Woolf leaves Scrabble to pick up the pieces
NORTH LONDON RAIDERS B SCRABBLE FC
FOOTBALL JONATHAN Adelman saluted his NLR players after they maintained their winning record with a hard-fought win over newly-promoted Scrabble FC.
A goal-of-the-season contender from Nicky Woolf and a late strike from Josh Goldstein condemned a Scrabble team — featuring NLR old boys Elliott Espinoza and Josh Green — to defeat in their opening match of the season.
Woolf opened the scoring with what Adelman described as “a moment of genuinebrilliance”ashewontheball35 yards from goal, held off two challenges and hammered a spectacular longrange effort into the roof of the net.
Zak McLeod hauled Scrabble level with a header following a long pass from Ben Bell but a deft finish from Goldstein earned NLR maximum points.
NLR joint manager Adelman said: “Scrabble are a good side, there’s no question about that. There were so many excuses we could have made against a team like that; we were short of no less than eight squad members before this morning and then had to lend our A-team Lewis Blitz and Alex Elf was unable to play.
“As a result we had just 12 players so couldn’t play the high-tempo game we wanted to against an opposition we knew would use their rolling substitutions well. But wow, what an effort from our 12, every one of them was superb.
“It was also very pleasing that despite some questionable decisions in the first half the boys retained their calm and brought home a deserved three points.”
Adelman was keen to praise the defensive resilience of Charles Braunstein, Elad Hertshten and skipper Anthony Goodmaker, along with midfielders Toby Katz, Danny Bloom and Simon Buchler.
Co-manager Zack Gothelf commented: “We kept the ball well and our defenders won their individual battles.
“After losing narrowly twice against Scrabble last season with our C-team I’m delighted to finally get a win over them. And that goal from Nicky Woolf — that’s what you get out of bed on a Sunday morning for.”
Scrabble boss Ray Abrahams described the defeat as “cruel”. He said: “I’m disappointed not to have got anything from the game but in terms of effort I cannot fault our lads.
“In the end a sloppy error at the back and our failure to be a bit more clinical in front of goal cost us the game. I thought a draw would have been a fair result.”