Boreham Wood boss admits they 'rode their luck' in win against Chesterfield

Substitute Josh Rees scored the winner just after the hour and the hosts had goalkeeper Nathan Ashmore to thank for several excellent saves.

Ashmore, who was named man of the match, was particularly brilliant in the first-half, making a string of stops, including a superb one from Liam Mandeville when all the odds were against him.

Garrard said his goalkeeper’s performance was of the highest level.

He said: “He deserved to be on the winning team, he deserved to get a clean sheet. I said to him afterwards that if that is on a World Cup stage or a Champions League stage everybody is talking about it over and over again. We watch him week in week out in training and those are the things he does. If he wasn’t man of the match then I don’t know who was.”

Chesterfield played as well as they have done away from home for some time as they dominated large periods of the game but they could not find a way past Ashmore.

Garrard admitted his team ‘rode their luck’ and felt their busy fixture schedule had affected their performance.

Garrard added: “I think we looked the most tired today. I felt at times we did not shut the gaps and we did not get across but they are a good team, coached unbelievably, managed superbly, got great key personnel and they caused us huge problems. They locked you in unbelievably. We rode our luck.”