Tonbridge Angels 1 Enfield Town 2

Report by Andrew Warshaw

This time we hung on. This time we got what we deserved. And this time there were high fives all round.

Enfield Town secured their first maximum points haul of the season on Tuesday as we climbed out of the bottom four with an accomplished team display.

In one sense it was a similar scenario to the Slough game as we controlled the first half, invited pressure at times in the second and had the visiting Towners fans biting their nails as the game moved into its final throes.

But the fact we restricted a very pacey Tonbridge forward line to few clearcut chances was another indication of the progress we are making – double the points tally of this time last year.

Despite a three-day turnaround Gavin Macpherson kept faith with the Slough team as we started unchanged against a side who were also chasing their first victory.

Nino Adom-Malaki’s driving shot over the bar was an early indication of the man-of-match role he was to play. On 12 minutes a sublime diagonal pass from Sam Youngs found Nino and from his left-wing cross, Bailey Brown – who made his debut in our 3-1 win at Tonbridge last season – swivelled his way between two defenders to give us the lead.

Youngs, who arguably had his best game of the season in that advanced forward role, spooned another Nino cross over but for all our early interplay, parity was soon restored against the run of play.

On 25 minutes, a moment of carelessness allowed Marcus Sablier to run through the centre of midfield  and from his well-executed pass the dangerous Eddie Simon kept his composure, shook off the attention of Henry Hawkins and finished off the post.

Town weren’t deterred and back they came with Adom-Malaki again involved, his freekick headed into the path of Youngs who, initially with his back to goal, twisted and hooked a superb strike beyond Jacob Adams (celebrations pictured).

H-T 1-2

Invariably Tonbridge had fallen foul of the offside trap but second half substitute Scott Wagstaff livened things up for the hosts and now it was question of starving their willing runners of openings rather than feeding them chances.

Just like at Slough, the home team upped the tempo but for all their pressure, we stood strong as all defensively solid teams do though the bearded Wagstaff came dangerously close to a second equaliser as did Bunmi Babajide who struck the inside of the post following a surging advance.

At the other end we had further chances too, the best falling to Lamar Reynolds who was just unable to get the better of his marker inside the six-yard box to convert Billy Leonard’s low centre.

This time, the five minutes added on were precisely  that and all in all a highly satisfying evening from what looks like becoming a settled side, the clapping in the away dressing room speaking volumes.

“There’s a belief here that we’ve deserved more from a lot of the games we’ve actually played so far and hopefully this has turned a corner,” said Gavin. “The boys had to work extremely hard against a team who move the ball around and were absolutely fantastic. We’ve given the supporters some tough moments in and around the 90-minute mark so it was good to see that not happening again. When you put a plan into action and get a result, there’s massive satisfaction about seeing it unfold.”

Forster; Benjamin, Thompson, Hawkins; Leonard, Bullas, Gallimore, Brown (Knight 94), Adom-Malaki; Youngs, Reynolds (Lodovica 73)