Waltham Forest 4-2 Takeley
Going into this game Forest had lost to Ilford whilst Takeley had finished 3rd for the last two seasons, and picked up an opening day win against Eton Manor.
As the game got under way it was early pressure by Takeley and on eight minutes Jordan Westcott had a shot saved by the Forest stopper William Hunt .
Takeley continued putting on the pressure however Corey Stewart got the ball, ran towards goal, had a strike with the booming right foot which even bested the Takeley goal keeper.
Denzel Williams, making a marauding run from right-back with a swinging left also took aim only to find his shot hit the Takeley bar.
Stewart suffered a worrying injury so Forest had to make a sub with Stewart coming off and coming on was Ibraham Sari.
With 10 minutes of the half left and a scrappy passage of play Jon Jon Sexton got a yellow card for what looked a fair challenge.
Just before half time, Forest got on the attack with Solomon picking up the ball and went around the Takeley defence and the goalkeeper to tap it into the empty net to make it 2-0 to the Stags.
However injury time saw Takeley on the attack Jordan Wescott with the ball and put it in the left corner passed William Hunt into the net and the half time score was 2-1 to Waltham Forest.
As soon as the second half got underway Neil Thompson got the ball and scored after some nice attack play by Forest.
Takeley were now forced into making game changing substitutes and on the hour mark Forest got a free kick in a dangerous place but this was easily defended.
On 75th minutes Forest made their second substitution of the night with Solomon coming off and coming on was Ozkumru.
The game was still played at a frenetic pace, in the last 10 minutes Takeley were on the counter attack but another good save by Hunt kept the pressure on the visitors
As we entered into last 5 minutes Forest got the 4th goal of the game with Thompson getting his 2nd goal of the night after being put through by Ozkumru.
Deep into injury time Takeley got a late goal but it was too little too late as Forest held on to win their first game of the season.
By Peter Willoughby
