After a cool and rainy week, Friday night’s fixture brought me, for a first ever visit, to Redbridge FC’s Oakside Stadium in Barkingside, East London. Redbridge FC play in the Isthmian league North Division and tonight’s pre-season friendly saw them matched up against Hornchurch FC, of the Isthmian Premier Division.

Oakside Stadium boasts a clubhouse, refreshment stand and a seated grandstand. It also has open terracing behind the goals and in two corners of the ground. The pitch is grass and looked to be churned quite heavily, with the club having been denied permission to move to an artificial surface this year. The ground benefits from four corner floodlights and there was a decent crowd in for the match.

Redbridge FC are managed by George Christou and was founded in 1959 when two Ford Motors sports clubs merged to form Ford United. In 2004 the club were renamed Redbridge in order to form a local identity, hence their nickname, “The Motormen”. Last season the club won promotion from the Essex Senior League, having defeated Isthmian side Hayward’s Heath, in an inter divisional play off match.

Hornchurch had a memorable season in 2022-23, finishing as runners-up in the Isthmian Premier League, before being beaten in the play off final by Aveley to the promotion place for the National League South. Steve Morison has joined in June 2023 as manager, bringing a pedigree of a playing career at Millwall, along with management experience from his time at Cardiff City in the Championship.

The game opened with chances for both sides, before Hornchurch eased ahead in the 12th minute with a headed goal by Nathan Bertram-Cooper.

On 21 minutes the score was 0-2 to Hornchurch FC with Jack Leahy scoring, after a fine mazy run on the edge of the box.some of the Redbridge FC players heads began to drop as they sensed this game could run away from them.

In the 29th minute, Redbridge pulled a goal back when an error saw the Hornchurch FC keeper pull a Redbridge forward down in the box. The penalty was despatched by their unnamed number 10, to make the score 1-2.

As the half time whistle blew, the teams went in with just one goal separating them. Redbridge FC would have felt they did well to fight their way back into the match and would have gone into the break with confidence.

In the 70th minute the scores were levelled when Redbridge FC’s unnamed number 17 finished neatly, with a looping shot, for the home side to make it 2-2.

At full time it was the home team, from the lower league, who would have been happier with the draw, especially having shown the fight to come back from 2-0 down.