Slough enter the season of goodwill

Slough Town gift wrapped three points and presented Boreham Wood with an early Christmas present on Saturday in a lacklustre performance. The Rebels were hit with two goals in the first ten minutes from which they never recovered and Boreham Wood grew in confidence as they dealt easily with Slough's predictable style of play.

Slough certainly missed the injured Brian Hammatt up front, as the newly tried partnership of Deaner and Fiore never worked, and again the lack of pace and movement around the box left the Rebels looking as dangerous as a snowman in summer.

The midfield, too, had little guile and were slow in getting forward to give full attacking options. Manager Graham Roberts was not a happy man afterwards and castigated his players for what he felt was a 'pathetic' team performance.

He said: 'They gave out early Christmas gifts and I'm really disappointed. How can we play like we did in the games against Macclesfield then turn out a poor performance to lose to Burnham then do well to get a point against leaders Aylesbury, then back to play like we did today? We have obviously have got to get consistency into our performances."

The first blow was struck after five minutes when Mickey Engwell, in trying to control a ball with his chest, was penalised for also using his hand. The incident seemed to take place inside the penalty area but the referee gave a free-kick right on the line. However, Matt Brady stepped up and curled the ball round the wall and although it was not a fierce shot it ended up beating Paul Wilkerson and going in by his right hand post.

Was Wilkerson unsighted? The keeper commented: "No, I saw the ball but it took a nasty bounce on its way through and that's what beat me."

Slough hardly had a chance to recover when five minutes later they were two down. Graham Kemp was slow off the mark allowing Tony Samuels to collect the ball and move it out to Simon Ireland who sent in a cross to the far post where Kerry Dixon rose well above Simon Line to head the ball back across goal and over Wilkerson. Dixon, the former Chelsea and England striker and now player/coach with Boreham Wood, was certainly influential in setting up attacks and his neat touches were feeding some good runs off the ball.

Slough battled to get back into the game, but had little invention in the final third of the park and Boreham Wood were able to break up the attacks and spring forward themselves. Ireland was putting over some good crosses from the right and after 25 minutes, he tried a lob shot which Wilkerson got a hand to and tipped it over.

Ten minutes later, Ireland again put in a superb curling cross which went over Line to Dixon, who missed a golden opportunity to increase the lead and his weak effort allowed Wilkerson to get down to save it.

Slough were pleased to hear the halftime whistle which gave Roberts the opportunity of a reshuffle. He took off Steve Browne and Chris Seymour and brought on Kenny Hughes as left wing back, moving Engwell across allowing Mark Holzman to play up front. Lee Endersby was introduced in midfield.

The Rebels now looked a lot livelier and had a good spell for 15 minutes with more fluid movement up front. Some chances came their way and this was the time they needed to get back into the match with a goal. And that chance came on 52 minutes but was spurned by Andrew Deaner. Following a good move down the right, Holtsman fed Engwell who got to the byeline, put in a good cross for Deaner who headed wide from right in front of goal.

On 61 minutes, Boreham Wood were down to ten men. Deaner fell to the ground following a tackle by Mark Brown and was stamped on by the No 11. Although they had an extra man, Slough did not use the width of the pitch enough to stretch their opponents.

Slough's misery was complete on 76 minutes when a poor back pass to Wilkerson left him in trouble as an attacker quickly closed in. Wilkerson dribbled round him but then Richard Peirson ran in to assist, but it failed to help the situation as a mix-up between the pair allowed Tony Samuels to steal in and get the ball and slide it into an empty net.

Deaner was booked on 82 minutes and four minutes later the striker was again in front of goal but his off-balance attempt flew over the top and Slough were even denied a consolation.