Rebels rally to edge Brentford Academy in five-goal pre-season friendly

Photo: Lewis Gilpin

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Slough Town 3, Brentford Academy 2

Slough Town scored twice in two minutes as they came from behind to beat Brentford Academy 3-2 in the latest of their pre-season friendlies at Arbour Park on Tuesday evening.

The Rebels squad for the friendly included most of their summer signings, a couple of development squad players and several trialists, with manager Scott Davies still keen to make one or two more additions to his squad before the season kicks off on August 9.

Davies went with a reasonably strong starting lineup for the club’s fourth friendly of pre-season, with Adam Desbois starting in goal and Oshilaja, Davies, Ojemen, Gidaree and Dyce making up the defensive numbers.

Captain Henry Ochieng started in midfield alongside Johnny Goddard, Tyrique Clarke and trialist A, with Greenidge spearheading the attack.

The Rebels fell behind in the fourth minute but created one or two half chances before restoring parity in the 24th minute through Goddard.

It was Tyrese Dyce who created the chance, getting past his man on the left flank before whipping in a cross that Goddard slammed home. The Bees had defended well to that point but weren’t able to get a block on Goddard’s shot on that occasion.

The Bees’ keeper prevented Goddard from making it 2-1 to Slough a few minutes later and the hosts largely had the better of the closing stages of the half, despite Tarik Gidaree being forced off with an injury to be replaced by Dan Roth.

Davies went close from a free kick after Ochieng had been fouled, with his effort deflected into the path of Roth who fired over.

The best chance for the Rebels to take the lead before half-time fell to Trialist A, who was played through on goal but opted for a dinked finish that the Bees’ keeper read and managed to save comfortably.

Having scored his second goal of preseason in Saturday’s friendly defeat at Flackwell Heath, Wiktor Makowski was brought on to replace Trialist A at the interval. He was instantly involved as well, firing a decent opportunity into the side netting in the 46th minute.

Slough thought they’d snatched the lead in the 55th minute when the ball was bundled into the back of the net after a header cannoned back off the crossbar, but the goal was disallowed for handball.

Slough were then hit by the sucker punch of a second Brentford goal just before the hour mark, but they showed the character to come back once again in the final half hour.

Davies struck the frame of the goal with a low free kick in the 66th minute before and error in the Brentford backline was capitalised upon by Slough’s Trialist B, who scored with just over 20 minutes to play.

They then took the lead for the first time in the match in the 71st minute when a low effort from Roth flew into the bottom corner.

Roth might have had a second on the evening when he directed the ball onto the crossbar with what looked like his shoulder in the 81st minute.

Davies was delighted by the workout, saying: “A proper game this evening and one that I enjoyed. Across the board I thought the lads were superb. Many positives but still plenty to work on!”