Rebels Overcome Wood

Slough Town completed their second home win in the space of three days when they overcame Boreham Wood at Wexham Park on Tuesday evening, with Dave Russell finding his goal touch again to net two of the Rebels' goals.

The final scoreline was not a true indication of the domination Slough enjoyed in this match as they battled back from being a goal behind to produce some brief spells of sparkling football.

Had Rowan Dodds accepted the simplest of chances in the dying seconds the Rebels could well have won by a three goal margin, because after this Boreham Wood scored their second goal in injury time although it came too late to alter the outcome of the match.

Manager Terry Reardon said after the match: "I was pleased with our performance tonight, but disappointed that we did not do better in the second half.

"We failed to keep possession of the ball once we were leading and wanted to kill them off instead of consolidating our position."

Reardon added: "Really it should have been a 4-1 victory and that would have boosted the side, but instead we allowed them to score a sloppy second goal."

However, although there is still a lot of work to be done with the side Reardon must be delighted with the start they have made under his managership and especially the form the youngsters he has drafted into the team have produced.

With Vic Akers having departed to Carshalton Athletic and Eggie James now unavailable for two months, Reardon brought Steve Norman and Rowan Dodds into the side, and both youngsters gave sound performances.

Slough made a lightning start with Barry Friend looking particularly dangerous on the left wing. Twice he flighted over superb crosses which almost resulted in goals from Dave Russell and Dodds.

As on Saturday the Rebels showed tremendous commitment and endeavour and they gave a shaky looking Boreham Wood defence some anxious moments.

However after 25 minutes it was the Hertfordshire side who went ahead against the run of play. Most of their attacks had stemmed from quick breaks out of defence and from one of these the Slough offside trap was beaten and Jeff Batton ran onto a through pass from Mick Garrini to slot the ball past the advancing Frank Parsons.

It took the Rebels a full 20 minutes to recover from this blow, but then in a sparkling five minute spell they scored twice just before the interval.

After 40 minutes Keith White picked up a loose ball and from 20 yards hit a hard low shot which went under the body of Steve Waller for Slough's equalising goal.

And then from a majestic move five minutes later Russell headed Slough ahead. From the middle of the field White sent Friend clear on the left and his perfect cross on the run was met by Russell at the far post with the Boreham defence left spellbound by the speed and simplicity of the build-up and eventual goal.

Slough made a promising start to the second half and Dodds was desperately unlucky not to score when he outpaced the Boreham Wood defence on the left and then saw a thunderous shot pushed away by Waller — who knew very little about it.

But then suddenly the Rebels fell back into their now familiar bad habit of surrendering midfield superiority and continually needlessly giving away possession of the ball. Luckily Boreham Wood never really capitalised on this and it took a second Russell goal to bring Slough back to life.

Having received the ball from Dodds, Russell slipped past two defenders and then from just inside the penalty area fired the ball past the outstretched hand of Waller for a fine goal.

Slough should have made it 4-1 in the dying minutes when a piece of magic from Les Barrett on the right presented Dodds with a simple chance at the far post. But with an open goal he failed to connect properly with the ball and it dropped wide of the post.

And then in the third minute of injury time a quick break from Boreham Wood found Batton and his cross from the right was bravely headed home by Steve Archer past Parsons.

However there was no time left for Boreham Wood to really even think about snatching a dramatic equaliser and the Rebels collected three more deserved points.