Hendon 1 – 4 Wealdstone

Hendon

1 - 4

Wealdstone

KO: 0:00 | Mon 27th Dec ’04

With both sides missing a number of key players, there was a strangeness to the two line-ups, with Lee O’Leary and Leon Henderson both making their Stones 1st team debuts.

Stones got the perfect start as well – pushing forward from the off and forcing the hosts back, a long kick from Andy Carter deceived and beat the home defence and with Jolly running on, home keeper King lost his positioning and handled the ball outside his box. He was sent off and Stones scored from Beckford’s free kick, as full back Nolan the substitute keeper could only parry the ball, and O’Leary on his debut reacted first to score.

In the most part the first half lacked much entertainment for the crown, with Stones unable to break down a hard working Hendon team, while the home side lacked any real creativity to break through the visiting defence. There were two exceptions, the first when Beckford broke and Nolan fumbled the ball over the line, however his body obscured the lineman’s view and he reacted quickly enough to recover and play continued, then in the 36th minutes when Julienne broke down the wing, and drawing his defender across left space in the middle for Pickett to score an equaliser from close range.

The second half though was a different matter as stones from the start made the most of the extra man. O’Leary scored Stones second in a similar fashion to the first, from a parried free kick and a minute later Jolly seemed to have made the score three as he bundled the ball home – the Referee looked at his assistant who signalled a goal and he had run fully thirty yards towards the half way line when the Referee gave the home side a free kick , cancelling out the score.

Stones did get their third some five minutes later when Beckford got behind the defence, but he made hard work of it as his first and seco9nd attempts were saved by Nolan, who was unable to keep out the third attempt from the rebound!

Good work by Burrell and Beckford gave Jolly the opportunity to score Stones 4th (running from his own half to beat the home keeper one on one) and effectively finish the match in the 73rd minute, and Stones will be happy with the 3 points which sees them rise into the top half of the table.

x

Harrow Times Steve Spaull

Hendon 1 Wealdstone 429th December 2004Share

AFTER leaking nine goals in their last two games, it was Wealdstone’s turn to mete out a drubbing in Monday afternoon’s derby clash at Hendon.

In just three minutes, this Christmas fixture was turned on its head when the home side’s ever-present goalkeeper Dave King was sent off.

There were no complaints from Hendon when King received his marching orders having quite clearly handled the ball outside his area in what was potentially a goal-scoring opportunity for Wealdstone.

Hendon had been on the attack when a long clearance from Wealdstone keeper Andy Carter opened the Hendon back four up, forcing King into a mistake that Hendon were not to come back from.

To compound things the subsequent free kick led to the first goal of the afternoon when O’Leary followed in on a poor goal line clearance to slide in an easy finish.

Hendon, down to ten men and with Dave Nolan now in goal, battled hard for the remainder of the half. They even managed to pull back an equalizer on 35 minutes when excellent build up down the right saw an opening created for Ross Pickett who calmly tucked it away.

Sadly for Hendon, the second half was one-way traffic and despite some good saves from Nolan, Stones always looked comfortable. Poor defending from another free kick saw O’Leary make it two with a similar effort to his first.

Wealdstone then had one disallowed before Jermaine Beckford, who looked a class apart, popped up to effectively end the game as a contest in the 60th minute.

With Hendon pushing forward they always looked likely to concede again and before long Richard Jolly found himself in acres of space with only Nolan to beat, which he did with aplomb.

The hosts had four first choice players out through suspension including their two top scorers and were made to pay.

After languishing at the foot of the table earlier this year, Wealdstone are now sit comfortably in 11th place.