The visit of Athletic Newham - a side we have beaten in all of our last six meetings - to Ashton's Stadium presented Shane Baptiste's Woodford Town with the perfect opportunity to turn around their recent fortunes, having failed to win in five games.

And after a squick start, we reaped the rewards after just three minutes! Some brilliant work by Dion Johnston down the right gave him the chance to deliver into the box and he whipped in a beautiful cross for Ollie Sotoyinbo, who acrobatically struck home to give us the lead early on!

The remainder of the first half continued in a similar fashion, as we had multiple chances to double the lead, yet failed to do so, with Pharrell Chinyere - starting his third consecutive game - only being called into action on one occasion, as he made a brilliant stop to deny what looked to be a guaranteed goal from inside the six-yard box.

After the interval, we came out strong once again and, after a dominant spell, had the perfect opportunity to double the lead as Malaki Toussaint was bundled over inside the penalty area after a surging run from midfield. Ollie Sotoyinbo stepped up, and as he has done on multiple occasions already this season, kept his nerve to strike home for his thirteenth goal of the Essex Senior League season, after just twelve games!

Despite the visitors firing back to halve the deficit with eight minutes to go, we held out, largely thanks to some brilliant last-ditch defending, which saw Chinyere called into action to produce several good stops, as well as a goal-line clearance, and earned all three points!

Starting XI: Chinyere (GK); Owusu (C (Kozak - 80’), Kirwan-Meade, M. Agboola, Mitchell-Nelson; Jewers, Toussaint, Christou; Johnston (Steele - 46’), Sotoyinbo (Adelani - 80’), Gokou (Protic - 80’).

Unused substitute: Ahmed