Glen Harrington
5:24pm, Thu 5th Aug 2021
Hampton & Richmond Borough vs Woking
Pre-Season Friendly
Saturday 7th August 2021
Woking continue their pre-season campaign on Saturday when they travel to face manager Alan Dowson’s former club Hampton & Richmond Borough at the Beveree Stadium.
The Cards’ three-match winning run came to an end at Farnborough on Tuesday, when an experimental side including three trialists, academy graduates, and several players playing out of position, lost 2-1. One of the trialists had given the visitors a half-time lead, but former Card Reggie Young and a late goal from John Oyenuga handed victory to the home side. Dowse was able to rest the likes of Kyran Lofthouse, Joe McNerney, Moussa Diarra, Max Kretzschmar and Jamar Loza, following a busy start to pre-season, whilst several other first-teamers were limited to less than half an hour. There were encouraging signs too however, as Tyreke Johnson, Tommy Block and Jack Skinner all returned from injury, whilst new Kane Thompson-Sommers also played his first official game for the club after joining on loan from Birmingham City.
Hampton are amongst the favourites for promotion from National League South next season after two potentially strong campaigns were halted by the pandemic. In 2019/20 they finished eighth – one spot outside the play-off places – on the points per game metric, particularly frustrating given they were only three points adrift with two games in hand at the time of the cancellation. Last season they with in sixth position, having won nine of their 17 matches.
Gary McCann has also been able to retain the bulk of his squad this summer, including former Woking players Charlie Wassmer and Jake Gray, as well as ex-loanee Niko Muir. This summer he has added further quality in the shape of experienced defender Myles Anderson, attacking midfielder Ryan Gondoh, who scored against the Cards for Wealdstone on the final day of last season, as well as striker Jorome Slew, who was also with the Stones last season. They have also signed former Woking winger Kadell Daniel and striker David Fisher on loan from AFC Wimbledon.
Hampton won 3-1 when the two sides met in a friendly back in September 2020. The Cards won the last competitive meeting, 3-0 on New Year’s Day 2019, with a brace from Greg Luer.
Tickets
Tickets can be bought in advance online or on the day at the turnstiles. The price of admission is £7 for adults, £5 for concessions, £3 for under-17s and £1 for those aged 5-12.
The stadium address is The Beveree Stadium, TW12 2BX.
Full details available here:
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/hrbfc/548016 .
