AFC Dunstable 2-1 Northwood
AFC Dunstable 2-1 Northwood
13th AUGUST 2024
A lovely evening for football saw AFC welcome Northwood to Creasey Park for their first visit since season 2017-2018 with them having made a sideways move from the Isthmian League for this season.
The game started very cautiously and was evenly contested in the early stages. Northwood had the first decent chance with a header just wide in the 18th minute. AFC had a great chance 2 minutes later when the ball was played in to the box – unfortunately it was a little behind Sean but he managed to get a good contact on the ball and the keeper beat the ball away with an impressive save.
AFC were now taking the game to Northwood and took the lead in the 23rd minute – albeit with a big slice of good fortune. A corner was cleared to Tom B who knocked the ball goalwards. It took a massive deflection completely wrongfooting the keeper and the ball spun in to the net. There was a big appeal from the visitors defence – not sure if they were claiming handball or offside – but their appeals were in vain – 1-0 to AFC. We stayed on the attack and should have doubled the lead 2 minutes later when the ball pinballed around in the penalty area but we couldn’t get the right connection and Northwood were able to clear. Another great chance came and went with a great run and shot from Sean that went just wide on 27 minutes.
To our frustration, Northwood broke away on 38 minutes and Archie Jones hit a decent shot past Finn in the goal for the equaliser. Another shot from Tom B was blasted over the bar just before the half came to a close – 1-1 at half time.
The second half started with a couple of really decent chances for Sean – the first one was a one on one but unfortunately he fired the ball straight at the keeper. Another breakaway saw Sean hit the ball on the volley really cleanly and with great power but it hit the side netting – a few in the crowd were convinced it had gone n but it was just the wrong side of the post.
Just after the hour mark, AFC took a deserved lead when a lovely ball from Tom C found it’s way to Tom B who blasted the ball home giving the keeper no chance – an early contender for goal of the season!? 2-1 AFC.
As the game went on, Northwood came back in to it but didn’t really create much. The better chances continued to fall to AFC but frustratingly we could not add to the lead and ended up possibly hanging on a little. The final chance came in injury time when Northwood played a nice ball in to the box but we were relieved to see the header go wide. Shortly after that, the ref blew the whistle and AFC celebrated their first three points of the season.
MOM voted by the committee was Sean.
Team: Finn Purcell, George Joyce, Kwadwo Bugyei-Kyei, Kyle Lynch, Stan Georgiou, Kyle Brooks, Oliver Spicer, Hayden Beadle, Sean Duodo, Tom Blennerhassett, Tom Cove
Subs: Romeo Ebondo, Harrison Mead, Bruce Nsang
