HORNCHURCH  5  ROMFORD  1

 Hornchurch kicked towards the windmill end in the first half, and both sides made a slow start. Sam Berry made his first appearance, playing in midfield, but his impressive performance was curtailed when he picked up an ankle injury and was replaced by Michael Spencer, who took over the midfield role instead of his normal left back slot. Jon Green and Kris Lee were up front with Paul Shave playing more forward than normal. John Purdie returned after injury and played the full 90 minutes, and along with Mark Goodfellow the defence was rarely troubled. Some long throws by Billy Coyne caused the away defence some problems, and Hornchurch took the lead a minute before half time when BILLY COYNE moved up strongly from the half way line, and his solo run was finished off with an excellent shot from outside of area into near corner of the net.

Hornchurch stepped up the pace in the second half, and forced several corners, but the second goal came after a rapid right wing run by Jon Green and a low cross, which was converted by MICHAEL SPENCER. More corners followed, and from one of these, PAUL SHAVE rose to head home from Andy Tomlinson’s inswinging corner on the right.

Romford pulled a goal back when DANNY JONES was first to react when a free kick was parried by Michael Bowditch, and he neatly played the ball into the net. Joe Stevens looked dangerous on the left and put over several good crosses, which saw the ball skimming past the post, first from Paul Shave’s header and then two shots from Kris Lee.

KRIS LEE played the full 90 minutes and scored the fourth goal when he backheaded a corner from Andy Tomlinson on the right into the net. Bostry Bansende came on and made a good run in from the right, and hit his side into the side netting. And it was Bansende again who crossed for Spencer to fire inches wide. The fifth goal came after Michael Spencer made a solo run and was brought down, and Mark Janney scored with the penalty