Town welcomed Harold Wood to Love lane on Saturday on a glorious sunny afternoon, eager to maintain their good start to their league campaign. There was the customary glut of missing players, Chris Neal and Wiggy due to work commitments, Ben Stone, Flighty & Ready due to injury, and although Jeater took his place on the bench he wasn't really match fit and was named for extreme emergency purposes only.

The opening 10 minutes were fairly even and cagey with both teams 'feeling each other out' but after these initial stages Wood took control and started to apply pressure to the Town goal. The back 3 of Lodgey, Grandy & Andy Allen coped reasonably comfortably with the pressure and as a result there were few clear cut chances at either end although a Wood player did hit a volley over the bar from a decent 'half chance' after about 20 minutes. WBB was encouraging the team from the touchline and congratulated young Brad Merrick for superbly winning a header on the half way line - only slight problem was that it was Lodgey who won the header - Lodgey is 6 feet 2 and weighs several tons ; Brad is about 5 feet 6 and weighs less than 9 stone - it was easy to understand WBB's confusion and it did provide a welcome moment of amusement in an otherwise fairly bleak afternoon!!! - Then came a moment that had a big effect on the game - Lodgey had to come off feeling unwell and had to be replaced forcing a reshuffle - already without 4 injured defenders there was no option other than Mark Neal who had to go back to centre half: as good as he is in this position we missed his competitive streak in midfield and it left us, in physical terms, a bit lightweight in midfield leaving Headon & Newman, neither of whom are noted for their David Batty impersonations and young Brad who was as brave as ever but simply out muscled. Wood now took complete control of the game and put the Town goal under non stop pressure for the reminder of the half. With a bit of luck and some resolute defending Town looked like they might hang on until half time but just fell short when Wood deservedly took the lead a minute before half time - 0-1.

Unfortunately, from Towns point of view, despite pleas at half time to 'raise it' the second half started exactly the same way as the first had ended with Wood in control. Town couldn't get a grip at all, couldn't pass the ball, didn't compete and with service to the front men non existent they presented very little or no threat and the Wood keeper was completely untroubled. It came as no surprise when Wood added a second after 15 minutes 0-2. Liam Murphy who had spent an hour chasing hopeful 'nothing' balls was replaced by new signing Stuart Dallaway and he at least showed some commitment and a desire to get involved and was unlucky not to get on the score sheet when his shot was blocked on the goal line. Wood added another 2 goals in a 10 minute spell to make it 0-4, with 15 minutes still remaining, and game over. For the final 15 minutes, although way to late, Town did at least string together a few passes and Polley forced a smart save from the Wood keeper from a long range shot which was probably the only serious save he was forced to make in the entire 90 minutes. To complete a miserable afternoon, young Matt Macedo limped off in the dying moments having sprained his ankle. The game ended with Wood thoroughly deserving their 4 goal victory.

To summarise, this was an extremely disappointing performance. I appreciate that nobody plays badly on purpose and I can accept that everyone has an 'off day' but it was the lack of energy, drive and commitment on the day that was most disturbing.

Player of the match this week is surprisingly easy as it goes to Andy Allen, who was by a mile the best of a very small number of players who can claim to have performed at anywhere near their normal standard on the day

El Col