Slough Town 1 Enfield Town 1

Report by Andrew Warshaw

 Heartbreaking, agonising.  Football, as the old cliché goes, is a cruel game.

With 97 minutes on the clock (even though there were officially supposed to be only five minutes of stoppage time), Enfield Town had their first victory of the season brutally snatched away on Saturday and had to be content with another draw.

Of course if we had taken our chances (how many times have we heard this before?), Slough’s last-gasp salvaged equaliser  wouldn’t have made any difference but the manner of the defeat was nevertheless desperately hard to stomach.

 All we can do is take the positives – of which there were several – into Tuesday’s fixture at Tonbridge which now becomes even more of a must-win game.

It is of course far too early for any sense of doom to set in. Look at the likes of Eastbourne and Dagenham and Redbridge – full-time teams who are also struggling badly:  one of them now rock bottom, the other one of the biggest financial  fish in the division.

In other words, it’s far too soon to  make any concrete judgements. But having said, the trend of conceding late, late goals and losing crucial points isn’t lost on the players, the management team or the supporters and there’s an argument to suggest we should do better at being able to play out time.

After Slough had edged the first few minutes on their artificial pitch without looking especially dangerous, we took the lead with a peach of a goal, a sumptuous finish by Lamar Reynolds rounding off a neat move down the right (pictured, celebrating).

Although Slough went straight up the other end and forced a smart save from Rhys Forster, Lamar’s strike was just the boost we needed after four games without a goal.

While the defence did their job at foiling Slough’s tactics at trying to get in behind, we started to move the ball around confidently and should have doubled our lead – three times.

 Lamar, who might well have had a hat-trick on another day, finished a beautifully constructed move by volleying just wide, then beat the offside trap but lobbed over.  And on 40 minutes Hayden Bullas – arguably Town’s best player with a lung-lusting box-to-box display – had an effort cleared off the line.

Just before the break, Forster was again called into action to thwart Tarik Gigaree but we were well worth our lead at the interval.

H-T 1-0

Slough may argue that their keeper hadn’t had to make a worthwhile save and after introducing winger Jared Myers at the break the Rebels grabbed the initiative.

Suddenly we were pinned back and Rhys pulled off a superb double save to maintain the lead, then fisted away another home effort while Tosh Gallimore came to Town’s rescue with a well-timed tackle. Slough also went close when Ruben Bartlett-Antwi poked the ball through the legs of Forster but thankfully wide of the post.

Having soaked up 20 minutes of pressure, Town came again though by now without Sam Youngs – skipper for the day but victim of a first-half clash of heads and replaced on the hour by Matty MacArthur.

Another Town sub, Harry Lodovica, fluffed two golden chances to make the game safe after seemingly doing all the hard work. If only one of them, or any before, had counted.

Instead, two points were dropped with the final action of the game. Town had dealt comfortably with all the hosts’ previous set-pieces but this time forgot about second phase. When Slough kept a corner alive,  Peter Ojemen rose highest to flash a header in off the back post to leave the Enfield fans behind Forster’s goal in utter dejection.

There was only just time to kick off before the final whistle and Slough celebrated like they had won the league, leaving a crestfallen Gavin Macpherson to comment: “We can talk about how many minutes were added on all day long but the fact is we should have finished the game off and you could see that by Slough’s euphoria at the end.”

“They changed their shape at halftime but we still had a couple of one-on-ones which we didn’t take. You always then run the risk.”

Forster; Adom-Malaki, Hawkins, Thompson,  Benjamin, Leonard (Jones 90), Brown, Gallimore, Bullas, Youngs (MacArthur 61), Reynolds (Lodovica 84).