Hendon bounced back from their heavy defeat by Hemel Hempstead on Tuesday evening by defeating a Barnet XI at Silver Jubilee Park on Saturday by 2-0 in their latest pre-season friendly.

The visitors match squad was drawn mainly from their U18 players, bolstered by a few reserves, with several players apparently close to appearing for their first team. They wore plain orange shirts and while shorts.

Hendon were in green, but appeared to have a mix of shirts, given that two starting players wore a number 12 shirt, and around the hour mark, number 7 replaced number 7 without any shirt swapping taking place between them.

As an aside, this causes problems when entering line-ups onto the website, as the software that drives it cannot accurately cope with two players wearing the same number when both are substituted. This is why the line-ups never show a duplicate number, and also why, for friendlies, shirt numbers on the website will frequently differ from those actually worn by players.

Hendon started the match by attacking without achieving much, though the first decent chance fell to Barnet, Josh Strizovic’s right foot diverting the shot over the bar for an unproductive corner.

The first half ended goalless, though not chanceless. Hendon probably had the better chances, with several players having shots blocked or shooting just wide. The most outrageous effort in the first half, however, fell to Sam Shaban. Barnet’s defenders were passing the ball amongst themselves, with their goalkeeper about 25 yards from goal, ready to take part if required, when a pass between defenders went astray. Shaban was on to it quickly and shot over the goalkeeper from about 45 yards. Fortunately for the Barnet custodian, but not Shaban, the bounce of the ball cleared the crossbar by no more than a foot. Hendon had the better first-half chances, but some of the shooting was a little wayward, and when it was on target, it was well dealt with by Barnet’s ‘keeper and defence.

As is usual, both sides made a number of changes at half-time, with further changes being made later. Both Hendon’s goals came in a two-minute spell just before the hour mark. JORDAN WILLIAMS scored the first, netting from a rebound after a close-range Tyler Notley effort from a corner had been diverted onto a post. Notley was also involved in the second goal, a good pass leaving NATHAN BRATHWAITE clear to slip the ball past the goalkeeper.

Five minutes later Hendon should have had a third goal. Both Isaac Stones and then Radu Stefanoaica were clipped when in the Barnet penalty box, though the referee only awarded a penalty after the second offence. The Hendon bench called that Stones should take the penalty, and he directed a low shot to go just inside an upright, but he was foiled by a tremendous save by the Barnet goalkeeper.

Immediately after the goals had been scored, Hendon introduced Ayoub Enajar and Florian Ada, and both made their mark in the second half, albeit in different ways. Enajar lasted nine minutes before being injured in stopping a Barnet breakaway, limping off after treatment to be replaced by a new trialist. Ada, on the other hand, with a modicum of luck and a willingness to try lifting the ball over a grounded goalkeeper, could have had a hat-trick, but the ball has not run kindly for him this pre-season where the scoring of goals is concerned.

The game ended with Hendon two goals to the good. It provided Hendon with another stern test, but in a different way to that posed by Hemel Hempstead, one which this time they passed.

Currently Hendon has 22 players registered for the season. Manager Adam Fisher intimated on the club X account after the game that he is fairly sure of eight or nine starters for the FA Cup match on August 8th, but that there is still time for others to persuade him otherwise. His problem, assuming everybody stays fit, is keeping all the players happy and willing to play for the club.