Goals from Jamie Hand and Danny Hockton overcame Woking and sent an early message to the rest of the Blue Square South at the Kingfield Stadium.
However, Chelmsford City`s head coach Glenn Pennyfather refused to get carried away, claiming: “It’s too early to talk about momentum.”
Chelmsford came from a goal down against the much-fancied Surrey outfit and Pennyfather heaped praise upon his new team for their efforts. He said: “This will be a tough place to come to for anyone as they’re a good side with great support. There were a lot of big performances from us tonight and we achieved a great result. We would obviously have taken two wins from two at the start of the season but it’s too early to talk about momentum at this stage. The players will get better and better from here.”
City were without central defender Ben Martin after he sustained a groin injury against Bath at the weekend, meaning the only change to the starting eleven saw young Mark Haines assuming his position alongside Simon Glover. “Mark did a brilliant job for us,” Pennyfather continued. We had several options available to us at centre-back after the injury to Ben and knew Mark was inexperienced, but you don’t get experience unless you’re given it. He has been patient and he’s kept on learning.”
Elsewhere in the team, new Clarets left-back Danny Bunce lined-up against his Woking team-mates from the previous campaign, as did the Cards’ Sam Sloma, who was with Chelmsford last term. It will have been Sloma, though, who will have taken greater heart from his team’s opening as Moses Ademola saw a goalbound 11th-minute header pushed back out by goalkeeper Craig Holloway and, despite Ademola putting away the loose ball, the referee ruled his goal out for an earlier infringement
Even at this early stage City seemed to be clearing hastily and giving the ball away too regularly and it took another strong save from Holloway to deny Luke Medley, but the same player fared better in the 22nd minute. The ball dropped inside the penalty area from a corner and it fell to Medley in front of goal who made no mistake in poking home to register the relegated side’s first ever Blue Square South strike.
This advantage didn’t last long, however. Five minutes, in fact. Defender Aswad Thomas was adjudged to have held back Anthony Cook in the area and prevented his path to goal sufficiently for the referee to award a City penalty. Having netted from the spot in pre-season, and in the absence of regular taker Dave Rainford through suspension, skipper Hand tucked the ball away for the leveller.
After the break, winger Ricky Holmes caused Woking some early concern down the left-hand side but it was Hockton who did the 57th minute damage with his second in consecutive games which put the visitors in front. He controlled ball on his way into the penalty box before slotting low past custodian Ross Worner.
From then on the temperature of the game was raised and the hosts raised an unsuccessful penalty appeal around the hour mark when Tom Hutchinson thought he was fouled as he attempted to head at goal. Woking applied spells of pressure towards the end and City were content to counter-attack, particularly via Holmes, but Chelmsford held firm to add an excellent result to their record.
