Enfield Town 0 Bishop’s Stortford 2

Report by Andrew Warshaw

Enfield Town’s seven-match unbeaten run was halted in its tracks as equally in-form Bishop’s Stortford completed a rare league double over us on Saturday.

For once we failed to live up to our reputation as the division’s great entertainers but we are still in a fantastic position in the runners-up spot as the race for playoff places intensifies.

Rian Bray and Lee Chappell were both unavailable for different reasons while Manny Maja has only just resumed training after a lengthy injury absence.

No team can win every game and this was simply an off-day, something that all our play-off rivals have suffered over the last few weeks as we claimed victory after victory.

If our visitors were slightly fortunate to win the corresponding game with that last-ditch goal back in November, on this occasion they on balance deserved the three points.

Stortford were quicker to the ball and more composed than Town and managed to keep our strike force quiet for most of the game.

After a scrappy first 20 minutes  in front of a bumper 754 crowd, the Blues took the lead on 23 minutes as Ryan Charles ran on to Frankie Merrifield’s defence-splitting pass to beat Nathan McDonald who got a hand to the shot but couldn’t keep it out.

Town have been scoring goals for fun but on this occasion hardly troubled a defence marshalled superbly by skipper Ryan Henshaw.

H-T 0-1

 Three minutes after the break, our visitors doubled their lead as Merrifield converted from the penalty spot, sending McDonald the wrong way after Charles was barged over by John Muleba.

Lyle Della-Verde and Sam Youngs both had chances to reduce the deficit but it wasn’t until Adam Cunnington and Bilal Sayoud came off the bench that we posed any real threat.

Whilst no-one can take anything away from  Stortford, who closed us down at every opportunity, the fact remains that the players and management team have a superb job getting us to where we are now, something all of us would have taken at the start of the season.

It’s just a shame Jake Cass didn’t get a chance to shine against his old team and that we again dropped points against one of our play-off rivals who look certain to be in the mix with us come the run-in.

On the plus side, which cannot be emphasized enough, we have two highly winnable games – against Wingate and Finchley on Tuesday and Leatherhead on Saturday – before the eagerly awaited clash at Worthing.

Andy Leese summed up our performance as “bitterly disappointing. We never really got going and seemed a bit too anxious.”

“We didn’t start well. The things we’d asked to do  we weren’t doing. I thought at halftime we were in it. I thought we could go with two strikers and then we concede a penalty at a poor time. More disappointingly after that, we didn’t really create a lot. But credit to Stortford, they are good at what they do.”

Town:

McDonald; Muleba, Smith, Gyebi, Kirwan (Sayoud, 69); Thomas, youngs, Kiangebeni (Taafe, 77), Della-Verde; Cass (Cunnington 66), Faal

Tomorrow, Saturday, we entertain third-placed Bishop’s Stortford in another proverbial six-pointer given even greater spice by Jake Cass, if selected, playing against his former club.

After four straight league wins, we are anticipating a bumper attendance as we try and gain revenge for Stortford’s last-gasp victory in the corresponding fixture in November when Jake, ironically, gave them the lead from the penalty spot.

Town have taken an impressive 16 points from our last six games (five wins and a draw) while Stortford have lost only one of their last 25 and most recently won convincingly 3-0 at Potters Bar on Tuesday, making Saturday’s eagerly awaited clash all the more mouth-watering.

Andre Coker remains suspended pending the referee’s report after his sending off against Kingstonian.

Since we are expecting one our biggest crowds of the season we suggest you arrive a little earlier than usual to ensure everyone is in the ground by kick off.

COYT

Bowers & Pitsea 1-4 Enfield Town

Report by Martin Bentley

Another thoroughly professional performance saw Enfield Town bank another three points with a comfortable 4-1 win over Bowers & Pitsea at the Len Salmon Stadium. With Bishop’s Stortford, Folkestone and Hornchurch all dropping points, this was another very good day to be a Town supporter.

An unchanged Town line-up got off to the perfect start when they were awarded a free kick 20 yards from goal after 6 minutes. Lyle Della-Verde stepped up to curl a delicious free kick past home keeper Mitchell Beeney and into the bottom corner, and Town were up and running. Jake Cass narrowly cleared Beeney’s crossbar a minute later as Town threatened to overrun their hosts.

Bowers came into the game more as the half wore on, with wingers Quentin Monville and Norman Wabo causing a few uncomfortable moments, although their only clear sight of goal came on 28 minutes when Wabo’s shot was well saved by Nathan McDonald.

Town were always looking dangerous though, and doubled their lead on 36 minutes. Mo Faal gathered up a loose ball on the left wing, and proceeded to tie home full-back Alex Bentley in knots before crossing low onto the boot of the grateful Jerry Gyebi.

Seven minutes later it was 3-0 and game over, Sam Youngs unleashing a proverbial tank shell from 25 yards into Beeney’s top right corner. Wonderful stuff.

For a long time, the second half was routine. Home substitute Mitch Gilbey tested McDonald a couple of times, and Wabo succeeded in pulling a goal back after 58 minutes with a neat glancing header from a James White free kick out on the left. Town were always going to have the last word in this one though and, after Youngs had headed against the post, and Cass had an effort deflected narrowly over, it was Town’s hard-working centre forward who added a fourth goal in stoppage time after being set up by Percy Kiangebeni.

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Town line-up: McDonald; Chappell (Muleba 86), Smith, Gyebi, Bray; Thomas, Kiangebeni, Youngs; Della Verde (Sayoud 78), Faal (Taaffe 88), Cass.

Unused subs: McLeod, Kirwan

Enfield Town 3-3 Barking (Barking won 4-3 on penalties)

Report by Martin Bentley

Enfield Town’s defence of the Velocity Trophy lasted just 90 minutes, as they were edged out in a penalty shoot-out after yet another lively encounter at the QEII.

As expected, Andy Leese rang the changes, with only Sam Youngs, Jerry Gyebi, Percy Kiangebeni, Jake Cass and Lyle Della-Verde retaining their places from Saturday’s win over Margate. There were debuts for Kraig McLeod, Alex Solomon and youngster Emmanual Adebiyi, as well as a second debut for the returning Bilal Sayoud.

Any thoughts of a comfortable win for the Town were dispelled in the 10th minute, when the visitors’ Freddie Parker slammed a shot against the foot of Adi Connolly’s post. Throughout the first half, Barking played swift, incisive football, aided, it must be said, by some very poor Town passing and decidedly benevolent defending. By the end of the half, the visitors had opened up a 3-1 lead, courtesy of two goals from the dangerous Parker and one from his strike partner Charlie Heatley. Town’s sole reply came from the lively Sayoud, who accelerated on to Della-Verde’s pass to beat Barking keeper James Shaw with a thumping finish on 39 minutes.

The second half saw a spirited Town rally. Barking, rather strangely, substituted both centre halves at half time, and the game turned in Town’s favour. Jake Cass galloped onto Kiangebeni’s through ball to reduce the deficit on 56 minutes, and, 11 minutes later they were level; a corner was cleared to Sayoud on the edge of the box, and he belted a powerful shot through a crowd of players into the bottom corner. The winning goal just wouldn’t come however, despite a fusillade of Lee Chappell long throws, which were dealt with by the visitors’ second string defence comfortably. With Barking also creating a couple of hairy moments for Town at the other end, the game reached a thoroughly entertaining conclusion.

Apart from the penalty shoot-out that is. Town did not have many proven penalty takers on the field by then, but the loss was still disappointing. For the record, Cass, Sayoud and Solomon all scored their kicks, with Chappell and Matt Walsh having theirs saved. Connolly produced one excellent save from Louis Dillon’s kick, while keeper Shaw’s kick flew over the bar to take the shoot-out to sudden death. Unfortunately, Adebiyi, who had been excellent as a second half substitute, skied his kick to give the victory to Barking.

Nothing to get too concerned about here though. Back to the more important matter of league points on Saturday.

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Town line-up: Connolly, Muleba (Chappell 66), Kirwan, Youngs (Solomon 79), Gyebi, McLeod, Kiangebeni (Adebiyi 55), Taaffe (Walsh 79), Cass, Sayoud, Della Verde (Nichols 66)

We are very pleased to announce the signing of Bilal Sayoud, who has returned for a second spell in a Town shirt.

Forward Bilal began his career through the Nike Academy before moving on to Coventry City. Since then, he spent time with us at Enfield Town, as well as Hendon and Met Police before joining Wingate & Finchley in December 2019. He swapped Wingate for Potters Bar in December 2021, and has now re-joined Town for the final push to the end of the season.

Manager Andy Leese added: “We have moved to bring Bilal back to the club. We have one or two issues in the squad looming next month and signing Bilal again will help us.

He’s matured since he was here last, both his physicality and his all round game. He’s added goals to his game as well and is more versatile as he showed when he played against us this season.

I’m sure you’ll welcome him back as he’s goes in to the squad tomorrow night.”

Enfield Town 4-0 Margate

Report by Martin Bentley

Enfield Town moved to within two points of leaders Worthing after an almost complete performance saw them beat play-off contenders Margate by four clear goals. With Worthing, Lewes and Bishops Stortford all dropping points, this was almost a perfect afternoon for the Town, with the majority of the 625 crowd thoroughly enjoying themselves.

Town recalled Jerry Gyebi to the back line with Nathan Smith moving to left back. New signings Kraig Noel-McLeod and Alex Solomon were both on the subs’ bench.

The game was played in a stiff end-to-end breeze, with both teams attempting to make use of it with a plentiful supply of crosses. Lyle Della-Verde’s dead ball kicks and Lee Chappell’s long throw-ins were causing visiting keeper Billy Johnson no end of problems, while the visitors’ Ben Greenhalgh was firing the ball in from all angles at the other end, but with limited end product. It was from a Chappell throw that Town struck the first blow on 37 minutes, Mo Faal smashing in a loose ball from a flick-on.

After the break, Town doubled their lead after Margate goalie Billy Johnson missed his kick on the edge of the box, leaving Jake Cass to finish into the empty net. After that, the home side took over completely. Sam Youngs’ long-range header ended up on the roof of the net, and Johnson somehow juggled a corner against his own post, before saving Youngs’ follow-up. After 65 minutes, Town made the game safe when Cass flicked on Nathan McDonald’s long kick into the path of Faal, who finished expertly to Johnson’s left.

Faal then hit the crossbar after 79 minutes, Adam Cunnington’s follow-up effort being cleared off the line. Town’s top scorer then completed his hat-trick in injury time with a well-taken penalty following a trip on Della Verde. The celebrations were long and raucous at the final whistle. Just how far can this Town team go?

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Town line-up: McDonald; Chappell, Smith, Gyebi, Bray; Thomas, Kiangebeni (Taaffe 80), Youngs; (Cunnington 74), Della-Verde, Faal, Cass

Unused subs: Noel-McLeod, Solomon, Muleba

Before Saturday’s Pitching In Isthmian Premier Division match with Margate, we are happy to confirm the signings of two new players. Defenders Kraig Noel-McLeod and Alex Solomon have joined and are available for selection.

Grenada international Kraig has played with Brightlingsea Regent and Clacton so far this season, and spent time with QPR and Norwich City in his early career. Alex has been called up by Cyprus Under-17s, and was on the books at Leyton Orient for the past two years.

Manager Andy Leese said: “Both lads have been training with us for a while. Alex has been released at Leyton Orient and can play a number of positions but primarily is a defender. Kraig is a centre-half or left-back and has a good pedigree. We need some depth to the squad at moment and both lads give us quality options.”

Two goals either side of half time saw Enfield Town bag a hard-earned victory over a hard-working Carshalton side who looked the better side for much of the first half. The win saw Town hang on to second place in the league on a night where Worthing, Lewes and Bishops Stortford all recorded wins to leave the top of the table looking largely unchanged.

The Town fielded an unchanged line-up from Saturday’s spectacular win over Kingstonian, but this was to turn out to be a vastly different sort of game. In fact, the opening half hour was a case of dustcart following Lord Mayor’s show, as Town struggled to put together any constructive moves, with a Sam Youngs header that was well saved by Brad House in the visitors’ goal being their only effort of note. Carshalton were buzzing purposefully around Nathan McDonald’s penalty area, and got their noses in front after 22 minutes, when a fortuitous rebound landed at the feet of winger Lewis White, who beat McDonald with a low shot to his right.

Slowly but surely, Town clawed their way back into the game. Both Jake Cass and Sam Youngs fired decent efforts over the bar before the equaliser arrived three minutes before half time, Nathan Smith bringing a bout of penalty area pinball to a satisfactory conclusion by striking a crisp half-volley into the net via House’s left-hand post.

After just two minutes of the second half, however, Town found themselves in front courtesy of the ever-reliable Mo Faal. His effort from the edge of the box was hardly hit with anything resembling venom, yet the ball somehow sneaked into the bottom corner, with House appearing to misjudge the direction of the shot. Five minutes later Faal beat House to a long through ball, only for his shot to be cleared off the line by Bradley Williams. Lyle Della-Verde picked up the loose ball and pinged a low cross back across the goal just out of the reach of Cass’ despairing lunge. Della-Verde and Cass both saw shots fly over as Town maintained the pressure, but the decisive third goal wouldn’t come.

The visitors’ late rally came to very little as Town defended well, and Faal even managed three further efforts in stoppage time, one just wide of the post, one well saved by House and one over the bar. This was a game in stark contrast to the win over Kingstonian, but Andy Leese’s side showed a pleasing resilience to bank three points in tougher circumstances.

“We could’ve taken the pressure off and made life a little bit easier for ourselves, but I thought we were the better side in the second half”, the manager noted.

“I think we’re showing that consistency. I’m absolutely delighted with us, nearly at the end of a really long month, to dig that out tonight was absolutely tremendous.”

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Town line-up: McDonald; Chappell, Kirwan, Smith, Bray; Thomas, Kiangebeni (Taaffe 83), Youngs; Della-Verde (Cunnington 71), Faal, Cass

Unused subs: Gyebi, Coker, Connolly

A healthy 80-plus members attended last Thursday’s AGM on zoom at which a number of pressing issues were discussed, writes Andrew Warshaw

The Board reported to members how we had to run a mothball budget during the curtailed seasons whilst at the same time having to deal with losing players to National League clubs. Conversely we were protected by a number of grants that arrived from the Football Foundation and other sources.

Turning to this season, chairman Paul Reed admitted that pre-season results didn’t augur well but said there were mitigating circumstances, not least considerable uncertainty in trying to get players signed up.

The mood has rapidly improved during what has been our best ever start to a league campaign, with home attendances up by an average of 70 and the club rarely out the playoff places. The addition of Ian Hart and Tommy Fester to the management team has proved a huge benefit while the gesture of free tickets to NHS workers has been extremely well received.

Decent Cup runs in the FA Cup and FA Trophy allowed some prize money to be re-invested in the playing staff while shirt sales, both nationally and globally, have contributed to a healthy financial situation. In fact we have recorded probably our strongest operation profit to date.

Tribute was paid by Paul to Future’s sponsorship of the youth section while the publicity generated by the NXT UK sponsorship deal now stretches to over 250 news outlets in 40 countries, all great exposure for the club.

Other positives include the growth of the academy, notably Adi Connolly breaking into the first team, our floodlights being upgraded and increased engagement on social media.

What happens next depends largely on where we are at the end of the season but Paul Millington made a detailed presentation on a number of possible options for ground development should we gain promotion, with further talks planned on the most efficient way forward in terms of how to add 100 extra seats in one stand that can  accommodate 250 fans, as well as turnstile additions.

In terms of community shares, the board intend to pay its first interest payment at 2 percent over base rate.

Inevitably several questions related to the future of Mo Faal and Paul Reed conceded that Mo would almost certainly review his options at the end of the season since understandably he still has ambitions to play at a higher level.

Paul revealed that despite pushing and pushing in terms of trying to tie Mo down for longer, he perfectly reasonably only wanted to commit for this season even though he was offered a longer-term contract.

Andy Leese took a break from training to answer members’ questions and revealed how a number of other clubs in our division and even higher had tried to sign Jake Cass. Their loss is our gain!

Andy said preparations for matches was the best he had ever known his time at the club and made a point of thanking supporters for the noise generated both home and away.

A full video recording of the AGM will be available shortly.

Kingstonian 3 Enfield Town 5

Report by Martin Bentley

Another end-to-end thriller, eight more goals, and, most importantly, three more points. It’s certainly never dull for Towners fans.

With Worthing and Lewes both dropping points unexpectedly, Saturday’s latest win against dangerous opponents saw the Town consolidate their position in second place, now just four points behind leaders Worthing.

Having rested several players in the 3-1 midweek win over Bowers, Andy Leese reverted to something close to his first-choice side and formation for this crucial six-pointer, with Ryan Kirwan, Percy Kiangebeni and Lyle Della Verde recalled to the starting line-up. Lee Chappell also returned at right back after a three-game absence.

Kingstonian were the first to settle, spreading the play across the midfield and putting in several dangerous crosses.

Town, however, opened the scoring after 18 minutes.  Mo Faal won the ball on the left and played in Percy Kiangebeni, whose low cross was smashed gleefully into the roof of keeper Rob Tolfrey’s net by Jake Cass.

The Ks hit back rapidly, and Daniel Ajakaiye had already lobbed narrowly over Nathan McDonald’s crossbar before they found an equaliser on 22 minutes, Fabio Saraiva netting from the edge of the box after a well-worked move.

There was no time to breathe however. Four minutes later, Mo found himself in behind the Ks’ backline, and, with appeals for offside going unheard, beat Tolfrey with ease.

 The next goal was always going to be crucial and Mo was once again on hand to provide it. The outstanding Cass (what a signing!), who had already drawn a decent save from the Ks’ keeper, again burst through the home defence before presenting Mo with another chance, which our top scorer gobbled up gratefully.

Things then calmed down a little for the remainder of the half, with only a speculative long-ranger from Rian Bray to inconvenience Tolfrey.

H-T 1-3

Any thoughts of consolidating the lead in the second half, however, disappeared rapidly out of the window.

 A mere 22 seconds had passed when Lyle Della Verde shot over from the edge of the box, and within another minute it was 4-1. Sam Youngs’ neat through ball sent Cass (pictured) galloping into the box for another emphatic finish.

Cass almost completed a hat-trick on 54 minutes, but Faal’s low cross from the left was diverted out of his reach by a desperate lunge from Simon Cooper.

But the scoring didn’t end there, far from it, as Della Verde netted with a glorious left-footer from 20 yards as we romped into a scarcely believable 5-1 lead.

Although the home side continued to play neat football on both flanks, Town’s defence was not unduly stretched – until Kingstonian suddenly reduced the arrears. Not once but twice.

The hard-working Ajakaiye pulled one goal back on 77 minutes, and Saraiva made it 3-5 with one minute of the 90 remaining.

The result was never in doubt however, although Andre Coker managed to get himself sent off for two yellow cards in four minutes, an annoying conclusion to a massively enjoyable away day for Town’s vociferous travelling support.

“What a performance, nothing short of fantastic. To put that score on the board against a top-five team is scarcely believable,” said a jubilant Andy Leese after we reached the landmark target of 50 points.

“In every department we were superb, from one to 11. It’s given us a huge confidence boost and will live long in the memory.”

“The front three were different class and Jake led the line really well. I don’t remember him losing a header. The back four were superb especially during spells of their pressure in the first 15 minutes and a 10-minute spell in the second half. And in midfield, Sam Youngs has been playing well for weeks.”

“My only disappointment is the two late goals we let in because goal difference could prove so important. But overall, fantastic. What finishing and we could even have scored more.”

“These pitches can sap your strength, especially the way we press. Some of them were puffing at the end  so it will good to get a small breather at the end of January.”

Town line-up: McDonald, Chappell, Kirwan, Thomas (Taaffe 74), Smith, Bray, Kiangebeni, Youngs, Cass, Faal, Coker 75), Della Verde (Gyebi 85). Unused subs: Cunnington, Connolly