Tamworth finished their pre-season preparations with chairman Abdullah Ashraf flying in to see his new club in action and record a comfortable win at the Seah Stadium, Lambs boss Andy Peaks took one final opportunity to look at his squad before the Enterprise National League gets underway.

Against Kevin Wilkin’s National League North side Peaks started with a 4-5-1 formation attacking the home end terracing of the New Bucks Head but United’s shirts had no numbers on their backs and with no team sheet opposition player identification was difficult if not impossible, although Lambs fans recognised three former players in the Bucks ranks players; Orrin Pendley, Alex Fletcher and Matt Curley.

It took a while for the game to get going and after 9 minutes a deep cross finally saw the ball enter a penalty area.
It was at the wrong end for The Lambs though and Luke Fairlamb bundled it out for a corner which was headed goalward and blocked bravely by Luke Hutchinson for another. The flag kick came to nothing but a clash of heads between Pendley and Joe Rye halted play while the latter received treatment both on and then off the field.
The Lambs, with ten men, responded in perfect fashion by taking the lead.
A mazy run from Ben Acquaye found Oliver Dyson in the D on the edge of the area and he threaded it through to Hutchinson who struck for goal. Although his strike will go down as an own goal, thanks to a wicked deflection off the Telford defender’s head to take it away from his keeper, Tamworth fully deserved the advantage by virtue of the move alone (0-1, 15 mins)
Rye, suitably bandaged, returned ten minutes after leaving the field and his defensive teammates Luke Fairlamb and Tom Parkes were called upon to put their bodies on the line soon after. Telford mounted a dangerous attack from a right sided freekick on 26 minutes which Jas Singh only half punched away before the ball was recycled, blocked and was cleared.
There was plenty of effort from both sides, but action in the final third was scarce until the 40th minute when a United winger beat the Lambs offside trap and raced through to thump a shot directly at Singh. However, his claims for a penalty after going down when he tried to mop up the rebound were strongly rebutted by the referee.
After a late push in added time, including a corner which Hutchinson leapt high to glance just wide, Tamworth took their slender advantage into the changing rooms.

HT: 0-1

With the August sunshine covering the majority of the lush green grassy surface United restarted the game, but it was The Lambs who took the play to their hosts in the early exchanges while also defending strongly to keep Telford at bay.
The Lambs second half exertion duly brought its rewards in the 55th minute when Oliver Dyson sent a long ball into the area for Tom McGlinchey and his resulting shot, at the second attempt, was clearly handled by the covering defender. The referee’s decision gave Teo Kurtaran the opportunity to extend the Lambs lead, which he duly did from the spot, with his third pre-season penalty conversion out of three. (0-2, 55 mins)
Telford responded and Luke Fairlamb was called upon to clear a goal bound header from a corner off the line before Singh dropped and smothered from a testing low angled drive on 59 minutes.
Hutchinson blasted a half chance over the target a minute later, but there was no denying McGlinchey in the next move when Fairlamb’s cross rebounded to him on the edge of the box and he made no mistake with a tidy finish into the bottom right from 18 yards (0-3, 61 mins)
United immediately countered though, and blotted the Lambs clean sheet after a deflected shot from the left of the area looped up and over Singh, dropping for a close range far post finish to reduce the arrears (1-3, 62 mins)
Singh plucked a well-placed goal bound freekick out of the air on 72 minutes and Lambs substitute Tyler Lyttle got in front of a United forward to cut out a precision pass into the area in the home sides next attack.
After a few changes in personnel The Lambs should have further extended their lead but after Jordan Cullinane-Liburd skipped through the opposition defence and connected with a delightful pass into the box over the back line from Morgan Roberts, he couldn’t direct it past the keeper.
On 87 minutes, Lyttle and McGlinchey combined to get the ball into the box for Roberts to strike from 18 yards but it whizzed past the right hand post and substitute Tom Fogarty denied Telford a late consolation with a timely block when another 'anonymous' United player had the goal in his sights and got set to pull the trigger.

And so after eight 'practice games', the full-time whistle blew on pre-season with a deserved win and just seven days to wait until the opening day trip to Boreham Wood.

AFC Telford United
[No team-sheet / line-ups supplied]

Tamworth
Singh; Handley (Lyttle 63), Rye (Fogarty 87), Parkes (Cullinane-Liburd 76), Fairlamb; Bramble, Kurtaran (Roberts 74), Dyson, Acquaye (Calder 63), McGlinchey; Hutchinson (Donnelly 74)
Subs: Rachel, Hollis, Tshikuna, Trialist

Referee: [unknown]

Attendance: [unknown]