Welling United FC U19’s National Youth All 3-3 Woking FC (Youth & Academy) U19’s - Match Report

Benjamin Parker & Alex Tarrant

U19’s National League Alliance Academy South, 19th October 2022, 2:00pm, Eltham, London.

Welling United FC U19’s National Youth All and Woking FC (Youth & Academy) U19’s played out a thrilling 3-3 draw as a late equaliser scored by Welling’s Deandre Williams capped off an entertaining game. The visitors are yet to be defeated but came away from Baldon Sports Ground feeling disappointed as they ultimately lost the lead on three occasions.

Felix Ezekwuka opened the scoring for The Cards, who were determined to continue their unbeaten start to the season, however, it wasn’t long before they gave away the lead for the first time in the match as Aiden Ward’s goal levelled things before the break.

In the second half, it was the visitors once again who took control and the renewed desire put them back in front thanks to a goal from George Wallace. Welling U19’s managed to get back all square again though when David Kamara found the back of the net. The Wings hard work clearly paid off.

The hosts could not keep the score line to parity as a Woking third by Jack Knight restored their lead for the third time. As the game progressed, Woking looked like they would be taking back-to-back victories until a late stoppage-time goal from Deandre Williams sunk any hopes of points on the road. The late goal sent Welling into raucous celebrations and by the time they were back on the halfway line, the referee blew his whistle to end the game.

Woking FC (Youth & Academy) U19’s coach Scott Harrison said after the game that, “We’ve led another game but thrown away three points. It’s frustrating, as we lead the game three times, but we just didn’t do the basics right.”

We later asked that despite tasting defeat, the team has conceded seven goals in three games and asked what he said to the players to fix that to which he commented, “It’s about building the player’s confidence, we know we’re good attacking, we just need to work a bit more on the defensive side.

Welling United FC U19’s National Youth All coach Neil Harper had a different approach as he said, “to go a goal down and having to constantly claw our way back to come away with a point on hindsight is a little bit underserved”. He also spoke that, “Going forward for the rest of the season we have aspirations to do well.” He admitted that the team will be a little bit limb on the ground sometimes given the volume of injuries they are facing, saying “that this could catch us up during the rest of the season.”

The Cards are back at home in a week’s time, half an hour earlier than today when they will be taking on Maidstone FC U19’s Academy, a game in which they’ll be confident going into, looking at the league table standings. The Wings will take the short journey to face Boreham Wood U19’s Whites in another tough test for them.