SPARTAN SOUTH MIDLANDS LEAGUE DIVISION ONE
EDGWARE TOWN 1 LONDON LIONS 1
Max Kyte's fourth goal of the season earned London Lions against Edgware Town at Underhill, in front of a crowd of 200.
On Non-League Day, and with Edgware playing their first home game of the season at Barnet's old ground, the fixture attracted a lot of local attention.
With five players under the age of 18 in the Lions squad, the visitors acquitted themselves admirably, and were unlucky not to secure all three points.
Max Kyte opened the scoring for the visitors with his fourth goal of the season; the front man showing vast improvements in his game under the stewardship of Tony Gold, Andy Landesberg and Steve Grenfell, was in the right place at the right time to follow up on a mistake by the home keeper to tuck the ball away from six yards.
His goal would be cancelled out two minutes into the second half following some sloppy defending by an otherwise solid Lions back four.
Gold and Landesberg handed Zac Rose his first league start in one of four changes from the side that beat Amersham Town in midweek. Rose replaced Dean Nyman while Jake Rinsler and Kyle Bentwood came in for Gold and Adam Hakimi.
It was Josh Kennet who had the first effort of the game, finding space when played in by Joe Sharpe, but his swerving 20-yard effort was pushed away by the Edgware keeper.
Edgware's no. 1 was called into action again on the 15-minute mark. Good build-up play afforded Rose time to cross to the back post for Kyte but his header was well held.
Lions had limited the hosts to very little in the way of chances inside the opening 40 minutes, but an error defensively afforded Edgware a great one-on-one chance, but Mario Cenolli saved superbly.
Edgware started the second half brightly, and Lions were pegged back to 1-1, the third game in a row when they have conceded a goal in the first eight minutes of the half. A seemingly harmless ball, played straight over the top and losing concentration for a split second, Edgware's forward broke through and slotted the ball home.
The game ebbed and flowed for the following 35 minutes but neither side created too much in the way of clear-cut chances, although in the third minute of injury time Alex Lee went on an 60-yard run and had he squared the ball to the onrushing Kennet or Kyte Lions may have snatched all three points. Instead he went for glory and his shot went woefully wide.
Lions joint-manager Tony Gold said: "It was a great point, to tell you the truth. We had a game-plan in the first half and got to half-time 1-0 up. We have an issue we need to address at the start of the second half and we will address it, but we conceded an early goal which momentarily put us on the back foot.
"However, once again the team showed enormous character and we got a point out of the game.
"The most pleasing aspect of today is that we had five players in the squad 18 or under. They are all promising young players with a hunger and desire and, above all, a terrific attitude.
"As they continue to develop the team will become stronger and that bodes well for the future."
Lions: Mario Cenolli, Alex Lee, Jake Rinsler, Kyle Bentwood (sub: Ben Winters), Adam Myeroff, Josh Kennet, Joe Sharpe, Andy Glynne (sub: Tony Gold), Max Kyte, Zac Rose (sub: James Belchak), Rafi Soccairello
Scorer: Max Kyte
