WHAT HAPPENED
We picked up an impressive 1-0 win against National League South side St Albans City in a pre-season friendly on Monday night.
A crowd of over 2,000 fans made the trip to Clarence Park as Mehmet Ali's young charges hoped to end their pre-season campaign on a high.
The match almost got off to the worst possible start for us as the hosts had the ball in the back of the net inside 10 minutes, but we were saved by the linesman's flag after Shaun Jeffers was adjudged as offside following his header.
St Albans continued their early spell of dominance as Jeffers forced James Hillson into a smart low save after racing through one-on-one.
Mauro Bandeira had our first real chance of the match midway through the half, stinging the palms of Michael Johnson after being afforded time to shoot from 25 yards out.
Ben Cottrell's night was cut short through injury, with Catalin Cirjan coming off the bench to continue his return from a lengthy lay-off and looked sharp in midfield as we went into the break level.
It was Cirjan who almost gave us the lead shortly after the interval, our midfielder's free-kick rattling the post from 20 yards out.
As the clock ticked past the hour mark, the deadlock was finally broken and in style too, Joel Ideho spotting Loris Marcimin off his line and lobbing the goalkeeper from all of 40 yards with incredible precision.
Substitute goalkeeper Tom Smith produced an impressive diving low to keep out Lorenzo Johnson's close-range header as the host piled on the pressure in the closing stages.
Our young side held on to claim a hard-fought victory against the Nations League South outfit and round off our impressive pre-season campaign
WHAT IT MEANS
Our Premier League 2 campaign gets underway when we face Manchester United on Saturday, August 6.
Kick-off at Boreham Wood is 1pm (UK time).
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