Nick Sandamas reports as The Bees continue their winning start to pre-season

Players from Barnet and Chesham United in a pre-season match — The Bees in action at Chesham (Credit – Nick Sandamas)

The Bees made it three wins from three with the latest, a 2-0 win over last season’s Southern League Premier South Champions and now National League South newcomers Chesham United at The Meadow.

The Generals made a strong start to the game with an early chance falling to striker Mitchell Weiss, whose looping shot inside the area struck the bar, with the rebound cleared off the line by centre half Jerome Okimo.

The Bees came into it and, on 20 minutes, they opened the scoring when a low cross into the box from Reiss Hall Johnson bounced up and over into the net with the final touch coming off Generals defender Jack Cawley.

Ten minutes later and the Bees doubled their advantage when a Generals corner was then cleared upfield to Hall-Johnson who shrugged off the attentions of a defender to fire low into the corner of the net.

The Bees, now in complete control, created three more chances before the break, with new signing from Hitchin Town Finley Wilkinson’s shot being deflected wide after good work on the wing by Idris Kanu.

Next to try his luck was Kanu but his low turn and shot was forced behind by keeper Ben Goode, who was in top form moments later to push away a fierce piledriver by another summer signing, Mark Shelton.

With both sides making changes in the second half the game petered out a bit: the only worthwhile chances were a home shot which was gathered by Jordan Gilmore, whilst soon after the Generals keeper was forced into an easy save.

Another good result for the Bees then and they will be hoping to continue that good form when they visit boss Dean Brennan’s old club Hemel Hempstead Town on Saturday, kick off 1pm.

In addition to it being a pre-season game, both sides will also be competing for the Spencer McCall invitational annual trophy. Spencer was a player who played under Brennan whilst manager of the Tudors, but sadly passed away at the young age of just 26 in 2021 following a brave battle with rare bone cancer.

Match attendance: 332

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