Match Preview

This weekend the visitors to Haywood Way are our friends from Northwood. Current Player Manager & former Northwood star Mark Burgess was appointed on 14 November 2012. Several players then joined former manager Gary Meakin at Wingate & Finchley, Burgess strengthened his own squad with the short term loan signings of Brentford duo Terrell Miller and Sam Beale. Burgess then signed both Jerome Federico and George Nicholas on dual registration in early 2013, but was dealt a sizeable blow as Northwood lost top scorer Spencer Bellotti to Wingate & Finchley in February 2013, teaming up with former manager Meakin in the process. Northwood finished the 2012/13 campaign in a solid position of 13th, six places and nine points worse than their finish in 2012.

Prior to the 2013/14 season, player-manager Burgess brought in a host of new faces including former Norwich City youngster Ramil Sheriff. In his first full season in charge, Northwood were looking to build on last season's 13th-placed finish and found themselves in 7th place around the Christmas period. Having been in contention for the play-offs for most of 2014, Northwood's form took a turn for the worse, ending their hopes of finishing in the top five as they finished the 2013/14 season in 9th. In the 2014/15 season, Northwood recovered from an inconsistent first half of the season, to once again finish in the top half of the table, finishing in 10th place. At the beginning of the 2015-16 season, Northwood made their best start to a league season since 1991-92 after winning their opening four league matches before that run was ended by Aylesbury United. They responded, however, by beating the same opponents 2-1 in the FA Cup Preliminary Round in August 2015. Last year the team comfortably finished mid table and this season they again occupy that same position. Recent form is good with three League victories in a row against Uxbridge, Potters Bar & Leighton.

Manager Steve Bateman will go into the game with just one major injury worry as Danny Murphy is still not available. Apart from that he will have a full squad to choose from