Woking’s 11-match unbeaten run came to an end with a 2-1 Enterprise National League defeat at home to Scunthorpe United on December 20.

Neal Ardley named a Woking side unchanged from the one that beat Carlisle United at Brunton Park, while Scunthorpe boss Andy Butler welcomed Danny Whitehall, Joe Rowley, Tyrell Sellars-Fleming and Tyler Denton back from injury.

After a low-key start, a piece of individual brilliance from Woking’s Josh Kelly nearly opened the scoring. He took the ball down, turned his man and unleashed a superb shot which hit the bar and went behind for a goal kick.

Drewe set up Beautyman but the Woking midfielder’s header went wide of the target.

Scunthorpe took the lead in the 18th minute. Good play down the right saw Zain Westbrooke tee up Danny Whitehall, who headed out of the reach of Will Jaaskelainen and into the back of the net.

When Sellars-Fleming was played in behind the Woking defence, he attempted to round the onrushing Jaaskelainen and make it two, but went down far too easily and was booked for diving.

Cal Roberts darted inside for Scunthorpe and curled an effort towards goal but the ball pinged against the bar and went over.

Scunthorpe added a second goal in the 74th minute when Roberts played a superb through ball on the half volley to Declan Howe, who raced on to it and showed great composure to lash the ball into the top corner past a hapless Jaaskelainen.

With two minutes left the dangerous Josh Osude managed to find space inside the area and fired low inside the near post to give the Woking fans hope, but Scunthorpe held on.

Woking manager Neal Ardley said: “I just felt, probably right from minute one, that we weren’t quite at the races today.

“Scunthorpe came and put in a really strong away performance. Defensively they worked incredibly hard - they were really snappy on the basics of the game.

“They didn’t give us much space and we lacked quality. I thought we lost a lot of battles and that makes it really hard.

“We had fleeting moments where you thought we might get in but we didn’t have the final pass or quality.

“I just thought we were second best today and that’s a little bit disappointing given the run we’ve been on.”

Woking defender Tunji Akinola said: “We didn’t perform to our best today and when that happens in football it’s tough to get a result.

“I think the good teams know how to win when they’re not at it and that’s going to happen at times. If we look at ourselves in the mirror, we just weren’t at it - in terms of physically, mindset, everything.

“It’s important that we rebuild next week and try to start another unbeaten run.

“Straight after the game emotions can come into it and you can probably feel like you could have done a lot better. I’ll watch the game back next week and just see where we could have done better.

“We’ve got to keep a balance because we have been unbeaten for two months and there’s been times in that period when we’ve not played well but still got a result.”

Will Bewsey