Hendon were grateful for an 86th minute strike from Martin Randall to force a 3-3 draw with Yeading at The Warren on Tuesday night. The striker, who was captain for the day, opened the scoring too.

Mark Cooper and Paul Towler made their first appearances of the season and the former immediately linked up with Steve Butler at the heart of defence; Micky Woolner and Iain Duncan were the full-backs. As Jon-Barrie Bates was on holiday and Steve Forbes a substitute, it meant Towler and Paul Yates were the central midfielders with Gallagher and Dale Binns out wide. Randall was partnered by Ricci Crace up front.

In the 2nd minute, Gallagher was tripped by Emon Protain as he cut into the penalty area, but only a free-kick was given. Little did Hendon know that they would not get another one for 33 minutes.

In the 6th minute, a teasing cross from Woolner brought Simon Chang off his line. He could not get near the ball as RANDALL rose well and flicked a header past him into the net.

In the 14th minute, a defence error by Danny Hawksworth presented the ball to Binns who passed inside to Crace. A sliding tackle from Nevin Saroya did not take the ball away from Crace, but Saroya's hands did, although no penalty was awarded.

In the 26th minute, poor defending by Hendon was punished as Steve ASHLEY drilled a shot from 20 yards past David Hook for the equaliser. ASHLEY was on the mark again less than 2 minutes later, as he rose to head home a cross from Danny Jordan.

Hendon had a third penalty claim in the first half turned down when Hawksworth stopped Crace going for the ball by dragging him back. Like the two previous instances, no spot-kick was forthcoming.

At half-time the Hendon management team made it clear to the players that their 45 minutes' effort had not been good enough and better was demanded after the break. Eugene Ofori, Rob Haworth and Forbes were introduced in place of Crace, Randall and Yates respectively.

Haworth and Ofori made an immediate impact, linking together well to fashion a fine equaliser barely two minutes after the half started. Haworth's knock-down ran into OFORI's path and he shot powerfully past substitute keeper Matt Hodson.

Yeading hit back just as quickly when Bobby BEHZADI ran across the edge of the Hendon penalty area and fired a well-directed low shot just inside the right upright.

Hendon made 5 more changes during the second half, James Burgess, Leon Woodruffe all coming on Pat Sappleton and Yates and Randall returning to the fray. The Dons had the better of the exchanges in the half, but the equaliser was proving rather elusive.

Then, in the 86th minute, Woodruffe ran down the left wing, cut inside and rolled the ball into the path of Randall, now playing just behind the front two. Before a defender could get close enough to him, RANDALL fired a low shot that may have taken the slightest of deflections before ending up in the corner of the net.

"We were very poor in the first half," said manager Dave Anderson. "Things have gone almost too well in preseason and we needed a kick up the backside and they gave it to us. In some ways it was the best thing that could have happened to us."