), Leonard, Youngs, Wood, Reynolds, Triallist A. Substitutes: Connolly, Jones, Payne, Hawkins, Cann, Brown, Trialist B, Trialist C, Trialist D, Ludovica, Trialist E.

Second half subs:  Connolly; Jones, Payne, Hawkins, Cann, Brown, Triallist b, Triallist c, triallist d, Lodovica, triallist e

We are delighted to confirm the addition of central midfielder Hayden Bullas, who joins us on a season-long work experience loan from Leyton Orient.

The 18-year-old has featured in our last two pre-season friendly wins against Arsenal and Wingate & Finchley, and last season played 27 times for Dartford, helping them into the Isthmian Premier play-offs.

Welcome, Hayden!