Romford 1 (1) v (3) 4 Thamesmead Town Attendance 80

Scoring inside the first minute of the game Boro seemed to have made the perfect start. Their goal came about from a long ball in from the left by Kevin Neville which caused confusion on the edge of the Town penalty area and after a slight scuffle between the Thamesmead keeper, one of his defenders and Shaun Clarke, the latter player found himself clear with the ball in his opposing penalty area and had the simple task of sliding the ball into the visitors’ net.

Building up from this dream beginning the home side began to play the ball around very comfortably but no player seemed to want to hold the ball for very long and create dangerous sorties into the visitors penalty and, in doing so, they gradually handed control to their opponents which, as events unfolded, they accepted gratefully.

What really undid Romford’s efforts to consolidate their lead, however, was a bad ten minute period in the middle of the first half when three goals were scored against them.

First of all, on 15 minutes, Thamesmead got through on the left and a cross was met by their big striker Andy Constable who was easily able to score with a firm header without the sort of real challenge that the missing Paul White, injured during the pre match warm up, would have been able to exert.

Some seven minutes later a through ball on the right was taken by Constable although he and another Mead forward looked well offside when he received the ball and he beat Neil Finn at the near post with a hard low shot. Two minutes after this, with the home defence under real pressure, centre back Jack Barry faced with an awkward bouncing ball,
tried a back pass to his keeper Neil Finn which left him in no mans land and Marcus Perona converted past Neil who could not be faulted for any of the goals scored against him and made some excellent saves throughout the match.

Just after this Paul Kavanagh was unlucky with two attempts. The first was when the Mead keeper managed to block his hard low shot and the second was when he met a ball from the right and hit an athletic let footed volley which whistled just over the bar.

So the home side went into the break 3-1 down giving them a mountain to climb although, with a little bit of luck, it could have been just a one goal deficit or even all square.

At the restart it became evident that Romford had regained their composure and they played with the same assurance that they had at the very beginning and played the ball around while Thamesmead looked their usual dangerous selves in their attacks.

There were a number of Boro forays into the visitors penalty area during which their keeper Steve Northwood made some first class saves not the least of which was one from a Paul Clayton low drive from outside the Mead penalty area which seemed destined to hit the back of the net but was turned away almost miraculously by him low down at his right hand post. Had this goal been scored it would have taken the deficit to 2-3 and who knows what the final outcome would have been.

Sadly on 73 minutes the final rub of the green effect took place when visiting substitute Jack Hopkins hit a thunderous speculative left foot volley from well outside the penalty area which Finn could only parry and the ball spun back slowly into his net. It has to be said that if the ball had not quite reached its target another Thamesmead forward was on hand to make sure.

The final fifteen plus three added minutes were not without incident but there were no more goals and Romford now have to regroup for their home league game this Saturday August 22 when they host a strongly fancied Northwood side followed by a visit to Maldon on Tuesday 25 for another league game.

Romford squad: Finn, Oxby, K.Neville, J.Barry, Port(Gammons 26), Clayton (Tubey 82), Nelson, Jones Nyman 65), Noakes, Clarke, Kavanagh, Mulcore, and Mulrooney (GK).