Aveley 1 (0) - (0) 0 ROMFORD Attendance 93

The day started badly for Boro when news that keeper Aaron Omand was stuck in traffic meant Atu Ngoy had to go between the sticks even though he was carrying an injury. It didn't show however when he was immediately called into action to push a first minute cross shot from Aveley over the bar. By the time Aaron Omand arrived and replaced Atu Ngoy in the fourteenth minute the game had developed into a lively midfield battle only hindered by the young referee making no allowances for slightly mistimed tackles on the greasy surface.
Romford pushed forward and created a number of chances. In the seventeenth minute a George Woodward cross just eluded his onrushing forwards and again from the left Kurt Smith cleverly turned an Aveley defender before picking out Lewis Francis who shaved the post with a side foot volley. When Aveley breached the Boro defence, Aaron Omand brilliantly parried the goalbound effort over the bar.
On thirty-seven minutes a strange Lewis Francis free kick looked to be going miles too high but then dropped dramatically allowing Paul Clayton to nod back across goal to James Ishmail who stretched to head agonisingly just past the post. Then a good move ended with Robbie Norris played Ryan Imbert through, but Jack Giddens in the Aveley goal produced the save of the match from the powerful effort.
Just before the interval the referee who had shown a number of unnecessary yellow cards predictably missed the worst foul of the match on Jamie Dicks near the corner flag.

Romford started the second half quite strongly, but man of the match James Ishmail received the most ridiculous yellow card of the afternoon for mildly querying why the ref had missed an elbow that felled Ryan Imbert.
The steady rain suddenly turned into a monsoon and although news came flooding in (sorry) of abandonments in other local games, both Aveley and Boro coped very well with the atrocious conditions.
Aveley then brought on prolific strikers Anton Stephenson and Ross Wall and started to produce more chances up front before James Ishmail fired just wide after a sutained Romford attack.
However, the match was then decided in the eightieth minute when a fierce shot hit the hand of the unlucky Paul Clayton from point blank range and the resulting penalty was dispatched by another well known striker, Billy Holland.
Skipper Paul Clayton went up front to supplement the Boro attack in their desperate efforts to salvage something and perhaps the best chance came in injury time as Kurt Smith did wonderfully well to make himself a bit of space on the edge of the crowded box, but his pass just failed to reach Lewis Francis who would have had a good sight of goal.

AVELEY 1 HOLLAND PEN 80
ROMFORD 0

ROMFORD: ATU NGOY (AARON OMAND 14), DAVID OTTLEY, GEORGE WOODWARD, JAMIE DICKS, JAMES ISHMAIL, PAUL CLAYTON (C), ROBBIE NORRIS (MICHAEL SAMMUT 78), ABS SEYMOUR, RYAN IMBERT (JOE OATES 70), LEWIS FRANCIS, KURT SMITH
UNUSED SUBS: AIME BLESSING, JOEL PALMER

YELLOW CARDS: RYAN IMBERT 28, ABS SEYMOUR 34, ROB NORRIS 43, JAMES ISHMAIL 50, JAMIE DICKS 72