Neither could have imagined that seven years later they would share a Championship winner's medal, combining for the opening goal in the match that sealed Coventry City's title — and a return to the Premier League for the first time in 25 years.
Ephron Mason-Clark, then 19, netted for Barnet in a 2-1 National League loss to Gateshead. Brandon Thomas-Asante, aged 20, scored for Oxford City in a 5-3 defeat by Hampton & Richmond Borough in the National League South. Two different grounds, two different levels, a combined crowd of roughly 1,150. The football was as far from Wembley as it is possible to be.
Fast forward to April and May 2026 and Coventry, under mamnager Frank Lampard, accumulated 95 points to win the Championship with three games to spare — their first second-tier title and a return to England's top flight since relegation in 2001. Thomas-Asante ended the campaign with 13 goals and four assists. Mason-Clark contributed 10 goals and nine assists — more assists than any other player at the club. Together they were involved in 36 goal contributions.
Thomas-Asante's road to the top took a decade and covered every rung of the pyramid. From the MK Dons academy in 2011 to the National League with Sutton United, Ebbsfleet United and Oxford City, through League Two with Salford City, and eventually West Bromwich Albion in the Championship in 2022 — where he completed the full set of EFL divisions before joining Coventry in 2024.
Mason-Clark's journey began in the Isthmian League Premier Division on loan at Metropolitan Police in 2016, one month after making his Barnet debut. He spent six years with the Bees, predominantly in the National League, before Peterborough United signed him in League One in 2022. Coventry brought him to the CBS Arena two years later.
Thomas-Asante reflected on the scale of the journey after lifting the trophy following a 3-1 win over Wrexham in the penultimate game of the season.
"Wow, what a moment. Moments like this, they're not out of nowhere. They're built up over years and decades. It's a journey."
He keeps the jacket he wore before matches during his National League days as a permanent reminder of where he came from.
"We've got a running joke — we say we've got our jumpers at home. Anyone who's played National League will know, as everyone wears the same jacket before a game. I kept that because I never want to forget the tough times. But I also don't want to downplay the National League because as we saw with York and Rochdale, the standard is unreal. It gets downplayed and it's not a joke. So to see that, see League Two, League One, the Championship and, god-willing, soon the Premier League is special."
Mason-Clark's emergence has been one of the stories of the Championship season. Thomas-Asante had faced him at academy level and said he knew immediately what kind of player he was dealing with.
"When I first joined, he was one of the players where I saw him and I thought, 'I played against him a lot at academy level, I know he gave some of my mates a tough time.' So I just wanted to play with him. And seeing no one in the country being able to deal with it is just an amazing sight."
He went further when asked about the player his team-mate has become.
"I'm a fan of football before I'm a player, and the player he has become, he is just unreal. Even to watch from the other side of the pitch, I had to remember to get in at the back stick. He always adds to his game — he's just becoming inevitable. No one can really stop him."
Mason-Clark marked the occasion with an international debut for Jamaica in March, capping a season that has transformed his profile entirely.
Thomas-Asante's summer is not yet over. He heads into the World Cup as part of Ghana's squad, where he will face England in the group stage at a venue holding 70,000 people — a long way from the handful of spectators who watched him score for Oxford City in the seventh tier seven years ago.