Romford 1 (0) v Cheshunt 1 (0) - Attendance 66

In a scoreless first half Romford showed their lack of match-day sharpness. Cheshunt generally had the greater possession and pressed hard at the start with home defender Scott Truman having to clear off the line after only five minutes of play.

Boro then began to find their feet and after fifteen minutes Karl Smith put a good ball through to his strike partner Chris Thomas who was unable to put much force behind his shot and the visiting keeper was able to gather quite easily.

Cheshunt then had a further period of power play and used the offside trap to good effect against Thomas and Smith. The visitors also managed to clear a couple of close calls off their goal line and so a goalless first period came to a close.

Romford came out and picked up their pace at the restart but to no effect. After six minutes into the second half, deadlock was broken when the Ambers played a long ball into the right hand side of the home penalty area which home keeper Danny Mulrooney, who had picked up a first half knee injury, was unable to meet and clear. This break enabled Cheshunt forward Chris Meikle to weave his way in towards the home goal and fire a low hard cross-shot inside the far post to take his team into the lead.

Going behind galvanised the home side into even greater effort and they were unlucky during a number of raids over the next ten minutes including a Matt Toms header from a right wing free kick going just wide. A Romford breakthrough eventually came when a James Gammons long throw from the right touchline found the head of Chris Thomas from which Toran Senghore collected and fired the ball across an unsighted visiting keeper into the net to even the score again.

Both sides then had a number of free kicks but failed to make anything out of them with probably the best chance going to Boro substitute Paul Burnett whose volley from a headed on free kick failed to get very close to the target.

As both sides strove for a winner the game became physically cut and thrust with Romford probably having the better of the exchanges and Cheshunt taking over the ‘catch ‘em on the break’ role. After a good five minutes of added time the final whistle blew with honours still even.

This and other results on the night took Boro up one place in the league table but they now face two really tough matches. This coming Saturday January 23rd they visit league leaders Lowestoft Town who have drawn none and lost only one home game this season and on Saturday January 30th they host top five side Concord Rangers.

Romford squad: Mullrooney, Barry, Neville, Truman (Taylor 75), Toms, Gammons (Clayton 72), Thomas, Heed, Smith, Senghore (Burnett 78), Kavanagh. Substitutes not used: Habberley and Protheroe.