Late goal sends City to opening day loss

A single goal ten minutes from time was enough to send City to defeat against Boreham Wood this afternoon in their opening fixture of the 2024/25 season. The home side had dominated the game but just when it was looking like City would hold out for a point Marsh slid home Sousa’s cross to secure the win.

City came into the game missing three defenders in Danny Greenslade (injured), Nick Grimes (suspended) and captain Kieran Parselle (personal), and then lost stand-in left back Zac Smith with a serious looking knee injury on 34 minutes. That the game was still goalless at that stage was largely down to the goalkeeping heroics of Harvey Wiles-Richards. He denied Marsh from close range after just seven minutes, then three minutes later produced an even better save from Ndlovu, bravely gathering the rebound as Whelan slide in. Whelan and Ndlovu then failed to test him further from dangerous crosses from Sousa. Wiles-Richards then turned away Ndlovu’s shot but after the long delay, that eventually saw Smith stretched off, City reached half-time with no further scares. Their only real opening of the half came as early as the second minute when Sol Wanjau-Smith raced past Bush but could only find the side-netting with his shot.

Jordan Alves fired an early second half chance high over the bar but the Wood continued to enjoy the majority of possession. However, they were finding clear chances harder to come by with Wiles-Richards content to see a long-range shot from Hare fly over the bar and efforts from Sousa and Ndlovu drift harmlessly wide of his goal. He was finally beaten though in the 80th minute from Marsh’s neat finish. Forced now to come out in search of an equaliser it needed a great block tackle from Jack Batten and goalline clearance from Joe Raynes to prevent the host’s increasing their lead. And, although City did create several promising positions, they couldn’t trouble Ashmore in the home goal and avoid starting the new campaign with a defeat.