Brentwood Town 2 (2) v Romford 2 (1) - Attendance 122

The match itself was very much the definitive ‘game of two halves’ because of a strong end to end wind with Brentwood having the advantage of the elements in the first half. However, we could have taken all three points had we been rewarded with at least one of two hand ball decisions in our opponents’ penalty area.
After a settling down period the home side began to have more of the play and they opened the scoring on 26 minutes when Dee Okojie received the ball on the right and cutting in hit a low hard shot past visiting keeper Neil Finn .
Steve Willis went close with a header from a Kurt Smith left wing corner shortly after this for the visitors and the Blues had to substitute their keeper just after the half hour due to him suffering from a bout of food poisoning.
This change did not seem to unsettle the home team at all and they went two goals into the lead on 38 minutes through when Ross Parmenter collected a ball on the left and ran through to put his side two goals ahead.
Romford still fought back and were rewarded some five minutes after this when a Paul Kavanagh corner ball on the right found its way out to Toran Senghore just outside the home penalty area. He hit a thunderous hard low shot through a crowd of players into the Brentwood net to reduce the score to a 2-1 margin.
This is how the score remained until the half time break during which Jay Taylor replaced his Romford captain Paul Clayton who had received a first half injury.
At the restart the Blues tried to renew their two goal lead but the visitors with the wind now at their backs gradually took control of the game although the home side also had their moments with Finn having to get down well to save a one on one with Petrit Elbi and his team mate Joe Sweeney blasting a chance over the top.
Interspersed with this home action Boro’s Smith chased a long ball through into the Brentwood defence but was just too high with his shot.
It was Smith though who made amends for this miss when he was at hand to hook a headed back Kavanagh right wing corner into the net from close range to level the score at 2-2.
Romford then put further pressure on their hosts winning a series of corners but not being able to convert any of these although Martin Heed hit a post and they were also denied two penalty shouts for hand ball during this period.
The first of these might have qualified as ‘ball to hand’ but the second one which the referee refused to grant them was the complete opposite when a Blues defender running towards his own goal controlled the ball with the crook of his left arm. It seemed that everyone on the ground saw this offence except the match officials.
As an ironic footnote to these events the visitors were reduced to ten men on 72 minutes, when central defender Paul White was deemed to have trodden intentionally on a home player and received a straight red card. However despite being one man down Boro continued to take the game to their hosts.
It was only during the very latter stages of the game that Brentwood began to benefit from their one player advantage. But they were unable to turn this pressure on their opponents’ goalmouth into anything tangible in the way of goals and this enjoyable hard fought game ended in a worthy draw.

Romford squad: Finn, Barry, Neville (Thomas 77), White, Willis, Clayton (Taylor 46), Heed, Port, Smith, Senghore, Kavanagh. Subitutes not used: Nelson, Skinner and Mathews (GK).

Boro's next two league matches are firstly away to Wingate & Finchley on this coming Saturday November 28th followed by a home game with local neighbours East Thurrock United on Saturday December 5th.