Wealdstone 4 – 1 Harrow Borough
Wealdstone
4 - 1
Harrow BoroughIt is indeed the season to be Jolly for all at Wealdstone, after a brace from Captain Richard Jolly and two more from his front-line partner Jermaine Beckford sealed a 4-1 win at home to local rivals Harrow Boro’ this afternoon at Chestnut Avenue. Easy in the end it may have been but the match could have been over by half time as Stones started uncertainly.
Stones looked bright from the kickoff, but for no more than 4 minutes as Harrow Boro scored with their first attack. Onochie miss headed a long ball which wrong footed the Stones defence and ‘keeper Luke Woods, the ball falling to McGonigle who hit a low shot from 25 yards into the right hand corner of the net.
From then on, Stones looked a little ragged and struggled to cope with the Boro forwards but a couple of sharp saves from Woods did prevent them extending their lead, while going forward, Stones had plenty of possession but created no chances as the final pass let them down too often.
Fortunately though stones did equalise on 44 minutes when a White free-kick met by Jolly, his diving header enough to beat Karamoto in the visitors goal, and put Wealdstone level at half time.
Having lost Burrell after 36 minutes when he suffered two fingers into his eye in a challenge which subsequently saw him go to hospital, the Management were looking to make a change to the back line at half time to tighten things up and this became enforced when Andy Keepence suffered a recurrence of a hamstring injury, Dave Ryan coming on for the second half. The half started again with Harrow Boro on top and they thought they had retaken the lead on the hour when a goal was disallowed for climbing and this seemed to spark Stones into life. After a first hour when Stones had played the ball into the Boro back line with no success, the aim became to get the ball behind the visiting defence and Stones did it with some aplomb.
On 65 minutes, Chappell brought the ball out of defence on the right, playing an excellent ball down the line to Montgomery. He too moved the ball on quickly forcing the Boro defence to turn as Jermaine Beckford collected the ball on the edge of the penalty box. Turning his marker one way then the other he created space to get his shot away and that was good enough to put Stones 2-1 in front.
With both sides pressing, and Woods again in the Stones goal making a couple of important saves – one in particular after a long range effort cannoned of of the Stones crossbar – it was a long drop kick from Woods that created the third Stones goal. His kick was headed on under pressure by Beckford and Jolly ran onto the ball to score from 12 yards with a low shot.
The final quarter saw Stones well on top and Boro looking a little ragged at the back, then with only three minutes to go, Jolly returned the compliment to Beckford, his through ball releasing Jermaine to hit a first time volley that Karamoto blocked, only for the ball to rebound off of Walters into Beckford’s stride and he slid the ball into the empty net to seal a 4-1 win for Wealdstone and to start the home crowd singing ‘One Team In Harrow’. Lets hope for a repeat at Easter and perhaps , the start of a brighter New Year for Stones.
Wealdstone : Luke Woods, Jamie Palmer, Andy Keepence (s45 Dave Ryan), Ross White (s85 Josh Cooper), Chris Zoricich, Graeme Montgomery, Kenny Beaney, Graham Hall, Jermaine Beckford, Richard Jolly, Gary Burrell (s36 Lee Chappell), Subs not used: Carl Ashton, Phil Turner
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