A few days after the Men’s First Team had beaten Stanway Rovers 1-0 at Rookery Hill in an Essex Senior League game, The Boro Belles repeated the trick!

Romford Women 1, Stanway Rovers Women 0

A late penalty scored by Shannon Simpson was enough to separate two evenly matched sides as Romford’s women’s team secured a hard fought 1-0 victory over fellow promotion hopefuls Stanway Rovers. With regular goalkeeper Jamie Williams unavailable, outfield player Evie Doyle-Love stepped in between the posts and kept a second successive clean sheet for the Boro Belles.

Leading goalscorer Simpson was the main threat once again for Romford and was closely marked throughout the game. Support for Simpson came from Sharmari Crawford’s pacey runs on the right wing, with Lillie Toms and Francisca Lafaurie-Tull combining well on the opposite flank to cause problems for the visiting defence. Crawford would fire the best chance of half over the bar when she burst through on goal after twenty minutes. Behind her, Venetia Stuart was outstanding in midfield as she and Kathleen Shanahan broke up Stanway’s attacks and clear-cut chances were rare for both sides.

As half time approached with the game goalless, Toms picked up a knee injury that forced her out of the action at the break. She was replaced by Antonia Lafaurie-Tull, who linked up well with sister, Francisca.

The sisters switched to the right, with Crystene Fenton operating wide left, to continue to provide chances for Simpson but the close attention of two defenders made it hard for the Boro captain to find an opening. Holly Winser and Izzy Kearns were also introduced from the bench, both having played in the under 16’s girls’ match earlier in the day.

The breakthrough for Boro came with five minutes of normal time remaining, the referee ruling a challenge on Simpson in the penalty area to have been unfair and awarding a penalty. Simpson stepped up to convert the spot kick for her 15th goal of the season, making her the League’s second-highest scorer.

Romford’s defence, led by the outstanding Emily Beard, held firm to see the game out as Stanway chased an equaliser in the eight minutes of stoppage time added by the referee. The 1-0 win takes Romford to second place in the League behind leaders Chelmsford, with two matches remaining including the return at Stanway on Sunday.

Scorer: Shannon Simpson (pen)

Romford: Doyle-Love, Lakes, Beard, Saviciute, Eastwell, Stuart, Shanahan, Crawford, F Lafaurie-Tull, Toms, Simpson. Substitutes: A Lafaurie-Tull, Fenton, Winser, Kearns.

Player of the Match: Emily Beard

Under 16’s

Romford 2 - 6 Aveley

Earlier that day the Boro under 16’s suffered a damaging defeat as they went down against fellow high flyers Aveley at Westlands. The Belles have been hit by a wave of injuries at the worst time of the season and were missing no fewer than seven players for this game, including keeper Maeve Pitney.

Boro still began the match as the better of the sides and could have been in front even before Tabitha Hellen was brought down by visiting keeper Jessica Deans in the box to give Boro an early penalty. Deans would atone for her error, however, as she saved Charlotte Walsh’s spot kick.

Aveley would then take the lead with their first attack, as Layla Mitchell fired home smartly on the turn inside the box. They would then double their lead on the half hour as the excellent Phoebe Orriss raced on to a long ball and fired home. Boro’s injury woes would continue as skipper Izzy Kearns limped off with an ankle injury and Chloe Bramley would join her shortly after with an ongoing knee problem.

Any hopes of a Boro comeback were extinguished just after the half as Orriss sent a cross into the box which flew past the blameless stand in keeper Lottie Lambert to make it 3-0, and the pain would continue as Halle Nott would repeat the feat from the other side shortly after. Mitchell would head the fifth from a free kick, before Brody Brownlie rounded off the scoring as she latched on to a loose clearance to poke home.

Hellen then added some respectability to the score as she produced two fine finishes to reduce the deficit. First she latched on to a through ball from Mia Murray to slot past Deans, and shortly after she exchanged passes with Walsh to score a fine second. Boro would end the game in the ascendancy and had other opportunities to score but it wasn’t to be and their fine unbeaten league run stretching back to November was lost.

Manager James Kearns was disappointed after the game, saying “We have to be realistic and with so many players out it was always going to be hard against a really good side. Lottie did us a huge favour by going in goal and Tabitha produced two fantastic finishes but we tip our cap to Aveley who were better than us today. I’m proud of our efforts against the odds and we’ll need every bit of that resilience to get through the next few fixtures that we have coming up”.

Boro travel next to league leaders Barking for a double header this Sunday.

Scorer: Tabitha Hellen (2)

Squad: L Lambert, D Colkett, E Matthews, A Okonta, A Sambani, I Kearns (c), H Winser, M Murray, C Walsh, E Pitney, T Hellen: L Stuart-Evans, C Bramley