Saints striker Toomey moves to Boreham Wood (From St Albans & Harpenden Review)

St Albans City striker Lewis Toomey joins Boreham Wood

12:38pm Tuesday 8th January 2013 in Sport

St Albans City striker Lewis Toomey has completed a move to Conference South side Boreham Wood.

The 21-year-old joined the Saints last summer from Hertfordshire rivals Hemel Hempstead Town.

Toomey netted 12 times in 21 appearances for the Saints with his most recent goal coming in the 6-2 defeat to Chesham United on New Year’s Day.

Toomey’s departure is the latest in a series of exits with Sean Shields also leaving for Dagenham and Redbridge.

Other recent players to have left include Ryan Watts, Barry Hayles, Micah Hyde and David Ijaha. Joint manager James Gray accepts it is a difficult challenge after losing these players and admits patience is required as they rebuild their squad.

Gray said: “It’s going to be tough this season. We haven’t been left in a great situation and it’s got worse over the last few weeks so I’d ask for a bit of patience from people. I don’t know if we’ll get it but I’m hoping so because I'm looking to try and build a squad and add to the experience with the youth I’m trying to bring through now.

“We were on a bit of a crest of a wave when we took over. We got the boys playing some decent stuff but since then circumstances have changed and we’ve lost a massive bulk of that squad so now we’re trying to bring in different players and they’re going to take time to settle in.”

Gray continued: “We’re working with the tools we’ve got at the minute. We’ve had three seven day approaches this week for players so there might be another three going. It’s not an easy fix but there is enough young talent out there that we can try to bring in to help us this season. The result would have gone our way or we’d have got at least a point if the more experienced boys had done the right things at the right times.

“Hardly any of the boys were on a contract due to the previous regime. Whether that was a good or bad thing I don’t know. But all I know is I've got players I’m trying to bring through and players I’ve been speaking to, maybe not so much for this season, but regarding next season I’ve had some really positive feedback so maybe it’ll be us in the ascendancy next year.”

The Saints are still looking for their first win in the new year after they suffered a 2-1 defeat at highflying Cambridge City on Saturday.

St Albans took the lead in the first half when Chris Seeby’s cross was headed home by Greg Ngoyi. Cambridge were awarded a controversial penalty after 74 minutes when Robbie Nightingale went down under a challenge from Seeby. Substitute Craig Hammond fired home the spot kick and grabbed the winner in the 89th minute when he headed home to sink the Saints.

Gray, whose side host Hitchin Town this weekend, said: “I thought we applied ourselves well. I was reasonably going 1-0 up after the first half.

“I knew they’d [Cambridge] really put us under the cosh during the second half and I thought we dealt with it well to be fair. They’re not up there for no reason. They’re a good side and I thought we dealt with it well.

“We got a bit sloppy but I'm not too sure about the first goal because I don’t think it was a penalty.

“I thought the officials had a very poor day to be fair. For me there was not enough contact there to give a penalty but it looked like he wanted to give them something all day long.

“I’m not happy and I just let the referee know that even their manager thought it was a bit harsh. For me I didn’t think the officials had a great game.”

St Albans City have appointed Nick Sanders and John Moss as their new midweek youth team managers.