So the final weekend of pre season for many saw me over at The Matchday Centre, Kitchener Road, Walthamstow, for Wadham Lodge Vs Hadley.
For Lodge it’s been a pre season of re building after most of last season’s squad left for pastures new off season after the departure of manager Tony Ievoli. New boss and last season’s assistant manager Neil Day has spent alot of the summer getting players over to playfor his side and having acquired the services of the experienced Kevin Lucas as his number two, it has certainly helped the cause.
They were up against Spartan South Midlands side Hadley in this pre season encounter who are managed by ex Spurs and Chelsea star Mickey Hazard, and he had to deal with the small problem of having sixteen of his squad leave only days before this fixture. However he still had a decent set of players to choose from no doubt although it wasn’t ideal preparation for sure.
The game saw both sides create a decent opening in the first ten minutes or so but the hosts saw more of the ball and on 14 minutes got their noses in front when a ball played into the box from the right hand side found a hosts player who hit a shot which looped up into the air off adefender attempting to block the effort, and it found its way to the back post where another Lodge player managed to finish first time across the keeper and into the far corner.
After twenty five first half minutes the players stopped to have a water break due to the warm conditions in East London, and up till this point the hosts were definitely edging the contest although Hadley had gone close on a couple of occasions, and were no way out of this contest.
The water stoppage seemed to favour the visitors as they began to see more of the ball and slowly gain the upper hand, and saw another two openings fail to breach the hosts defence. As the half drew to a close Lodge finished strongly although they too could not find a second goal. So all in all Lodge started well, Hadley had a good spell after the water break, and the hosts ended the half well, so kind of even as the players trudged off to the changing rooms for a half time rest.
Half Time Wadham Lodge 1 Hadley 0
Whatever was said in the visitors dressing room at half time seemed to revitalise the players as they most certainly came out with purpose and drive and pushed the hosts onto the back foot. The first quarter of the second half saw Hadley dominant but they were unable to convert their pressure into goals.
The hosts were battling well though and remained solid in defence and were certainly showing their boss qualities when up against a lot of attacking pressure from their opponents. Hadley continued to still be the better side as the game entered it’s last quarter although the hosts continued to dig in and were competing well as they still held that 1-0 advantage.
The last ten minutes did see the home side start to see more of the ball as they came back into the contest but Hadley thought they had levelled when ramming home from twelve yards….but it was flagged offside, which kind of summed up their day in front of goal.
The final few minutes saw both teams have decent efforts on goal but both were twarted by the keepers, and the last rights saw a Hadley free kick overshoot their forwards, which was sadly for the visitors in keeping with how their final ball had been in this one, not good enough.
So Lodge take a hard fought victory in a very good workout for Neil Day’s side, and he would of no doubt learnt much from this display today as he looks to make a good fist of it in the coming months. No doubt he has some good players to work with and with a small amount of tweaking can more than compete in the ESL this season.
Full Time Wadham Lodge 1 Hadley 0
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