Enfield Town 1 Bath City 1
Report By Andrew Warshaw
Plenty of perspiration, not much inspiration. That just about sums up a safety first encounter that was ultimately lacking in quality, both struggling sides cancelling each other out.
The result left Enfield Town one place off the foot of the table but was at least an improvement on our humiliating record 8-0 defeat at Maidstone in midweek.
In front of a bumper crowd celebrating International Women’s Day, Town gave on-loan Chelmsford defender Paul Appiah his debut in the absence of the injured Adam Thompson. Paul put in a solid performance but with the very first action of the game, Jordan Alves almost caught out Joe Wright with an opportunist 30-yard free-kick.
Town responded by Sam Youngs, chasing his 100th goal in an Enfield shirt, not quite being able to direct his shot goalwards but thereafter there was precious little goalmouth action amid a palpable atmosphere of nervous apprehension.
That is, until the 32nd minute when Nino Adam-Malaki gave Town the lead with an outrageous 30-yard piledriver that appeared to take Charlie Binns in the Romans goal by surprise.
Bouyed by breaking the deadlock, Town’s best team move of the game presented Youngs with a chance to double the lead but he couldn’t quite control his header and within eight minutes the visitors were level.
One of several Joe Raynes long throws was diverted goalwards by Alex Fisher and the ball looped over a flailing Wright who was slightly off his line.
H-T 1-1
The second half followed a similar low-quality pattern. Wright was called into action once again to tip another Fisher effort over the bar from another Raynes’ long throw, then flew to his left to keep out Kieran Parselle’s header.
At the other end, Town forced four successive corners in as many minutes but frustratingly couldn’t make any of them count, making Hampton on Tuesday and Chippenham next Saturday even bigger games than they were already.
“It was a poor game of football and obviously not the result we wanted as we’d have been chalking this one up for three points,” said Gavin Macpherson. “We were a bit toothless but it was important not to concede much today. We need wins, that’s the truth. We have to find the recipe to get us back to scoring enough goals. I understand the significance of Hampton but it doesn’t matter who we’re playing, we have to chalk up enough wins overall.”
Enfield Town (4-1-3-2)
Wright; Parcell, Appiah, Hawkins, Adom-Malaki; Traore; Bullas (Leonard 80), Knight, Youngs, Andrews (Bartlett-Antwi 91), Reynolds (Brown 64).