Woodford Town endured a tough afternoon in opening Essex Senior Encounter going down 4-0 to a Hadley outfit tipped to be amongst the title favourites this time around.

The Woods travelled to Brickfields buoyed by a superb midweek FA Cup win against London Colney in the week.

There was optimism in the first 20 minutes as Dee Safer’s settled well in the first 20 minutes roared on by their extremely vocal following creating an extraordinary atmosphere for the level.

For all the effort’s of Safer’s young team it was Hadley’s ‘Speed King’ Solomon Ofori who proved the big difference between the sides with a superb individual performance. The home side we’re seldom in trouble after Ofori set up Luke Alfonso on 25 minutes before doubling the lead with a superb individual effort a minute later.

Woodford took their credit continued to build from the back and were desperately close to reducing the arrears on half time, skipper Andrea Mantovani setting up Rigert Rama for a stinging effort brilliantly tipped over by home keeper Luke Wilson.

Despite the Woods fans best non stop efforts the second half continued in a similar vein with the excellent Ofori right at the heart of the action lobbing James Scammell for number three before setting up Jordan Edwards for a fourth with seconds remaining.

A disappointed Woods Manager Dee Safer described the match as a ‘huge learning curve’ for his young team after a mixed start to the season for his team.

“Our average age is less than 19 and Hadley’s experience showed today. A 4 goal defeat is hard to take but we kept battling and to the players credit didn’t abandon our way of playing, it was a huge learning curve from which we must learn the lessons and move on pretty quickly.”