Welcome to Romford

[sherm]

Just caught up with this CFuller, excellent stuff!

[CFuller]

Just caught up with this CFuller, excellent stuff!

Good to have you reading along, sherm.

[CFuller]

Back at Ship Lane, our resurgence was likely to be given a thorough examination by Brackley Town and their Australian manager Jon Brady. The Northamptonshire club moved to the Conference South this term after four seasons in the Conference North, and they had settled in pretty well. Before kick-off, they were in 5th place, and unbeaten in six league games.

22 November 2016: Romford vs Brackley Town

An early warning of what Brackley could do came in the 7th minute. Captain Izak Reid swung an excellent free-kick into our penalty area and found Danish-born midfielder Ibrahim Mansaray, whose header was caught by Roscoe Fryatt. Three minutes later, Duncan Greenwood failed to get a clean connection to Kamal Guthmy's deep cross, and our first effort on goal was wasted. Our captain had another opportunity after 16 minutes. Big Dunc muscled the ball off Brackley's veteran left-back Stevland Angus, but he dragged his shot across goal and out of play. We had, though, identified a glaring weakness in the Saints' defence. When 36-year-old Angus misplaced a pass to Bobby Fisk - a Romford midfielder half his age - in the 35th minute, we hit Brackley on the break. Our quick counter-attack was too much for the visitors to deal with, and when Dean O'Halloran's centred pass was blasted home by Nicky Reynolds, we took a 1-0 lead! Eight minutes later, Brackley were thwarted twice in their attempts to equalise just before half-time. Fryatt turned behind a low and hard strike from Reid, while Saints striker Julian Saunders unsuccessfully claimed for a penalty following an apparent foul from Simon Rofe in the build-up.

The second half started with substitute Jacob Blyth narrowly missing the target for Brackley in the 47th minute. The Saints struggled to create chances after that, largely due to ex-Arsenal midfielder John Spicer needlessly conceding possession with some sloppy passing. At the other end, Brackley's Slovenian goalkeeper Aljaz Cotman saved a long-distance strike from Reynolds in the 60th minute. Like Fryatt, Cotman would have a largely quiet final half-hour. We later brought on captain Kieron Carroll as he continued his return from injury. Our hearts skipped a beat in the 89th minute after Kieron was hurt in a foul from Brackley defender Marien Ifura, but he shrugged it off and carried on. Moments later, Reynolds sent Carroll clean through on goal, and though Kieron put an easy chance into the side netting, it didn't really matter. Nicky's first-half goal was all that we needed to beat an off-colour Brackley side.

Romford - 1 (Reynolds 35)

Brackley Town - 0

Conference South, Attendance 453 - POSITIONS: Romford 9th, Brackley 6th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Peters, Allen (Gray), Rofe, Guthmy, O'Halloran (Harley), Fisk, Vassell, Fenwick, Greenwood (Carroll), Reynolds.

Incredibly, our third consecutive win lifted us up to within one point of the play-off zone! To be fair, we had played a game or two more than everyone in the top five, but it was great that we were no longer thinking about relegation as a serious prospect!

Of course, that could all change with a sudden decline in form, and I wasn't expecting us to keep the winning streak going in our next match against Farnborough at the Rushmoor Stadium. David Wetherall's Yellows were 4th in the Conference South table, having finished 2nd the season before.

26 November 2016: Farnborough vs Romford

One of Farnborough's dangermen was their American captain Roby Swan, and it was important that we kept him quiet. After four minutes, the midfielder smashed a shot from just outside our 'D', and Roscoe Fryatt made a brilliant fingertip save. A minute later, Brian Neville's crunching challenge on Swan started a Romford counter-attack that looked promising until Danny Newman's cross was headed out of the Farnborough box by Clark Hainon. Despite picking up a knock in that challenge from Neville, Swan was able to carry on, but in the 11th minute, Brian took the ball off him again with another superb tackle. This time, the counter-attack that followed resulted in a goal, as Brian's long through-ball was placed into the net by... who else but Duncan Greenwood? 1-0 to Romford it was, then, but that would quickly change. Another major threat in the Yellows' line-up was their striker Kaine Sheppard, who had scored 17 goals in 17 league games. When Luke Dobie's long-range effort took a deflection off Sheppard's strike partner Charlie Penney, clinical Kaine gobbled up the loose ball, made it 18 from 18, and pulled Farnborough level after 13 minutes. Three minutes later, Romford winger Jason Harley made a blistering run down the right flank before being fouled by Louis Thompson. Graeme Montgomery curled the free-kick towards the six-yard box, where Simon Rofe outjumped Matt Bevans to nod us back in front! Simon's first Romford goal really tilted things in our favour. Nicky came close to doubling our lead in the 21st minute, and Jason did exactly that a minute later. Harley ran into the area to pick up Neville's lob, and after Farnborough keeper Joe Welch failed to nick the ball from his feet, Jason curled it into an open goal. It was 3-1 now, and just when I thought our position couldn't get any stronger, it did after 29 minutes! Montgomery headed Harley's cross from the opposite flank towards goal, and he stabbed home a follow-up shot after Welch had weakly saved his first attempt! We weren't even a third of the way through the game, and already we were 4-1 up! On 31 minutes, Fryatt parried away a close-range effort from Swan, whose team-mate Dobie hit the side netting three minutes before the break. We still held a three-goal lead at half-time, and only a stunning comeback from the hosts would deny us a third straight win on opposition soil!

The only change I made at half-time was to replace defender Connor Dymond, who had been booked in the first half, with George Allen. In the past, we'd chucked away big leads after making drastic alterations for the second half, so on this occasion, I went for the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' strategy. Early in the second half, Farnborough's situation looked beyond repair. If Welch hadn't turned Dan Lawlor's volley around the post in the 52nd minute, the scoreline would have been Farnborough 1 Romford 5. On such moments can matches change, and ten minutes later, we had our first warning that the hosts weren't ready to wave the white flag. Penney broke free of George Allen to receive a cutting pass from Sheppard, and the Millwall loanee tapped in the first of three goals that Farnborough needed to restore parity. Penney tried to return the favour to Sheppard four minutes later, but his team-mate scooped a 20-yarder over the crossbar. In the 69th minute, Romford left-back Jason Collins lost the ball to Dobie, who surged up the right wing and tried to find Penney with a cross. Allen intercepted the delivery, but his header only went as far as Yellows left-winger Leandro Hallam. The former Sunderland youth player's half-volley back into the box hit George's head and fell perfectly for Sheppard, whose simple finish reduced our lead to 4-3! By now, our fans were starting to get really nervous. Four minutes later, when Penney tapped Sheppard's pass into the corner of Fryatt's net, some unfortunate souls suffered from incontinence - or worse. We'd lost a 4-1 advantage, and I was really p***ed off.

Before I move on and tell you how it all ended, I'd like to apologise for putting any uncomfortable mental images in your head. If you're wondering whether Farnborough did score a fifth goal, let me put it this way - if they had, I probably wouldn't have lived to write about this match. The closest they came to giving me a fatal coronary was nine minutes from time, when Warren Morgan pulled a shot just wide. Moments earlier, Welch had made a crucial save to deny Greenwood a game-saving goal for Romford. An epic match finished 4-4, and a draw was perhaps the fairest result considering that the two sides had shared possession equally and managed 15 shots apiece.

Farnborough - 4 (Sheppard 13,69, Penney 61,73)

Romford - 4 (Greenwood 12, Rofe 16, Harley 22, Montgomery 29)

Conference South, Attendance 400 - POSITIONS: Farnborough 6th, Romford 10th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Newman, Dymond (Allen), Rofe, Collins, Harley (O'Halloran), Neville, Lawlor, Montgomery, Greenwood, Reynolds (Akindayini). BOOKED: Dymond, Greenwood.

I was in two minds about what to tell the players in the dressing room afterwards. One part of me was furious that we'd blown a three-goal lead in the space of just 13 minutes. Another part of me was proud of the lads, because - for an hour at least - they had comprehensively outplayed one of the division's best teams on their own ground.

In the end, I chose not to be too critical in my team talk. Our full-backs Danny Newman and Jason Collins had let us down in the second half for softly giving away the ball too often, but otherwise, the players had worked their socks off and put in as much effort as they could. It was just one of those games.

This was a bittersweet end to November on the pitch, but we were still very much inside the top half. And after we picked up 10 points from a possible 12, I was honoured with the Conference South's Manager of the Month award. Let's hope it's not a curse...

[CFuller]

                                   [b]P     W     D     L     F     A     GD    PTS[/b]
1.          Kingstonian            18    13    0     5     31    18    +13   39
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2.          Braintree              19    10    6     3     41    23    +18   36
3.          Brackley               20    8     8     4     34    25    +9    32
4.          Canvey Island          20    9     5     6     36    28    +8    32
5.          Farnborough            19    8     7     4     40    26    +14   31
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.          Eastbourne Boro        19    9     4     6     22    11    +11   31
7.          Dover                  19    8     6     5     33    22    +11   30
8.          Weston-super-Mare      20    9     3     8     25    19    +6    30
9.          Bromley                19    8     6     5     28    25    +3    30
10.         Chelmsford             19    7     8     4     29    23    +6    29
[color="#0000FF"]11.         Romford                20    7     8     5     31    29    +2    29[/color]
12.         Bath                   20    6     8     6     30    30    0     26
13.         Oxford City            20    8     2     10    32    36    -4    26
14.         Hampton & Richmond     19    6     6     7     22    25    -3    24
15.         Dorchester             20    6     5     9     26    35    -9    23
16.         Havant                 19    5     7     7     20    23    -3    22
17.         Basingstoke            19    5     6     8     21    26    -5    21
18.         Ebbsfleet              20    4     9     7     20    26    -6    21
19.         Hayes & Yeading        18    4     8     6     16    25    -9    20
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
20.         Gloucester             19    4     4     11    30    46    -16   16
21.         Tonbridge              19    3     4     12    16    36    -20   13
22.         Hitchin                19    3     4     12    19    45    -26   13

[CFuller]

As we reached the halfway point of our first Conference South season, I thought it was a good time to reflect on how much progress we had made in just four months.

When we went to Bromley in early August, we'd come off the back of a miserable pre-season, and we were an absolute mess defensively. We lost 5-2. Things quickly went from bad to worse, and by the end of September, we were up the proverbial creek in the drop zone.

Our transformation since then has been incredible! With a run of just one defeat in ten league games from October onwards, we went from being dead last to being 13 points clear of the bottom three! That's thanks largely to a much more watertight backline that doesn't leak goals anywhere near as regularly as before, though our last game at Farnborough was an extraordinary exception.

Four months on from our battering at Bromley, we met them again at Ship Lane. Rather than fearing about our margin of defeat, I was optimistic that we could take a point or even three against them.

While we were shooting up the table, Bromley were going in the opposite direction. Since their eight-match unbeaten start to the Conference South season was cut short, the Lilywhites had won just twice, and they'd plummeted from 1st to 9th in the space of a few weeks.

3 December 2016: Romford vs Bromley

Once again, our aim was to get the ball to Duncan Greenwood as often as possible. After just six minutes, Kamal Guthmy lofted a very deep cross to the big Geordie, whose close-range header at the Bromley goal went just wide. Moments later, Johnny Cosgrove's piledriver for the visitors was saved by Roscoe Fryatt. Graeme Montgomery - who was looking to impress against his former club - then put a fierce shot clean over the Bromley bar in the 15th minute. Unlike in our last meeting with the Lilywhites, we had the upper hand, but our poor shooting was stopping us from taking the lead. Kieron Carroll - making his first start since that crushing loss at Hayes Lane - was particularly culpable, as he had a couple of bad misses in the 20th and 22nd minutes. Bromley had other concerns, as midfielder Jak McCourt and defender Romario Redley both picked up knocks, though they bravely played on. On 32 minutes, Montgomery's sliding tackle on Nathaniel Pinney inadvertently knocked the ball to Cosgrove just outside our penalty area. Cosgrove skilfully got past Simon Rofe and tapped home a Bromley goal against the run of play. The Lilywhites could've taken a 2-0 lead four minutes later, but Zak Ansah followed up an excellent solo run with a poor strike. That would be a crucial miss for Bromley. In the 39th minute, Guthmy played another long pass to Greenwood, who entered the penalty area before curling a shot past goalkeeper Graeme McKibbin. We had an equaliser, and we also had momentum! Four minutes later, Carroll centered a great cross to Greenwood. Duncan's header came back off the crossbar, and Bromley defender Ollie Lawrence tackled him before he could tap the rebound home.

Just like at Hayes Lane, it was 1-1 at half-time, but there would be no repeat of Bromley's second-half surge. In the 52nd minute, Greenwood flicked a Dean O'Halloran cross into the hands of McKibbin, who was standing in for the suspended Solomon Taiwo as Bromley captain. Meanwhile, Ansah's troubles in front of our goal continued. He wasted too many opportunities by shooting either from too far out or with too much power, though he did trouble Fryatt once in the 68th minute. That was Ansah's last contribution before he was replaced by Les Warner. It wouldn't be a particularly good day for Warner either, because he had to come off injured in the closing stages. Before then, we gave Bromley a couple of scares as we looked to turn one point into three. Brian Neville struck from the edge of the area in the 70th minute, and McKibbin held onto his shot very well. Montgomery then almost fluked a goal five minutes from time, as his deep cross looked goalbound until McKibbin tipped it over! Despite our best efforts, we couldn't quite pull off a tremendous win, but a draw was more than satisfactory as far as I was concerned.

Romford - 1 (Greenwood 39)

Bromley - 1 (Cosgrove 32)

Conference South, Attendance 514 - POSITIONS: Romford 11th, Bromley 9th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Peters, Gray (Dymond), Rofe, Guthmy, O'Halloran (Harley), Neville, Lawlor, Montgomery, Greenwood, Carroll (Reynolds).

Next up for us was a midweek trip to Stanway in Colchester - but we weren't there to see the elephants and giraffes at Colchester Zoo. We were getting down to business, as a place in the Essex Senior Cup Quarter Finals would be ours if we beat Stanway Rovers in Round 4. I fielded a team consisting mostly of second-string players, in the belief that they could see off their opponents from the Eastern Counties League.

7 December 2016: Stanway Rovers vs Romford

To be honest, our first-half performance was not of the standard I expected. We gave Stanway too much of an easy ride, as we conceded soft free-kicks and failed to trouble their defence. Rovers missed their first couple of chances in the opening 20 minutes. They had their first shot on target after 23 minutes, when Jermaine Featherstone's half-volley was caught by Steven Barnes. The minnows went one better in the 37th minute, as Ross Hodson's corner was bundled over the goal line by left-winger (and Sky Sports News' horse-racing expert) Alex Quinn. At half-time, I felt like sending my underperforming reserves to the glue factory. They were 1-0 down against a team three divisions below them, and they'd only mustered one shot at goal, which Jason Harley pulled dreadfully wide on 29 minutes.

The second half wasn't particularly enjoyable to begin with - especially not for our midfielders. Jay Vassell and his replacement Bobby Fisk each picked up bookings during the first few minutes. Meanwhile, Ryan Jones spent much of the 56th minute moaning to the referee about why he didn't award us a penalty for Stanway defender Elliott Farman's apparent foul on Daniel Akindayini. Two minutes later, Nick Fenwick dribbled brilliantly down the left flank, and fired a shot that hit the crossbar before being tipped back into play by Stanway keeper Joey Cowen! That was just our second chance to score, but our third turned out to be the charm after 76 minutes. Fisk put Akindayini clean through when he lobbed the ball over the defence, and Danny slotted in the equaliser! It looked as if we'd redeemed ourselves, but five minutes from time, Jones was caught napping deep in the Boro area by Featherstone. The Stanway man played the ball to Johnny Spicer, whose cross was intercepted by Boro left-back Jason Collins. Sadly for Jason, his header went straight to Barry Murray, and the Rovers forward's half-volley gave his team a famous 2-1 win. That was just what Stanway deserved, because they'd played much, much better than us.

Stanway Rovers - 2 (Quinn 37, Murray 85)

Romford - 1 (Akindayini 76)

Essex Senior Cup Round 4, Attendance 40

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Barnes, Newman, Allen, Betteridge (Georgiou), Collins, Harley, Jones, Vassell (Fisk), Fenwick, Carroll, Stroud (Akindayini). BOOKED: Vassell, Fisk.

I actually wasn't as upset by that defeat as I thought I might've been. To be brutally frank, our heart just hasn't been in the cup competitions this season, and the Essex Senior Cup was always going to be low on our list of priorities while we tried to establish ourselves in the Conference South.

Bobby Fisk's yellow card was actually his fifth of the season, meaning he would be suspended from our next match. It also took our number of bookings for this season to 32, which was two more than we'd picked up in the whole of last season!

In the space of less than three seasons, we'd gone from being the cleanest team in the Isthmian League to one of the dirtiest in the Conference South... but that might be a good thing. We've got plenty of defensive players with good tackling ability compared to most of our contemporaries, and we've needed to get stuck in so that we didn't get pushed over by the so-called 'bigger teams'. It's a case of no more Mr Nice Guy for me.

After a lengthy break, the new rough-and-ready Romford were back in league action, as we hosted the aptly-named Tonbridge Angels. Despite having a relatively clean disciplinary record, the Angels had found clean sheets hard to come by. They'd been waiting for one since early September, and a ten-match losing streak saw them slump to last place, though they'd since moved back up to 20th - 14 points behind us.

17 December 2016: Romford vs Tonbridge Angels

After Brian Neville conceded a free-kick in the fifth minute, Tonbridge proceeded to stroke the ball around our half until they passed back to James Armson in the centre-circle. Armson dribbled unchallenged towards the penalty area, and then sharply turned past Dan Lawlor before aiming at goal. Armson's shot was blocked by Simon Rofe, but the deflection fell to Max Noble, who finished into the near corner for Tonbridge. Going behind so early on rattled us. In the 12th minute, Welsh midfielder Noble skilfully jinked beyond Kamal Guthmy and hit a low strike that Roscoe Fryatt parried away. Four minutes later, Andrew Jenkinson put a shot just over for the Angels, who were really starting to fly. Moments after that, Noble's through-ball set up a chance for Boreham Wood loanee Gary Graham, but the Scot's strike was easily gathered by Fryatt. As for our offence, they had an absolute nightmare in the Tonbridge half. Our attacking passing, especially from down the flanks, was pretty appalling, though the awful Dean O'Halloran did create one opportunity for Duncan Greenwood on the half-hour. The fact that Duncan's half-volley nearly knocked the head off a Boro supporter tells you all you need to know about how 'accurate' it was.

A bad day worsened further just over a minute into the second half, when Fryatt pulled up lame after booting a long ball upfield. He was quickly taken off to be replaced by Steven Barnes, whose league debut for the Boro would be incredibly quiet. Barnes didn't have to make a single save, and the only time that Tonbridge went anywhere near scoring in the second half was when Armson missed the target in injury time. In fact, that was the only chance either team had in a second period that was as enjoyable as having one's teeth pulled out without anaesthetic. Tonbridge's first clean sheet for three months was the easiest they will ever get this season, and our first league defeat in seven weeks knocked us out of the top half.

Romford - 0

Tonbridge Angels - 1 (Noble 6)

Conference South, Attendance 559 - POSITIONS: Romford 12th, Tonbridge 20th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt (Barnes), Peters, Dymond, Rofe, Guthmy, O'Halloran, Neville (Jones), Lawlor, Montgomery, Greenwood (Akindayini), Reynolds. BOOKED: O'Halloran, Lawlor, Montgomery.

Yes, you did read that report correctly. We only had ONE shot at goal in an entire game - at home! I felt utterly embarrassed. As I got ready to head back home, I overheard one Tonbridge fan saying to another, "The other lot were s**t! I tell you, they're gonna drop right down the table now! I wouldn't be surprised if they got relegated!"

There's the dreaded R-word, again. We needed to get that shocking result out of our system quickly, otherwise we could be hearing that more often round these parts.

[CFuller]

The post-mortem of the Tonbridge Angels defeat did not go as well as I had hoped for. As the players argued about what went wrong, I discovered that the camp was split over whether we were heading in the right direction. While some players thought we were doing reasonably well, others thought that changes were needed - and badly.

One of the lads who had a more positive outlook was Roscoe Fryatt. The goalkeeper quickly recovered from the knock he sustained against Tonbridge, so his short-term fitness was not in doubt... and neither was his long-term future at Romford. I had just handed Ros a new and improved contract until the end of next season, and he signed it without a moment's hesitation.

Following that meeting, we had one more week of training before I sent the players away to spend Christmas with their families. I did tell them to go easy on the turkey, though, because we were set to finish the month with three matches in the space of just six days.

First up was a Boxing Day battle in Hampshire against 16th-placed Havant & Waterlooville. The Hawks had recently thrashed Bromley 5-1 to end a run of four defeats in five games, so I expected them to pose an attacking threat early on.

26 December 2016: Havant & Waterlooville vs Romford

I thought very correctly. In just the fourth minute, Declan John - who was one of the scorers in Havant's battering of Bromley - crossed to another, and Guy Madjo found the net with an unstoppable volley from close range. It was already 1-0 to the Hawks, and we went looking for a quick equaliser. Within less than a minute, Daniel Akindayini dribbled to the edge of Havant's area and hit a hopeful effort, but goalkeeper Michael Jordan was equal to it. Madjo broke through our defence again in the 10th minute after playing a one-two with Eurico Sebastiao. We were then let off the hook as the Cameroonian somehow missed a gaping goal. Five minutes later, Akindayini threaded the ball between Havant's centre-backs to Duncan Greenwood, whose shot from a tight angle was parried by Jordan. Akindayini then had a 19th-minute effort blocked by Niall Wiltshire as we upped the tempo and applied more pressure on Havant & Waterlooville. That was the first of several blocked shots from Danny and Duncan, as they were constantly thwarted by crucial interceptions from Havant centre-backs Wiltshire and Raphael Branco. It took us until the first minute of injury time to find a way through that rock-solid backline. Graeme Montgomery crossed to the six-yard box, where Greenwood shrugged off Branco and Chris Arthur to volley the delivery home - or at least he would've done had Jordan not tipped the shot away! By half-time, we were still trailing 1-0, despite being in double figures on the shots count. If we could show more cunningness in the second half, then perhaps we would be able to break through.

Rather than play at an even greater pace in the second half, we instead tried to slowly grind the Havant defence down. In the 52nd minute, Montgomery found a hole, through which he sent the ball to Akindayini. However, our plan didn't quite work, as Danny blazed a rushed shot over after being quickly closed down. Eight minutes later, the Hawks' Scottish midfielder Gregor Fotheringham - who was still playing with a minor injury sustained late in the first half - played the ball forward to Welsh winger John. The Wales Under-21s international floated in a cross from 20 yards out... but it bypassed his team-mates, flew over Fryatt, and landed in the net! We felt our hearts sink after conceding a second goal in such flukish fashion, and we weren't quite the same afterwards. Even a groin injury to Havant captain Arthur in the 62nd minute didn't help in our attempts to break the Hawks' defence. Dan Lawlor missed from a long way out in the 66th minute, and for the rest of the game, we were restricted to a couple of shots from narrow angles by Dan's midfield partner Bobby Fisk. Surprise, surprise, he didn't trouble the target with either of them. This was a second successive defeat without scoring, though we at least put up a bit of a fight this time.

Havant & Waterlooville - 2 (Madjo 4, John 60)

Romford - 0

Conference South, Attendance 321 - POSITIONS: Havant 15th, Romford 14th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Peters, Dymond, Betteridge (Allen), Collins, Harley, Neville (Fisk), Lawlor, Montgomery, Greenwood (Carroll), Akindayini. BOOKED: Harley.

There was one particular positive to take out of this defeat. The amount of pressure we put Havant & Waterlooville under in the latter part of the first half was encouraging. Yes, we'd wasted a lot of chances that were blocked by the opposing centre-backs, but if we could work on breaking down opposition defences, I felt that sort of strategy would produce results.

My next chance to test the theory was going to be two evenings later, at home to a rock-bottom Gloucester City side who had lost their last five away league matches. We were widely expected to beat Gloucester and snap out of our bad run - but after a torrential downpour overnight, the final score at Ship Lane was Rain 1 Pitch 0. The match had to be postponed until the New Year.

The postponement gave us a bit more time to prepare for our last game of 2016 - the significantly tougher prospect of a New Year's Eve meeting at Chelmsford City.

I made a huge gamble with my team selection for this game. We were scheduled to play at Ebbsfleet United just 48 hours later, and I felt 17th-placed Ebbsfleet were more beatable than 7th-placed Chelmsford, so I rested most of our better players to keep them fit for that game. We therefore went to Chelmsford with a weakened team, and low expectations against a side that we hadn't beaten in our previous three clashes this season.

31 December 2016: Chelmsford City vs Romford

We'd started poorly in each of our last two games, but the early signs from this match were promising. Boro captain Kieron Carroll got above Chelmsford counterpart Jack Lampe to reach Dean O'Halloran's fourth-minute free-kick, but he couldn't direct his header towards goal. In the 7th minute, a shot from Jay Vassell was blocked by City midfielder Sam Cox, who was looking to impress after being red-carded in our last meeting. A couple of minutes later, we cleared a Chelmsford corner, only for a quick counter-attack to fizzle out when Cox made a brilliant tackle on Nicky Reynolds. Lampe was first to the loose ball, and he fed it to Will Morford, who brushed off Kamal Guthmy as he placed a low shot beyond Roscoe Fryatt. For the third straight game, we'd conceded the opening goal inside the first ten minutes! It was another terrible start, and we should've been 2-0 down after 15 minutes. Freddie Ladapo was guilty of a terrible miss when he flicked Simon Johnson's cross over the bar. Another poor miss came from us in the 18th minute. Nicky found O'Halloran with a fantastic long ball, and Dean's drilled cross to Carroll was scooped over the bar by our misfiring captain. Nick Fenwick was denied a Romford penalty on 26 minutes, despite an apparent foul from Emmanuel Monthe, who had struck our woodwork three minutes earlier with a header. We weren't having a great load of fortune, so imagine our luck in the 35th minute, when Chelmsford defender Gregor Robertson inadvertently headed a back-pass straight towards the onrushing Reynolds! Nicky was one-on-one with goalkeeper Rob Peet - but he still missed a clear goal by inches! I was mortified. If we couldn't even score from that opportunity, I thought, then there was next to no chance of us getting back into the game - not even from only 1-0 down! Just before half-time, we could have also been a man down. Fryatt had a sudden rush of blood, as he charged out of his area and brought down Ladapo with a rash challenge. He escaped with just a yellow card, and Chelmsford didn't make the most out of their free-kick, so we weren't completely out of the game yet.

Having managed just one shot on target from six attempts in the first half, Kieron was taken off and replaced by Daniel Akindayini for the second period. Danny's first effort - a direct free-kick in the 56th minute - did at least test Peet, who safely caught the swinger. Four minutes later, Cox almost got lucky for City with a deep cross that might have gone straight into the net if not for Kieron Gray's header off the line. Luck was exactly what we needed, and it continued to elude us after 70 minutes. O'Halloran swung an excellent long-range free-kick to Akindayini, whose header just looped over. I was wondering what in God's name we had to do to get the ball into Peet's net. Then, in the 75th minute, Wes Brown's men gave us a proverbial kick in the crown jewels. Kamal softly gave the ball away to Johnson, who worked the ball into the box via Morford and Gary Roberts before Ladapo applied a simple finish. Although there was no way back from 2-0 behind, we put absolutely everything into our attempts to get at least one goal. Three minutes from time, Gray flicked a Graeme Montgomery corner towards the near post, where George Allen put a half-volley into the side netting. That was an incredible 17th shot on goal without avail! Guess which part of training we'll be working hard on in the New Year...

Chelmsford City - 2 (Morford 9, Ladapo 75)

Romford - 0

Conference South, Attendance 595 - POSITIONS: Chelmsford 6th, Romford 15th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Newman (Allen), Gray, Rofe, Guthmy, O'Halloran, Fisk, Vassell, Fenwick (Montgomery), Carroll (Akindayini), Reynolds. BOOKED: Fryatt, Guthmy.

I didn't know what on Earth to say to the players afterwards. This wasn't their worst performance of the season by any stretch of the imagination, and indeed some of the lads had played pretty well. Unfortunately, having so many shots at goal doesn't guarantee that you'll score from at least one of them, and we'd learned that the hard way.

In the space of a freaky fortnight, the gap between us and the bottom three had shrunk from a massive 14 points to just five. We really need the New Year to bring us some new fortune, otherwise we could finish 2017 back where we started 2016.

[CFuller]

                                   [b]P     W     D     L     F     A     GD    PTS[/b]
1.          Kingstonian            25    15    2     8     45    31    +14   47
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.          Dover                  25    13    6     6     42    26    +16   45
3.          Farnborough            25    12    8     5     51    29    +22   44
4.          Canvey Island          25    13    5     7     45    30    +15   44
5.          Braintree              25    11    9     5     49    32    +17   42
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.          Chelmsford             25    11    8     6     41    31    +10   41
7.          Bromley                25    11    7     7     35    33    +2    40
8.          Oxford City            25    12    2     11    43    39    +4    38
9.          Eastbourne Boro        25    10    5     10    24    18    +6    35
10.         Hampton & Richmond     25    9     8     8     30    28    +2    35
11.         Bath                   25    9     8     8     38    38    0     35
12.         Brackley               25    8     10    7     38    38    0     34
13.         Weston-super-Mare      25    10    3     12    31    31    0     33
14.         Havant                 24    8     7     9     30    29    +1    31
[color="#0000FF"]15.         Romford                24    7     9     8     32    35    -3    30[/color]
16.         Dorchester             25    8     6     11    34    44    -10   30
17.         Ebbsfleet              25    6     9     10    26    33    -7    27
18.         Basingstoke            25    6     8     11    27    37    -10   26
19.         Hayes & Yeading        25    5     11    9     22    35    -13   26
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
20.         Tonbridge              25    7     4     14    24    39    -15   25
21.         Hitchin                25    6     5     14    27    52    -25   23
22.         Gloucester             23    4     4     15    34    60    -26   16

[tenthreeleader]

Tough stretch for you. These are the times that try men's souls, as they say. Hoping for a quick turnaround.

[CFuller]

Tough stretch for you. These are the times that try men's souls, as they say. Hoping for a quick turnaround.

I couldn't have put it better myself, 10-3. This was perhaps the worst run of form I'd been on since I started the story.

Did things get even worse before they got better? You'll find out in my next post.

[CFuller]

It was too early to contemplate any spring cleaning, but that's exactly what I was planning to do as we saw in 2017. I wanted to ditch some dead wood, so I could make room either for some lads from the youth team, or for players with experience that we'd been decidedly lacking so far.

Before we could freshen up the team, I had to start moving on those players who wouldn't be part of my long-term plans. On New Year's Day, I told defender Mark Betteridge and midfielders Ryan Jones and Jay Vassell that they were free to leave the club if any offers came in for them.

I also decided to make anchor man Bobby Fisk available on loan for the rest of the season, along with Gerald Stroud, who hadn't made any significant inroads at Ship Lane since his return from Burgess Hill Town. I would decide both of their long-term futures once the season was finished.

We were back on the road a day later, with an away game against an Ebbsfleet United team who had underachieved to such an extent that they were just above the relegation zone. Most of our key players (including the likes of Greenwood, Lawlor and Dymond) returned to action after sitting out the defeat to Chelmsford City.

2 January 2017: Ebbsfleet United vs Romford

We had the first scoring chance at a rainy Stonebridge Road after five minutes. Graeme Montgomery overcame heavy pressure from Ebbsfleet's defenders to put a cross into the area. He found Duncan Greenwood, whose header was saved by Preston Edwards. The Fleet tried to hit us with a quick counter-attack, but that fizzled out when Tiarnán Mulvenna swerved a long-distance shot wide. On 12 minutes, Boro striker Daniel Akindayini's shot was parried by Edwards towards Greenwood, whose quick effort struck Harry Milton before being cleared by another Fleet defender, Karlton Watson. Big Dunc lobbed another shot wide in the 17th minute before an even greater opportunity came his way a minute later. Monty's corner to the far post was headed back across goal by Connor Dymond. Milton then knocked the ball on to Greenwood in the centre of the six-yard box, but Duncan's shot bounced back off Edwards and Watson thrusted the rebound into touch. Two minutes after that dramatic miss, the deadlock was broken - and typically, it was by Ebbsfleet. Josh Cullen's free-kick was headed into the net by Shepherd Murombedzi, and the hosts were 1-0 up. We racked up yet another corner in the 24th minute, and although Montgomery's delivery was intercepted by an Alfie Mawson header, Jason Harley quickly got possession back for Romford. He half-volleyed to Dan Lawlor, whose edge-of-the-area strike hit the heel of Mulvenna and diverted into the net! Our long wait for a goal was over (even if it was an own goal) and we were level at 1-1! We now felt that we could get another goal of our own making before half-time - but our inaccurate shooting would once again leave us frustrated. Duncan and Danny both scooped shots over the bar in the 29th and 35th minutes, and Akindayini hit the post in the 40th after going one-on-one with the goalkeeper.

I felt we could keep up the momentum in the second half, but it was actually Ebbsfleet who looked more dangerous after the break. South African right-back Justin Miller came within inches of scoring from a Fleet free-kick in the 49th minute. Another man who went close for the hosts was Cullen. He pulled a shot just past the upright in the 59th minute, and then struck that same post two minutes later. Soon after those narrow escapes, I made significant changes. Greenwood was replaced by Ryan Jones, and the captaincy was handed to 17-year-old right-back Jordan Peters, who got his first chance to skipper the senior team. We also switched formation from 4-4-2 to 4-3-2-1, with Akindayini - and later Gerald Stroud - as the lone striker. In the 81st minute, shortly after he came on, Gerald cried for a penalty when he was tripped by Milton in the Ebbsfleet area, but the referee said no. Stroud then missed his only shot at goal four minutes later, continuing his long wait for his first senior Boro goal. After 86 minutes, Edwards gathered a weak cross from Peters, and then started to move the ball up the left flank. The ball soon found its way to Cullen, who hit a long pass to a 17-year-old forward by the name of Glen Bates. I would soon be comparing him to Norman Bates, as he jumped past Dymond to reach the pass, and then entered the penalty area before stabbing in a fatal blow. We'd just been given a fourth consecutive defeat, and I wanted to scream like Marion Crane.

Ebbsfleet United - 2 (Murombedzi 20, Bates 86)

Romford - 1 (Mulvenna og24)

Conference South, Attendance 511 - POSITIONS: Ebbsfleet 17th, Romford 16th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Peters, Dymond, Allen (Betteridge), Collins, Harley, Neville, Lawlor, Montgomery, Greenwood (Jones), Akindayini (Stroud). BOOKED: Neville.

I really had no idea why this was happening. We hadn't suddenly become a terrible team attacking-wise, despite our lack of goalscoring, and we weren't making too many defensive errors. However, these facts and stats made very uncomfortable reading:

• This was the first time we had lost five competitive matches in a row under my management.
  
• We hadn't scored a league goal by ourselves in 411 minutes - nearly seven hours of football.
  
• In the last three games, we'd registered a total of 46 shots at goal, 10 shots on target... and one own goal.
  

Had we just lucked out big time, or was there something seriously wrong with our shooting? I didn't have a clue.

In the days that followed, we started to shift our surplus players. The first to leave, albeit on a temporary basis, was defensive midfielder Bobby Fisk. Bobby had struggled to make an impact in 10 Conference South appearances for us this season. I loaned him off to Molesey for the rest of the season, so he could get more experience in the less pressurised environment of the Isthmian League Division 1 South.

Our first home fixture of the New Year was one that I felt we desperately needed to win. It was the rearranged tie against last-placed Gloucester City that got postponed on Boxing Day.

Let me give you a sense of just how poor Gloucester were. The Tigers had lost their last six away league games, and indeed their last six Conference South matches home OR away. They'd also conceded no fewer than 63 goals in 24 league fixtures, and had failed to keep a single clean sheet in ANY type of match this season! Basically, if we didn't beat that lot, then we deserved to be relegated.

7 January 2017: Romford vs Gloucester City

Yet again, there was an early goal... but for once, we were the team who scored it! After just three minutes, Nicky Reynolds picked up a pass from Brian Neville on the edge of the area, turned sharply, and bulleted in his first goal since November! A perfect start, then, but it could well have turned sour in the 9th minute. Gloucester striker Brendon Daniels was unlucky not to score with a curler that missed the target by inches. Two minutes later, Reynolds dragged the ball across the Gloucester goalmouth, and Tigers defender Jake Picton had to hack it away before Graeme Montgomery could make it 2-0 Romford. Heroic defending from Picton and his team-mates would be prevalent in much of this match, as they constantly frustrated Montgomery and Dean O'Halloran with excellent interceptions from their crosses. In the 34th minute, Dean made an excellent tackle on Adam Howden that knocked the ball to Kieron Carroll. The skipper played a one-two with Nicky, and then unleashed a 20-yarder that Gloucester goalkeeper Jak Mowbray could only parry. Although we wouldn't add to our single-goal lead before the break, the signs were certainly encouraging.

Gloucester introduced Welsh winger Danny Barrow for the second half, and the former West Bromwich Albion trainee had an attempt of goal within three minutes. It missed by miles. Nicky didn't miss by that distance moments later, when he struck the crossbar from 20 yards! Montgomery also came close with a 56th-minute free-kick that Mowbray held comfortably. Other than that, Monty wasn't having a fantastic game, and he was eventually replaced by Nick Fenwick. In the 65th minute, Fenwick intercepted a woeful throw-in from Picton and tried to volley a cross to O'Halloran in the Tigers' area. The 'cross' was so far off target that it almost went INTO the target, as it cannoned off the bar and exited at the opposite touchline! Gloucester then went to a more offensive style, but their attempts to commit a great point robbery in a match that we dominated were restricted to a 70th-minute long-ranger from Robert Biggs that went well wide. Four minutes later, Boro substitute Jay Vassell - who'd just replaced the excellent Neville - saw his shot pushed away by Mowbray. Jay quickly got the ball back to Kamal Guthmy, whose deep cross - just like Fenwick's from earlier on - hit the bar. The woodwork had thrice denied us victory by a bigger scoreline than 1-0, but I didn't care. After six games without victory, it was seventh time lucky, and our barren run was at an end.

Romford - 1 (Reynolds 3)

Gloucester City - 0

Conference South, Attendance 387 - POSITIONS: Romford 15th, Gloucester 22nd

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Peters, Dymond, Rofe, Guthmy, Lawlor, Neville (Vassell), O'Halloran, Carroll (Greenwood), Montgomery (Fenwick), Reynolds. BOOKED: Montgomery, Guthmy.

Thank goodness for that! It was getting to the point where I would have considered selling my parents for three points! Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating...

A week after avenging an early-season defeat against the Conference South's bottom team, we got the chance to do the same against the second-from-bottom side. Although Hitchin Town were 21st, their home form had improved in recent weeks, so I didn't expect an easy ride when we came to Top Field.

14 January 2017: Hitchin Town vs Romford

The game did not start off too well for Hitchin, whose left-winger Sam Rents pulled his hamstring after just nine minutes. Despite that, the former Sutton United man carried on playing. Five minutes later, Loick Pires - who scored a double against us when we last played the Canaries - unleased a shot from outside the area. Thankfully, it never looked like troubling Roscoe Fryatt. We won two quick corners in the 20th minute, and the second almost gave us the lead, as Simon Rofe's header from Graeme Montgomery's delivery was nodded inches over. Rofe and his fellow Boro centre-back Connor Dymond were both taller than their Hitchin counterparts, and we hoped to make our aerial advantage count later on. Before then, Hitchin had a couple of chances through their ex-Ipswich Town youth striker Perry Parker. Parker's first effort after 25 minutes was caught by Fryatt, and his second missed the target less than two minutes later. We won another corner after 32 minutes, and this time, we used our heads to good effect. But it wasn't Simon or Connor who headed home Graeme's corner at the near post - it was actually Jay Vassell, whose effort went in off the underside of the bar! Jay's first goal of the season gave us a 1-0 half-time lead. It'd be fair to say that Canaries manager Carl Williams wasn't enjoying a particularly happy 40th birthday!

Things didn't get much better for birthday boy Williams at the start of the second half. Rents volleyed a shot well over in the first minute after the restart, and another Montgomery cross led to another Romford goal two minutes later. Although Monty's delivery was headed away by Hitchin skipper Tim Burns, Jay quickly returned the ball to Graeme, whose subsequent first-time cross was flicked in by Rofe! 2-0 to the Boro! Hitchin immediately made a substitution, bringing on journeyman striker Elliott Buchanan. After 51 minutes, Buchanan showed how dangerous he could be with a 25-yarder that just missed the target. Romford skipper Kieron Carroll had a go from a similar distance two minutes later, but missed by a bigger margin. Hitchin then started to throw more at us, particularly in the 59th minute, when Ros had to frantically push Pires' cross away from a lurking Buchanan. That wasn't the end of that particular attack, though. Buchanan cut the ball back to midfielder Jamie Morton, whose piledriver was tipped behind by the outstretched Fryatt! Roscoe saved us again when he got a hand to Pires' volley in the 63rd minute. Fryatt would finally be beaten six minutes later, thanks to an uncharacteristically sloppy pass from Dan Lawlor. Dan's attempted pass back to Simon was massively overhit, and Ros desperately charged forward to try and reach the loose ball. Unfortunately, Parker rushed onto it first, and with Fryatt so far out of his area, he had a finish that was as simple as they come. Lawlor's colossal error halved our lead and put our winning position in jeopardy. We needn't have worried too much in the end, because Hitchin had just the one chance to equalise - and Pires dragged it wide in the 77th minute. After we held on for another quarter-hour, the three points were ours.

Hitchin Town - 1 (Parker 70)

Romford - 2 (Vassell 32, Rofe 48)

Conference South, Attendance 456 - POSITIONS: Hitchin 21st, Romford 13th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Peters (Gray), Dymond, Rofe, Guthmy, Lawlor (Neville), Vassell, Harley, Greenwood, Montgomery, Akindayini (Carroll).

We'd won back-to-back matches, and although we weren't particularly brilliant in either of them, we were at least moving back up the table. Perhaps the worst was now behind us.

[CFuller]

On the Sunday morning after our win at Hitchin Town, we heard some significant news regarding another team in the Conference South. Like a lot of clubs at this level, Bromley had struggled to make ends meet, but their financial situation was now so bad that they had to call in the administrators.

Bromley's 10-point deduction saw them drop down from 7th to 14th place, and we were bumped up to 12th. It also meant that, if we got at least a point at home to Basingstoke Town, we would move back into the top half.

18 January 2017: Romford vs Basingstoke Town

After ten minutes, Brian Neville played a great-looking pass to Dean O'Halloran in the Basingstoke area. Dean was slide-tackled off the ball by Dragons defender Stephen McBride, but Duncan Greenwood looked set to tap it in until he was cynically tripped by Abdul Said. The referee pointed to the spot almost immediately, and Nicky Reynolds thumped the penalty into the keeper's lower-right corner. First blood to Romford! Said looked to quickly make amends for Basingstoke, who needed points to pull away from the bottom three. On 15 minutes, Said went for glory after team-mate Tom Howard's shot had rebounded off Simon Rofe, but the Somalian midfielder missed by a long way. Eight minutes later, Stephen McBride played a long ball to namesake Paul McBride, whose shot was parried by Roscoe Fryatt. Paul McBride had another go on the half-hour mark, and this time, he blasted the ball over. Big Dunc was twice denied the opportunity to put us 2-0 ahead in the 35th minute - first by Jack Middleton's save from his free-kick, and then by Said, who nodded his header off the line! We still only had a single-goal lead at the break, and Basingstoke were indicating that they wouldn't be beaten without a fight.

The Dragons' first chance of the second half was skied well over by Howard in the opening seconds. Howard went closer with a 48th-minute header that Fryatt had to get down to catch. In the 51st minute, space opened up for Reynolds, but he failed to keep his shot on target following a fine run into the Basingstoke box. About a minute later, Matt Johnson's long throw into our area was met by Emmit Delfouneso, and the Exeter City loanee's header hit the bar and went out. That was followed by plenty more shots from Basingstoke, who were putting us under the cosh. Joe Pigott wasted a close-range volley for the Dragons after 59 minutes, firing it deep into the stands. McCabe went for goal from about 30 yards shortly afterwards, and Fryatt held onto it comfortably. Basingstoke's long-awaited equaliser finally came after 68 minutes. Neville gave away a free-kick after tripping Paul McBride, and Matt Johnson duly curled it in off the bar from 25 yards out. The game was now Basingstoke's to win. Sure enough, 11 minutes after the Dragons equalised, and with 11 minutes left to play, it was Romford 1 Johnson 2. It wasn't Matt who put Basingstoke ahead, though. He played the killer pass to right-back Ryan Johnson, who just about found a gap between Fryatt and his near post. What was looking like a hard-fought win for us was now turning into a poor home defeat. However, Boro left-back Kamal Guthmy would have something to say about that. In the 83rd minute, his deep cross was headed behind by Stephen McBride, who conceded a corner to us. O'Halloran's delivery evaded the head of Delfouneso, and was then half-volleyed into the net by... a certain Mr Guthmy! Kamal had been excellent all evening, so it was fitting that he saved us a point. We could've had all three if Duncan had flighted his 85th-minute free-kick just a little lower, but you can't be greedy.

Romford - 2 (Reynolds pen11, Guthmy 83)

Basingstoke Town - 2 (M Johnson 68, R Johnson 79)

Conference South, Attendance 472 - POSITIONS: Romford 11th, Basingstoke 17th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Newman, Dymond, Rofe (Betteridge), Guthmy, O'Halloran, Neville, Lawlor (Vassell), Montgomery (Fenwick), Greenwood, Reynolds.

Three days later, we went to Oxford City, who we had thrashed 4-0 at Ship Lane back in September. I wasn't expecting a repeat performance at Court Place Farm. City had recovered incredibly well since dropping to the bottom at the end of September, and they'd since shot right up to 9th - a couple of places above where we were.

21 January 2017: Oxford City vs Romford

We noticed straight away that Oxford City had improved so much since we last played them. After four minutes, Nicky Reynolds tried to cross the ball to Dean O'Halloran in the City area, but defender Zac Andrews hacked it away in the nick of time. Oxford got their first shot on target in the 12th minute through Jamie Bosley, whose low strike was caught by Roscoe Fryatt. The hosts did even better after 23 minutes, when Chimdi Akubuine's cross was headed in off the bar by Conor Washington. However, even though Washington was clearly onside when Akubuine played the cross, the goal was disallowed - apparently for a foul on Fryatt. We had a stay of execution, but that would last just eight minutes. Kamal Guthmy was guilty of carelessly giving a long ball to Josh Robinson, who worked it to Ben Greenhalgh via Jacob Winter and Bosley. Greenhalgh then demonstrated why he was once Football's Next Star with a bullet into the far corner. We were a goal down before we had registered our first shot at goal! That latter stat changed when Kieron Carroll missed the target in the 34th minute, and a better effort from Nicky Reynolds ten minutes later was tipped away by Rob Tolfrey. Oxford City were still looking good value for their lead at half-time.

Our young right-back Jordan Peters suffered another injury blow in the 56th minute, when a touchline challenge from Winter left him with a twisted ankle. Jordan came off minutes later, and he was subsequently ruled out for around six weeks. At the same time, I replaced the ineffective Reynolds with Gerald Stroud - but all the attacking action was still happening at our end. Fryatt did his level best to keep Oxford's lead down, as he turned behind Jonathan Lynch's bending effort in the 64th minute. He then blocked another low strike from Bosley four minutes later. City's efforts would eventually lead to their second, game-clinching goal. In the 83rd minute, Ros got his fingertips to a Beckham-esque free-kick from Winter, and he still couldn't keep it out. Oxford City had a two-goal cushion that was never in any real danger, though we gave them a brief fright in injury time. Carroll took the ball off a hesitant Robinson, and then hit a powerful low strike that Tolfrey tipped behind.

Oxford City - 2 (Greenhalgh 31, Winter 83)

Romford - 0

Conference South, Attendance 363 - POSITIONS: Oxford City 9th, Romford 12th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Peters (Gray), Allen, Rofe, Guthmy, Neville (Jones), Vassell, O'Halloran, Carroll, Montgomery, Reynolds (Stroud).

Kieron Carroll's injury-time effort was just our third shot of the game. In all honesty, three shots are never going to be enough against a team of Oxford City's calibre.

Kieron had now failed to score in 14 competitive appearances for us this season, and his shots on target percentage was the lowest out of all our strikers. I was growing increasingly concerned that the Conference South had been a step-up too far for our captain.

For our last match of January, I dropped Carroll once again and restored the strike partnership of Duncan Greenwood and Nicky Reynolds, hoping that they could inspire each other to get back into form. Admittedly, they were likely to find things tough at home to title contenders Braintree Town. Nicky did score twice against them in September, though, so perhaps that would be a good omen...

28 January 2017: Romford vs Braintree Town

Braintree attacked us early, although their shooting looked rather rusty for a team who claimed to have the best offence in the division. Josh Dawkin didn't trouble the goal with a fierce shot in the 3rd minute, and neither did Wycombe Wanderers loanee George Waring in the 17th. The Iron also found it difficult to get the ball into the box, as their long balls were routinely intercepted by defenders Simon Rofe and Connor Dymond. Attacking-wise, we were about as disappointing as our visitors. Dan Lawlor and Duncan Greenwood both put shots wide just before the half-hour. On 34 minutes, though, we did create something that resembled a good chance. Jason Collins' deep cross to Nicky Reynolds was intercepted by Braintree defender Tom Bender, but he could only knock it on to Brian Neville, who poked in the opening goal! We held onto that 1-0 lead until the break... but only just. In the 40th minute, a great through-ball from Dawkin set up the experienced Danny Kedwell, whose low shot towards the far corner was kicked away by Roscoe Fryatt. Moments later, Bender's long throw into the six-yard box was headed over by Waring.

We made two substitutions at half-time - one tactical, and one more out of necessity. The disappointing Reynolds was replaced by Daniel Akindayini, and Danny Newman came in at right-back for Kieron Gray, who picked up a knock late in the first half. Three minutes into the second period, Kedwell outjumped a nervous Newman to head Waring's lobbed pass goalward, and Fryatt made a confident catch. After a lull in proceedings, the next time either goalkeeper was remotely tested was in the 70th minute. Duncan layed the ball off to Akindayini, but Danny's weak shot was easily retrieved by Braintree goalie Nathan McDonald. Three minutes later, a trio of our players suddenly turned into the Three Stooges and put our lead in peril! Iron full-back Ryan Peters shot past Jason Collins as if he didn't exist, and his subsequent cross was headed away by Newman, shortly before Fryatt clattered into him whilst trying to punch it clear himself! Moments later, a pass from Dawkin found Kedwell just outside the six-yard box, and though his shot hit the post, he still won a corner as Connor Dymond frantically scrambled it behind. Iron captain Gareth Gwillim then played the perfect outswinging corner to Kedwell, whose header looped into the net. It was 1-1 after 74 minutes, and Braintree now had all the momentum. Six minutes later, we were undone by another Gwillim cross - this time from open play. Although Rofe appeared to have headed it clear, that was far from the case, as Northern Irish veteran Damian Curran played the loose ball long to Peters in the area. Peters cut inside, and then bulleted an unstoppable shot past Fryatt. That same player had scored a late winner for Braintree against us in a friendly back in the summer of 2014, but this one carried much more gravitas. It moved the Iron level on points with three other teams at the top, while we lost a bit more ground on those battling against relegation.

Romford - 1 (Neville 34)

Braintree Town - 2 (Kedwell 74, Peters 80)

Conference South, Attendance 499 - POSITIONS: Romford 12th, Braintree 3rd

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Gray (Newman), Dymond, Rofe, Collins, Harley, Neville, Lawlor, Montgomery, Greenwood, Reynolds (Akindayini).

I was now losing patience with Danny Newman, who like some of our other players (such as Mark Betteridge and Ryan Jones) had struggled to perform in the Conference South.

I'd tried to shift our transfer-listed players throughout January. Alas, none of them attracted even the briefest flicker of interest from another team. I'm not the type of manager who would leave a player in the lurch mid-season, so I've decided that those underperformers will all be given one last chance. If their performances don't improve in the last few months of the season, they'll be out the door.

The likes of Betteridge, Jones and Newman - which sounds like the world's worst prog rock band - have about three months to save their Romford careers. We have 12 games to secure our Conference South status.

[CFuller]

                                   [b]P     W     D     L     F     A     GD    PTS[/b]
1.          Farnborough            30    15    9     6     57    33    +24   54
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2.          Dover                  30    15    9     6     54    31    +23   54
3.          Braintree              30    15    9     6     61    40    +21   54
4.          Chelmsford             30    15    9     6     53    33    +20   54
5.          Canvey Island          30    16    5     9     52    37    +15   53
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.          Kingstonian            30    16    3     11    49    38    +11   51
7.          Oxford City            30    14    4     12    50    44    +6    46
8.          Eastbourne Boro        30    13    6     11    29    22    +7    45
9.          Bath                   30    12    9     9     49    44    +5    45
10.         Hampton & Richmond     30    11    8     11    34    32    +2    41
11.         Weston-super-Mare      30    12    4     14    36    34    +2    40
[color="#0000FF"]12.         Romford                30    9     10    11    39    44    -5    37[/color]
13.         Brackley               30    9     10    11    42    49    -7    37
14.         Bromley                30    12    9     9     43    42    +1    35 *
15.         Havant                 30    9     8     13    35    39    -4    35
16.         Dorchester             30    9     8     13    38    50    -12   35
17.         Ebbsfleet              30    8     10    12    33    39    -6    34
18.         Hayes & Yeading        30    7     12    11    29    43    -14   33
19.         Basingstoke            30    7     10    13    33    47    -14   31
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
20.         Hitchin                30    8     6     16    33    58    -25   30
21.         Tonbridge              30    7     7     16    31    50    -19   28
22.         Gloucester             30    6     5     19    41    72    -31   23

* Bromley deducted 10 points for entering administration

[CFuller]

With 12 matches left to play, we were in 12th place - seven points above the relegation zone. Our debut campaign in the Conference South had been a long learning curve, but our chances of survival were looking pretty good.

We'd already racked up 37 points, and I was looking at a target of 50 points, which would all but secure our place in the division for next season. That meant we were looking to take at least 13 points from those last 12 games.

We would certainly not reach our target in February, because we only had a couple of matches - one on the first Saturday of the month, and one on the last Saturday.

That first game was at Ship Lane against Dover Athletic, who were looking to inflict a second successive home defeat on us. I had every reason to fear that outcome. Dover were among the top four teams, who were all level on 54 points, and they were just a couple of goals behind league leaders Farnborough. Of course, we couldn't forget that the Whites thrashed us 5-1 earlier in the season, although we'd rather not remember it!

4 February 2017: Romford vs Dover Athletic

It wasn't a great start for us, as Simon Rofe gave the ball away to Dover midfielder Callum McNish almost immediately. Moments later, the same player made Simon pay big time. Jack Waddle's pass into the Boro area was knocked on by Ben May to McNish, who curled in Dover's opening goal after just 21 seconds! Brilliant. We needed to be exactly that to get back on terms, and Daniel Akindayini almost did it with a 3rd-minute shot that was well caught by Josh Vickers. A minute later, Kamal Guthmy's cross was nodded wide by Duncan Greenwood, whose recent slump in form showed little sign of ending early on. We won several corners later in the first half, but none of them produced any real chances. Dover almost doubled their advantage with a set-piece of their own after 19 minutes, when Mat Mitchel-King's free-kick skimmed the bar. Another Whites player came very close to scoring on 28 minutes. Midfielder Michael Thomson's low 30-yarder looked set to squirm into the corner until Fryatt got down to catch it in time. Thomson went for another powerful long-ranger nine minutes later, and Roscoe made another excellent catch. Our goalie was keeping us in the game, but we really needed a strong start to the second half.

We started the second half so strongly that, er, Dover scored again. We hardly got a touch of the ball as Dover stroked it around our half until a woeful interception from Kieron Gray knocked it into the path of May. The ex-Millwall striker found the net, and Dover led 2-0 just 40 seconds after the restart. Our defence was fast becoming a shambles. Gray and the rest of the back four constantly gave away free-kicks as well as space to the Whites. The latter problem was our undoing in the 56th minute. Dover winger Danny Hylton nonchalantly brushed away Gray and then crossed to May, who beat Romford substitute George Allen to score from close range again. That made it 3-0 Dover on the afternoon, and 8-1 in our two meetings this term. Mercifully, that was the end of the scoring as far as the visitors from Kent were concerned. Fryatt just about prevented Dover from getting a fourth goal by tipping away Hylton's long-distance effort in the 61st minute. Ros was definitely having a more testing day than counterpart Vickers, who only had to make three saves in the whole game. With so few chances being created, we never had a hope in hell of getting anything from this match.

Romford - 0

Dover Athletic - 3 (McNish 1, May 46,56)

Conference South, Attendance 456 - POSITIONS: Romford 16th, Dover 1st

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Gray, Dymond (Allen), Rofe, Guthmy, Harley, Neville, Lawlor, Montgomery, Greenwood (Vassell), Akindayini. BOOKED: Rofe.

This was a very depressing experience for all of us. The dressing room afterwards was so quiet that, had she been there, Bjork would have been inspired to perform a song about it.

The defeat to Dover had a particularly sobering effect on me. We had now lost seven out of our last ten league matches, and something had to be done about that. I came to the conclusion that I should've reached earlier: the squad really needed new blood, and by hook or by crook, I was going to get some.

With three weeks to go until our next match against fellow strugglers Hayes & Yeading United, I set about ringing the changes to the team. I gave scout Dean Standen an extensive list of possible loanees that I wanted to take a look at, while I also offered all of our out-of-form players to clubs from across the south-east.

A few days later, I got a response from Aveley, who wanted to take Kieron Gray on loan for the next three months. Kieron was totally skinned against Dover, and having noted that the defender was not yet ready for regular Conference South football, I decided that a loan spell in Isthmian League Division 1 North would be best for him. Gray will be playing at Mill Field - our old stomping ground - for the rest of this season.

Meanwhile, Isthmian League Division 1 South outfit Whitehawk - and their new manager, former Manchester City defender Stephen Jordan - took an interest in no fewer than THREE of our players!

Forward Daniel Akindayini and defender Simon Rofe both decided to stay - the latter after agreeing an appearance fee increase - but one Boro boy did choose to move on. After 136 appearances and 14 goals, attacking midfielder Jay Vassell ended his five-season spell at Romford to join the Hawks.

With two players moved on, it was time to add some fresh faces to our squad... and we brought in three from the loan market. The first of them came from the surprising source of Coventry City, who kindly agreed to loan us 22-year-old centre-back Ricky Fletcher for the rest of the season.

Ricky was soon joined by another 22-year-old from a League One club, as we acquired Crawley Town's Jonté Smith - a Bermudian-born striker with pace to burn. At the same time, we signed our third and final loanee from Conference Premier side Dartford. Eddy Gnahoré was a 23-year-old defensive midfielder from France who had previously made three Championship appearances for Birmingham City.

All three loanees were on the bench for our long-awaited trip to Hayes & Yeading, who were directly below us in the table. Sadly, we were without right-winger Jason Harley, who was suffering from a sports hernia and wouldn't be back until April.

25 February 2017: Hayes & Yeading United vs Romford

I could tell that some of the players were nervous in the dressing room, and that manifested itself on the pitch. With just 22 seconds gone, Boro midfielder Brian Neville tripped up Hayes & Yeading counterpart Michael Onovwigun and got a ticking-off from the referee. Our shooting also showed signs of nerves. After 10 minutes, Graeme Montgomery swung a free-kick into the United box for Nicky Reynolds, whose header went past the far post. A minute later, Kieron Carroll went for a low shot that had plenty of power but not enough accuracy. I became more worried in the 20th minute, when Connor Dymond collided with Hayes & Yeading captain David Artell in the United area. Our star centre-back was taken off with a knock, and Ricky Fletcher got an earlier-than-expected Romford debut. After half an hour, my worries turned into anger. Brian didn't heed the referee's warning from earlier on, and he made another reckless challenge on Onovwigun - this time with both feet! The red card couldn't come out of the ref's pocket quickly enough! We were reduced to 10 men, despite the protests of Jason Collins, who was booked for arguing with the official. Brian's dismissal left us with a hole to fill in midfield, so our second loanee Eddy Gnahoré came on for Carroll. Once the situation had calmed down, Hayes & Yeading finally got to take their free-kick. Tom Molyneux played it forward to striker Mike Symons, whose header looped into the net. We were now both a man down and a goal down. United tried to consolidate their position with a quick second goal, but Aidan Sherlock miscued a long-distance shot in the 34th minute, and Symons failed to find the target from just inside the area three minutes later. After 42 minutes, we won a corner against the run of play. Montgomery's delivery to the near post was headed in by Simon Rofe, and we had equalised! Two minutes later, Roscoe Fryatt caught a close-range header from Symons to make sure we were still level with Hayes & Yeading at half-time.

Montgomery smashed a free-kick against the Hayes & Yeading wall in the 53rd minute. Moments later, he was crucially tackled by full-back Barry Fuller just as he prepared to take another shot. On the hour mark, Monty spotted the run of Reynolds, who struck from the corner of the penalty area but failed to keep the ball on target. The game then became scrappy for a while until the 74th minute, when Hayes & Yeading winger Alex Rodman tried to find the target from 25 yards, and missed by some margin. Two minutes later, we patiently probed the ball around our half until Reynolds found some space for Montgomery to run into. Nicky's through-ball past Artell sent Monty clear, and after goalkeeper Jonathan Miles charged off his line, Graeme pulled the trigger. With just 10 men, we'd recovered from a goal down to lead 2-1! I made my third substitution soon afterwards, but I left Jonté Smith on the bench to give Nick Fenwick a run-out. Nick's impact would be instantaneous, because in the 82nd minute, he lobbed a long ball towards his namesake. Reynolds flicked the ball forward and slotted it past Miles to build a two-goal lead! Symons did come within inches of getting a second goal for United in the 88th minute, but it was too late for Alan Knight's side to fight back. We had registered a fantastic win against the odds!

Hayes & Yeading United - 1 (Symons 32)

Romford - 3 (Rofe 42, Montgomery 76, Reynolds 82)

Conference South, Attendance 202 - POSITIONS: Hayes & Yeading 18th, Romford 13th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Newman, Dymond (Fletcher), Rofe, Collins, Lawlor, Neville, O'Halloran (Fenwick), Carroll (Gnahoré), Montgomery, Reynolds. BOOKED: Collins. SENT OFF: Neville.

Just like in October, a morale-boosting victory over Hayes & Yeading had ended a barren run of form - but at what cost did it come? Brian Neville's rashness had earned him a three-match ban, thus ruling him out for much of what was likely to be a crucial run of games in March.

[CFuller]

There were a couple of pieces of news to come from the Romford camp early in March. The first of them concerned striker Gerald Stroud, who had failed to score in six competitive matches for us this season. I allowed the 19-year-old to join fellow Boro youngster Bobby Fisk on loan at Isthmian North side Molesey for the rest of the campaign. This was Gerald's last chance to impress - if he didn't, he was out for good.

One man who doesn't look like leaving Ship Lane any time soon is coach Mitch Fellows, who got some very positive news on Thursday morning. He was finally awarded his UEFA A Licence - having spent over three years studying for it! The 27-year-old former striker has been a coach at Romford since my very first season here, so I was delighted to see him take this next big step in his career.

We were on the road again two days later, as we went to 10th-placed Hampton & Richmond Borough. Eddy Gnahoré was handed his full Boro debut in place of the suspended Brian Neville, while Duncan Greenwood was restored to the starting line-up.

4 March 2017: Hampton & Richmond Borough vs Romford

I had no idea what to expect from the inconsistent Beavers, and their early performance suggested that this would be one of their better days. Scottish forward Liam Gormley skimmed a long-distance strike just past the post in the 9th minute. Hampton & Richmond had a greater chance to score the opener seven minutes later. Boro defender Connor Dymond could only head Scott Ferries' cross on to home winger Billy Gibson, whose shot from inside the area was pushed away by Roscoe Fryatt. Connor then had to make a crucial challenge to stop Gibson from picking up the loose ball. On 23 minutes, Gibson found himself in a good position again after receiving Mo Sharif's long ball, but Ros rescued us again with a great parry. We were being put through the wringer, and things became more difficult for us three minutes later. Eddy Gnahoré's full debut was ended early after he clashed heads with H&R midfielder Jesse Kewley-Graham, and the Frenchman was replaced by Ryan Jones. Despite losing Eddy, we almost took the lead with our first shot of the game in the 33rd minute. Nicky Reynolds cut the ball back to Duncan Greenwood, whose 30-yard screamer looked set to find the net until Rikki Banks turned it past the byline! H&R countered a couple of minutes later, and we needed another great reflex save from Fryatt to stop Gormley from putting us behind. In the 42nd minute, Ferries half-volleyed the ball to Gibson at our far post. I expected Gibson to slot it past Fryatt at that point, but he instead found the side netting. The hosts' poor finishing spared us again shortly afterwards, when Gormley's header from just outside the area narrowly missed the target. It was amazingly still 0-0 at the break, even though we were being almost completely overwhelmed!

Hampton & Richmond's attacks were more sporadic in the second half, though they still had too many for comfort. In the 49th minute, Ferries' free-kick into the Romford box was headed just wide by Sharif. Their next chance, after nearly 60 minutes, was dragged off target by Kevin Stewart. By then, we had switched from 4-2-3-1 to 4-4-2, in an attempt to make Greenwood more of an aerial threat. We were still struggling to create chances by the 70th minute, though, and after H&R defender Dermot McVeigh put a header just over, I took Big Dunc off. Taking his place was the shorter but much quicker debutant Jonté Smith. Four minutes later, we withstood a 12th attempt on goal from Hampton & Richmond, for whom Kewley-Graham missed a curling effort after being set up by a fabulous backheel from Sharif. The Beavers controlled this game to such an extent that we had to wait until the 88th minute for our SECOND shot. As H&R's two centre-backs came towards him, Reynolds played a brilliant pass to Smith, who was now in acres of space. After Jonté used his pace to burst through on goal, he coolly stroked the ball past goalkeeper Banks. We all roared in delight as the ball rustled into the net! Our newest star had given us an unlikely away win!

Hampton & Richmond Borough - 0

Romford - 1 (Smith 88)

Conference South, Attendance 816 - POSITIONS: Hampton & Richmond 11th, Romford 13th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Peters, Dymond, Rofe, Guthmy, Lawlor, Gnahoré (Jones), O'Halloran, Greenwood (Smith), Montgomery (Fenwick), Reynolds. BOOKED: Greenwood, Jones.

Wowzers! Talk about making an instant impact, Jonté Smith! The Bermudian's debut goal could well turn out to be one of our most crucial this season, because it put us 11 points clear of the relegation zone! We now had some more breathing space, and we knew that the gap between us and the bottom three could become even bigger if we performed well in our next two home matches.

The first of them was a real opportunity, because it came against an out-of-form Bath City side who were fast slipping out of play-off contention. Bath had picked up just one point from their previous four matches, and their most recent defeat was at home to rock-bottom Gloucester City.

11 March 2017: Romford vs Bath City

We had an early injury concern in the fifth minute, when left-back Jason Collins was left requiring treatment after tackling Bath midfielder George Colson. Three minutes later, though, things got significantly better for us. Duncan Greenwood played a one-two with Jonté Smith and then powerfully drilled the ball into the corner of Bath's net! It was Big Dunc's first goal in over three months, and we were off to a great start! City looked to hit back within a couple of minutes, but Jordan Chiedozie missed the target completely with a long-range shot. Chiedozie had another go from distance in the 20th minute, and that too flew into the stands. Three minutes after that, Greenwood headed away a Bath corner, kicking off a blistering counter-attack. Eddy Gnahoré dribbled all the way to the opposition area and then crossed to Smith, whose header was caught by City goalkeeper Jamie Stephens. Chances to extend our lead would be few and far between after that, while Bath had several opportunities to pull level. The best of them fell to Jake Speight, who broke free of George Allen in the 33rd minute, only to see his shot parried by Fryatt. Chiedozie then scooped the ball over the bar after 42 minutes. The next Bath player to touch the ball was Stephens, who was picking it out of his net. Within moments of Fryatt restarting play, Dan Lawlor hit the ball long to Greenwood, who'd just got behind Bath's backline. Big Dunc chested the ball in the area, jinked past defenders Tom King and Philip Melling, and then tucked away the finish. Greenwood was denied a hat-trick by Stephens just before half-time, but his double had given us some breathing space for the second period.

Bath brought on old-stager Darren Carter for the second half. After just 50 seconds, the midfielder hit a stunning half-volley that was met by a brilliant fingertip save from Fryatt. On 48 minutes, Daniel Akindayini cut the ball through the Bath defence to Gnahoré just outside the six-yard box. Instead of making it 3-0, Eddy shot straight at Stephens, who needed two attempts to safely gather the ball. As the tempo increased and the action got more physical, players began to drop like flies. First to come off injured was Bath striker Speight, who was hurt in a 57th-minute clash with our substitute midfielder Ryan Jones. Six minutes later, the Aussie collided with another City player, and Carter's cameo was over early. We weren't immune, though, because Danny Newman pulled up after a 66th-minute challenge on former Derby County winger Lee Holmes went wrong. After 70 minutes, Greenwood beat King to a Montgomery cross into the Bath area, but Stephens just about caught his header, and Duncan was again kept waiting for his hat-trick.

Bath threw the proverbial kitchen sink at us for the final 20 minutes. Bulgarian winger Georg Iliev had a crack from inside the 'D' on 71 minutes, and the Bolton Wanderers loanee was unlucky to strike the bar. A couple of minutes later, Chiedozie's shot from a difficult angle was parried back to him by Fryatt, and he volleyed the follow-up across goal. We could've finished City off in the 74th minute, but the referee ruled out Ricky Fletcher's headed goal for a foul from the full Boro debutant. Fryatt kept out a banana shot from Iliev on 78 minutes, and then a spectacular half-volley from Lamar Powell a minute later. Bath would have a few more chances to score, but after 17 unsuccessful attempts, they finally resigned themselves to defeat. Another three points were in the bag for us!

Romford - 2 (Greenwood 8,43)

Bath City - 0

Conference South, Attendance 536 - POSITIONS: Romford 12th, Bath 11th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Newman (Dymond), Fletcher, Allen, Collins, Akindayini (O'Halloran), Gnahoré, Lawlor (Jones), Montgomery, Greenwood, Smith.

That was exactly what we needed - not just a shutout home victory that extended our winning streak to three games, but also a return to form for Big Duncan Greenwood! After a long goal drought, the beast was back - and every one of our final eight opponents this season had to watch out!

[CFuller]

During my week-long preparations for our next home game, I got the chance to look at this year's bunch of potential recruits for the Under-18s. I wasn't overly impressed, to be honest, and I only signed five of them. Those lads who did earn youth-team contracts were goalkeeper Moses Millen, defender Keston James, right-winger Dave McGrath, and strikers Garry Morath-Gibbs and Tom O'Reilly. Of those five, 'GMG' is perhaps the one to watch.

My attention quickly switched back to the first-team, and our meeting with Eastbourne Borough at Ship Lane. The Sports were in 8th place and had recently gone on a run of six games without losing, though that was ended by Bromley the previous week.

18 March 2017: Romford vs Eastbourne Borough

Duncan Greenwood was involved in plenty of early action for us. In the eighth minute, Greenwood's header from Dean O'Halloran's cross was caught by Eastbourne keeper Ben Killip. Dunc was booked moments later for a push on Freddie Warren. Another O'Halloran cross found Jonté Smith's head in the 14th minute, and Killip again came to the visitors' rescue with a fine catch. The early pressure we put Eastbourne under eventually told, as we took the lead after 17 minutes. Graeme Montgomery's corner evaded Simon Rofe, but not Big Dunc, whose half-volley put us a goal up. Eastbourne equalised in stunning fashion just two minutes later, as Chris Shephard powered a shot into the corner off the woodwork. We were back at square one, but that only made us more determined to retake the lead. On 27 minutes, Montgomery's cross was headed towards goal by Connor Dymond, and Killip got down low to save it. Greenwood nearly restored our lead in the 39th minute through a free-kick that hit the bar. Montgomery was tripped by Sports midfielder Matt Somner as he tried to reach the rebound, and the ref awarded us a penalty! Somner had been booked earlier, and he narrowly avoided a second yellow card, but his mistake was still punished when Duncan blasted home the spot-kick. Big Dunc's fourth goal in the space of one-and-a-half games gave us a 2-1 lead - or at least it did until we gifted Eastbourne a second equaliser in injury time. Connor came forward to meet Huw Johnson, and the midfielder then embarrassed him with a through-ball to French striker Yannis Drais, who exploited the space and tapped home.

Connor's error cost him a place in our team for the second half, as I replaced him with Ricky Fletcher. At the same time, I gave a senior debut to 17-year-old midfielder Daniel Morrison. Eastbourne also made a couple of changes, and they started the second half strongly. Shephard hit a crashing long drive in the 49th minute that missed the post by a few inches. Three minutes later, Warren curled a stunning effort towards Fryatt's top-left corner, and Ros had to tip it away just in time. Eastbourne's hot spell ended in the 60th minute, when Somner made one foul too many. The Welshman's trip on Greenwood would be his last act of the game, as he finally received a second yellow and was sent off. With more space to exploit, we increased our attacking efforts during the final half-hour. In the 74th minute, Morrison centered a fine low pass to Dan Lawlor, whose shot from the edge of the area was caught by Killip. Three minutes later, Jordan Peters' cross struck Sports defender Lloyd Foot and deflected back towards goal off Smith before Killip saved Eastbourne again. On 81 minutes, Eastbourne right-back Jack Evans injured himself while challenging Kieron Carroll. Eastbourne had already used all of their subs, so they were down to NINE men! The game was now ours to win, and with four minutes remaining, we got the opportunity we'd been waiting for. Liam Hurst's woeful throw-in was intercepted by Montgomery, who charged up the flank and crossed into the Eastbourne area. A mistimed jump from the Sports' otherwise brilliant centre-back Harry Hooman allowed Monty's cross to reach O'Halloran, who applied the finish and gave us the points! Our man of the moment was definitely Montgomery, who was credited with assists for all three goals. Indeed, Graeme could've finished the day with a goal for himself, but his injury-time free-kick struck the woodwork.

Romford - 3 (Greenwood 17,pen40, O'Halloran 86)

Eastbourne Borough - 2 (Shephard 19, Drais 45)

Conference South, Attendance 542 - POSITIONS: Romford 10th, Eastbourne Boro 8th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Peters, Dymond (Fletcher), Rofe, Guthmy, O'Halloran, Gnahoré (Morrison), Lawlor, Montgomery, Greenwood (Carroll), Smith. BOOKED: Greenwood, Lawlor, Rofe.

That was our fourth consecutive win, and we were enjoying our best run of form this season! We were now just one short of my 50-point target. If we picked up at least seven more from our final seven games, we would be mathematically assured of survival.

Our ascent up the table would continue if we completed a perfect March with victory at 9th-placed Weston-super-Mare. That would be easier said than done, though, because we had to make a three-hour journey west to play a team who'd lost just once in their last eight outings.

25 March 2017: Weston-super-Mare vs Romford

Weston-super-Mare started brightly at the Woodspring Stadium, as Boro keeper Roscoe Fryatt had to turn behind a dangerous shot from Ross Davis after just two minutes. Ben Harding swung an early Seagulls corner into the six-yard box, where Jon Shaw headed in an early opening goal. Just like in our last meeting with Weston, we were on the back foot very early. Harding could've put the hosts further in control on 11 minutes, but Ros just about got his hands to the midfielder's low shot. Five minutes later, it really should've been 2-0 Weston-super-Mare. Shaw headed his captain Paul Phelan's cross against the bar, and Fryatt spilled the rebound, allowing the home favourite to slide the ball over the line. Shaw brought down Ricky Fletcher in doing so, and the referee awarded a Boro free-kick instead of a second Weston goal. In the 36th minute, William Garrett played a pinpoint pass to Shaw just outside the six-yard box. Fryatt had to bail us out again with another save to deny the Yorkshireman. We finally had our first chance of the game a minute later, but Duncan Greenwood's shot was blocked by Seagulls keeper Paul Harrison. Weston were soon attacking again, and they broke through for a second time after 41 minutes. Phelan's centre into the six-yard box was finished by Davis for 2-0. This game was turning into a real Weston-super-Mare for us, though things did get better within half a minute of the restart. Greenwood played a delicious backheel to Nicky Reynolds, who slotted in our first goal. Two minutes later, Dunc lobbed the ball past Weston centre-back Andrew Hughes to put Reynolds through on goal again. After bamboozling the Seagulls' other centre-half Exodus Geohaghan with his dribbling skills, Nicky moved into the area and silenced the home crowd with another cool finish! 2-2! In the space of two minutes, Nicky had turned the game on its head! Could we complete the comeback in the second half?

Four minutes into the second half, Boro midfielder Brian Neville - whose first half was littered with wasteful passes - was brought down by Harding. Brian strained his knee ligaments, meaning that his game, and indeed his season, was sadly over. I replaced him with Ryan Jones, and also brought on Jonté Smith for the tiring Reynolds. Smith and Jones linked up well in the 59th minute, as Ryan supplied an excellent pass for Jonté, whose swerving shot was tipped behind by Harrison. Later on, Greenwood skimmed the bar with a 72nd-minute header, and Graeme Montgomery did likewise with a well-struck effort two minutes later. Our chances of scoring a winning goal were dealt a massive blow in the 84th minute, as Dan Lawlor was taken off injured. I'd already made all of my substitutions, so we were down to 10 men. Weston looked to make the most of their extra man in the 88th minute. Joe Heath found himself with plenty of space to run up the left flank, and he floated a byline cross up to Davis. Our hearts skipped a beat as Davis aimed a header at goal, but when he flicked the ball over the bar, we could relax. Though we hadn't managed to extend our winning run to a fifth game, we'd still come away from Somerset with our crucial 50th point.

Weston-super-Mare - 2 (Shaw 3, Davis 41)

Romford - 2 (Reynolds 42,44)

Conference South, Attendance 333 - POSITIONS: Weston-super-Mare 9th, Romford 11th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Peters (Allen), Fletcher, Rofe, Collins, O'Halloran, Neville (Jones), Lawlor, Montgomery, Greenwood, Reynolds (Smith).

Results elsewhere meant that our battle against relegation had become even easier. We now need just four more points in April to secure our place in the Conference South for next season. Even the most pessimistic of Romford fans must surely be thinking that we are staying up now!

[CFuller]

                                   [b]P     W     D     L     F     A     GD    PTS[/b]
1.          Dover                  36    20    9     7     66    35    +31   69
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.          Farnborough            36    19    10    7     71    37    +34   67
3.          Kingstonian            36    21    4     11    58    39    +19   67
4.          Braintree              36    17    10    9     71    51    +20   61
5.          Chelmsford             36    17    9     10    61    46    +15   60
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.          Oxford City            36    18    6     12    59    48    +11   60
7.          Canvey Island          36    17    5     14    56    47    +9    56
8.          Eastbourne Boro        36    14    9     13    36    29    +7    51
9.          Weston-super-Mare      36    15    6     15    47    43    +4    51
10.         Hampton & Richmond     36    14    8     14    40    39    +1    50
[color="#0000FF"]11.         Romford                36    13    11    12    50    52    -2    50[/color]
12.         Bath                   36    12    10    14    53    55    -2    46
13.         Brackley               36    12    10    14    48    56    -8    46
14.         Hayes & Yeading        36    11    13    12    38    46    -8    46
15.         Bromley                36    15    10    11    52    50    +2    45 *
16.         Ebbsfleet              36    11    10    15    43    48    -5    43
17.         Tonbridge              36    10    9     17    38    54    -16   39
18.         Dorchester             36    10    8     18    42    65    -23   38
19.         Basingstoke            36    8     13    15    37    52    -15   37
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
20.         Havant                 36    9     9     18    37    49    -12   36
21.         Hitchin                36    8     8     20    38    68    -30   32
22.         Gloucester             36    8     7     21    50    82    -32   31

* Bromley deducted 10 points for entering administration

[oche balboa]

Great stuff mate

[CFuller]

Our unbeaten run in March resulted in me being named as the Conference South's Manager of the Month. It was the second time I had received that award this season. My previous win was back in November, after which the infamous curse struck and we failed to win a single match in December.

Even if the same thing happened again in April, though, it was unlikely to derail our bid for Conference South survival. We were so far ahead of the bottom three that only a complete catastrophe and some incredible results elsewhere would send us back into the Isthmian League.

Just to remind you, we only needed four more points from our final six games to make certain that we stayed up. This was our end-of-season run-in:

1 April: vs Canvey Island (H) - Canvey Island were 7th, and had just ended a six-game losing streak

8 April: vs Kingstonian (A) - Kingstonian were 3rd, and had won five of their last six matches

15 April: vs Dorchester Town (H) - Dorchester were 18th, and had lost their last five games

17 April: vs Brackley Town (A) - Brackley were 15th, and had won just two home matches in 2017

22 April: vs Tonbridge Angels (A) - Tonbridge were 17th, and had lost just one home game in five months

29 April: vs Farnborough (H) - Farnborough were 2nd, and were the joint-highest goalscorers in the division

Looking at our run-in, only an April Fool would give us much chance of being relegated. Any talk of the 'R-word' at Ship Lane would be ended immediately if we beat Canvey Island and other results went in our favour. We were firm favourites to beat Steve Tilson's Gulls, whose recent slump had seen them drop from 2nd to 7th.

1 April 2017: Romford vs Canvey Island

Myles Weston failed to find the target with Canvey Island's first chance in the 13th minute. We had more success with our opening salvo two minutes later. Daniel Akindayini played a lovely pass to Jonté Smith in the Gulls area, and Smith shrugged off ex-Boro defender Chris Lynch before blasting the ball home! 1-0 to Romford! Our bright start could've become even brighter in the 17th minute, but Duncan Greenwood couldn't get enough accuracy into a fierce strike. Canvey started to come into life about four minutes later. Lanre Azeez made a storming dribble into the area, and then hit a shot that was tipped over by Roscoe Fryatt. Azeez took the corner himself, swinging it to Kenyan winger Jonathan Wafula, whose header cleared the bar. Canvey defender Nicholas Bondon pulled a hamstring in the 27th minute, but he stayed on the pitch as his team-mates continued to up the ante. The main focus of their attacks was lone striker Jacob Hazel, who forced a couple of saves out of Fryatt in the 29th and 40th minutes. In the penultimate minute of normal time, Bondon headed Kamal Guthmy's cross out of the Gulls area and initiated a Canvey counter-attack. Moments later, Aaron Wickham knocked the ball past Dan Lawlor to find Hazel in the Romford box. Hazel then fired a sitter against the post, but he beat Connor Dymond to the rebound, and Canvey Island were level. We had to regroup in the second half, otherwise our run of five games without losing was at risk.

Having grabbed Canvey Island's equaliser on the stroke of half-time, Hazel hoped to give them the lead after the restart. Hazel came close to doing that in the 50th minute, as he drilled a low effort inches wide. He missed by a longer way on 61 minutes, when his header from Azeez's corner flew over the bar. We then had three chances to restore our advantage in the space of five minutes midway through the half. Akindayini powered a shot wide before loanees Ricky Fletcher and Eddy Gnahoré both failed to score with headers, though Eddy did at least make Canvey goalkeeper Tim Deasy catch the ball. I later brought on captain Kieron Carroll to bolster our attack. Kieron would quickly make his mark on the game - by pushing Cameron Norman in the 74th minute and getting himself booked. A minute later, the villain could've become a hero. Carroll ran onto Lawlor's through-ball and found himself with just the keeper to beat... but Kieron showed why he had not yet scored this season with another terrible finish. Carroll's confidence must've been at an all-time low, but in the 89th minute, he still decided to have a go from long distance. Unsurprisingly, he didn't score. A minute later, it was Kane Owen's turn to try and be a supersub for Canvey Island. The former Cardiff City man brilliantly controlled Norman's pass towards the area, and then fired a shot that rattled the bar. Two minutes into injury time, Romford right-back Danny Newman lost the ball to Wafula. Newman then found himself dangerously out of position as Norman hit a long ball to Owen, who raced past Danny like he wasn't there. Owen just had to lob the ball over Fryatt to give Canvey Island the win... but his effort went narrowly over, and we were spared our first defeat in six. I wouldn't have complained if we had lost, though, because this was not a great performance.

Romford - 1 (Smith 15)

Canvey Island - 1 (Hazel 44)

Conference South, Attendance 589 - POSITIONS: Romford 11th, Canvey Island 9th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Newman, Dymond (Fletcher), Rofe, Guthmy, Akindayini, Gnahoré, Lawlor (Jones), Montgomery, Greenwood (Carroll), Smith. BOOKED: Carroll.

Elsewhere, Basingstoke Town became the new third-from-bottom team, replacing Havant & Waterlooville. With five games to go, Basingstoke had 37 points - 14 fewer than us - so we now only required TWO more to ensure survival.

We set out to complete our mission a week later at Kingsmeadow, though 3rd-placed Kingstonian were definitely not going to make our task any easier. The K's were unbeaten in eight matches, and they also had the best home record in the Conference South.

8 April 2017: Kingstonian vs Romford

Our counter-attacking strategy seemed to catch Kingstonian unawares early on. One wayward pass from K's midfielder Reece Jones in the 8th minute led to a countering move that resulted in Ryan Jones having a shot for Romford, but Ross Flitney pushed it away. Five minutes later, the Kingstonian keeper made another save - this time from Ricky Fletcher's header. That came from one of several Romford corners in the first half. Another of them led to a great opportunity for Duncan Greenwood after 21 minutes, but Duncan's header went just wide. Greenwood went even closer three minutes later, as he got his head to Graeme Montgomery's cross and hit the bar. In the 28th minute, K's winger Bayan Fenwick headed behind a deep cross from Jason Collins to give us another corner. Ryan Jones managed to beat David O'Connor to Monty's delivery, and he flicked it towards Nicky Reynolds. Nicky in turn found Dean O'Halloran, whose attempted cross deflected off home midfielder Kevin Weaver before the rebound was volleyed in by Jones! Ryan had scored our first goal, and we would soon have a second. Play had barely restarted when Simon Rofe headed a long ball from K's captain Callum McNaughton up to Reynolds, who then hit a 25-yard pass to Greenwood. Big Dunc stormed past both O'Connor and Flitney, who'd charged senselessly out of his area, and made it 2-0 with an easy finish. Kingstonian were all over the place, but they showed signs of a possible comeback late in the first half. Romford keeper Roscoe Fryatt made his first meaningful save in the 32nd minute, as he got his fingertips to McNaughton's header. Fryatt was tested again by Affy Obafemi three minutes later, but by half-time, Ros still had his clean sheet, and we still held a 2-0 lead. If we kept that up in the next 45 minutes, we would be home and dry.

Just 19 seconds after the restart, we looked even more secure. Ryan sent O'Halloran on a run down the right wing, and Dean's drilled cross into the penalty area was buried by Duncan for his second and our third goal. With the game slipping away from them, Kingstonian immediately replaced misfiring striker Glodi Bange with Tom Bamford. After his introduction, 20-year-old Bamford troubled Fryatt with a 54th-minute header, though his next effort two minutes afterwards was blocked by Rofe. Simon had been a rock in our backline, so it came as a big blow when, after 67 minutes, his season was ended by an innocuous collision with Obafemi. Rofe was stretchered off with a sprained ankle, and we had to hold on for 23 more minutes without our most in-form defender. Considering how weak Kingstonian's shooting had been throughout the game, there was no chance of us throwing a three-goal lead against them. The hosts did, though, give their fans something to cheer about in the dying seconds of normal time. Obafemi dinked a pass to Ebby Nelson-Addy in the middle of our box, and the former Aston Villa midfielder finished from close range. Our hopes of a clean sheet were gone, but it didn't matter too much.

Kingstonian - 1 (Nelson-Addy 90)

Romford - 3 (Jones 28, Greenwood 29,46)

Conference South, Attendance 567 - POSITIONS: Kingstonian 3rd, Romford 10th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Peters, Fletcher, Rofe (Allen), Collins, O'Halloran (Harley), Jones, Lawlor, Montgomery, Greenwood, Reynolds (Smith).

Thanks to our win at Kingsmeadow, any results involving those sides nearer the relegation zone were no longer of concern to us. We were officially safe, with four games to spare!

[Crackers786]

Well Done on missing relegation lets hope for a play off stop for next season

[CFuller]

Well Done on missing relegation lets hope for a play off stop for next season

Thank you. It would be nice if we got closer to the play-offs next season, but I'm just aiming for another top-half finish. Rome wasn't built in a day... and neither was Romford for that matter.

[CFuller]

Conference South survival was now in the bag for us, but though we could relax a bit more, we weren't going to completely take our foot off the gas just yet.

Incredibly, with just four matches left to play, we still had a slim hope of a play-off place! If we kept on winning right until the end, it was possible that we could bridge the seven-point gap separating us from the top five.

In order to maintain our unlikely play-off charge, we would need to pick up three more points at home to lowly Dorchester Town. The Magpies' recent form was in stark contrast to ours, as they had lost six of their last seven games and were very much battling against relegation.

15 April 2017: Romford vs Dorchester Town

Dorchester could easily have gone ahead as early as the third minute. Steven Brisbane's free-kick into our six-yard box was intercepted by Duncan Greenwood, and there was a scramble for the ball until Magpies striker Craig Reid gave away a foul for pushing Ricky Fletcher. Four minutes later, we had a free-kick in a dangerous position - and Duncan curled it over the wall and into the corner of Leigh Bedwell's goal! After only seven minutes, it was 1-0 to Romford! Dorchester almost hit straight back in the 9th minute through Reid, whose long-distance effort skimmed the bar. In the 15th minute, Brisbane sent a ball over Fletcher's head and found Nic Ciardini at the far post. Former Farnborough midfielder Ciardini should've equalised, but he instead fired his shot across goal! After that shocking miss, the Magpies' self-belief was shot to pieces. We capitalised on that in the 33rd minute. Big Dunc doubled our lead to 2-0 with a clinical header from Jason Collins' cross. It was now only a matter of time before we cemented our advantage with a third goal. Jonté Smith hoped to get it, but the speedy striker was denied by Bedwell in the 35th minute, and then by the post five minutes later. Smith did, though, play a key role when the scoreline became 3-0 Boro after 41 minutes. Duncan played a one-two with Jonté and then broke clear before completing his hat-trick!

Greenwood was hungry for even more goals in the second half, but he wouldn't add to his tally. After Duncan was booked in the 54th minute for holding onto Dorchester defender Ryan Mullan's shirt, the captain was taken off - to a standing ovation at Ship Lane. Taking Greenwood's place was Boro favourite Nicky Reynolds, who delighted his adoring supporters once more after 62 minutes. Nicky outmuscled Magpies youngster Eric Costello and knocked the ball to Smith, who returned the compliment and sent Reynolds clean through. Within seconds, it was 4-0 thanks to Nicky's well-placed strike - his 14th of the campaign. With the game now over as a contest, we decided to slow down and focus on keeping a clean sheet. We managed to do that for nearly half an hour, with Dorchester's best chance of grabbing something back coming when Mel Durrell hit the side netting on 84 minutes. But just like Kingstonian in our last game, the Magpies did steal a late goal, as Tony Garrod tapped Brisbane's corner home in the final minute of normal time. That was their only shot on target, which just goes to show how comfortable this 4-1 win was.

Romford - 4 (Greenwood 7,33,41, Reynolds 62)

Dorchester Town - 1 (Garrod 90)

Conference South, Attendance 537 - POSITIONS: Romford 9th, Dorchester 18th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Newman, Fletcher (Dymond), Allen, Collins, O'Halloran, Gnahoré (Morrison), Lawlor, Fenwick, Greenwood (Reynolds), Smith. BOOKED: Greenwood.

With other results going the way we wanted, we were all set to move back within five points of the top five... until Chelmsford City's Gary Roberts scored an injury-time winner at Tonbridge Angels. That meant Wes Brown's Chelmsford remained seven points ahead of us in 5th.

We now HAD to win our next game at mid-table Brackley Town to have any real chance of making the end-of-season play-offs. With just a two-day turnaround between games, I fielded a completely different starting XI from the team that beat Dorchester.

Among those who came in was defender Mark Betteridge, who made his first appearance for three months. When I told Mark that he was going to St James Park, the Teessider was noticeably excited! I then told him that it was St James Park in Northamptonshire - not the one in Newcastle. The smile was very quickly wiped off his face!

17 April 2017: Brackley Town vs Romford

St James Park is only a few miles away from the Silverstone racing circuit, but there weren't many thrills and spills to be found at this sporting venue. We had to wait 12 minutes for the first scoring chance, and Boro winger Graeme Montgomery thundered it off target. Right-back Jordan Peters went closer seven minutes later, as the post narrowly denied him his first Romford goal. Both goalkeepers made their first saves soon afterwards. Romford's Steven Barnes pushed away a long-range effort from Jordan Pavett in the 20th minute, and Brackley's Aljaz Cotman got his fingers to Daniel Akindayini's fierce low strike a couple of minutes later. In the 24th minute, Connor Dymond's interception from Mark Sutton's corner sent the ball to Saints midfielder Ibrahim Mansaray, who volleyed over. Dymond was then denied a goal at the other end after 32 minutes, when Cotman turned his header over the bar. By half-time, this game was looking like a classic... for those who enjoy great defending and terrible shooting.

The shooting got worse in the second half. After 53 minutes, Romford midfielder Ryan Jones missed the target with a woeful effort, but Cotman still kept it in play. Two minutes later, Brackley's Mark Lees found his team-mate Kurtis Raven with a deadly long ball into the Boro box. Raven had a chance to score from close range, but not much room, and he blasted the half-volley over. Meanwhile, Kieron Carroll's goal drought for the Boro continued, although his 67th-minute header to Akindayini did create a great chance for Danny, who ran through the Saints defence before scuffing wide. With six minutes remaining, Mansaray fired a fabulous 30-yard free-kick towards goal for Brackley... and he hit the crossbar! That would be the last chance either team had of ending the stalemate, and after 90 minutes of limited goalmouth action, the points were shared.

Brackley Town - 0

Romford - 0

Conference South, Attendance 209 - POSITIONS: Brackley 14th, Romford 10th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Barnes, Peters, Dymond, Betteridge (Georgiou), Guthmy, Harley, Morrison, Jones, Montgomery (Koutinis), Carroll (Reynolds), Akindayini. BOOKED: Jones.

With just two rounds of matches left, we trailed 5th-placed Braintree Town by six points. Braintree's next game was against Canvey Island, who were just two points behind them in 6th, and we were now unable to catch both of them. Our play-off dream was officially dead, and we were definitely staying in the Conference South.

[CFuller]

With relegation long forgotten and promotion still a distant dream, we had pretty much nothing left to fight for this season. One more point, though, would guarantee us a top-half finish, which would be a great achievement. I hoped it would come in our final away game at struggling Tonbridge Angels, who were just inside the relegation zone on goal difference.

22 April 2017: Tonbridge Angels vs Romford

In-form Duncan Greenwood hoped to add to his impressive goal tally in the fourth minute, but his first attempt ended up miles wide. A minute later, Charlie Penney wasted a good opportunity to put Tonbridge in front. Max Noble's cross deflected off Boro defender Danny Newman and towards Penney, who volleyed wide. The Millwall loanee scored twice against us while at Farnborough earlier in the campaign, and in the 18th minute, he made it a hat-trick of sorts. Penney's initial shot from outside the area came back off the bar, but he beat our hesitant defenders to slide in the rebound. Two minutes later, a fierce strike from Merrick James-Lewis could've doubled Tonbridge's lead. Fortunately for us, it scraped the side netting. That would be a crucial moment, because we pulled level after 26 minutes. Graeme Montgomery's cross was turned in from the edge of the area by Big Dunc, who scored his 20th league goal of the season - and his 10th in just seven games! It was enough to send us into the half-time break level at 1-1.

Duncan was chasing another goal after 50 minutes, but a stunning save from 17-year-old keeper Dominic Reid stopped him from finding the top corner. Tonbridge's youthful custodian was kept very busy as the second half progressed. Reid made a couple of critical saves from Dean O'Halloran and Jonté Smith in the 67th and 70th minutes, with Greenwood hitting the post in between. Midfielder Daniel Morrison also tested the keeper to his limits in the 75th minute, with a vicious shot that Reid could only parry away. By then, any attacking threat the Angels posed had gone - they didn't manage a single attempt on goal in the final half-hour. That one point we needed to ensure a top-half finish was pretty much secure, but with four minutes to go, an extraordinary goal gave us two more! O'Halloran stunned the home fans at the Longmead Stadium into silence with a 25-yard cross from the touchline that flew into Reid's net! That goal consigned Tonbridge to a cruel defeat that pushed them closer to being relegated, while it kept our extraordinary unbeaten run going!

Tonbridge Angels - 1 (Penney 18)

Romford - 2 (Greenwood 26, O'Halloran 86)

Conference South, Attendance 421 - POSITIONS: Tonbridge 20th, Romford 9th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Newman, Dymond (Allen), Fletcher, Collins, O'Halloran, Gnahoré (Morrison), Lawlor, Montgomery, Greenwood, Reynolds (Smith).

We now hadn't lost in any of our last 10 games! My record was 11 from the 2014/2015 campaign - could we match that in our season finale at home to Farnborough? I honestly didn't mind if the sequence ended here, as I decided to give run-outs to some of our fringe and youth players, and told them just to enjoy the game.

Farnborough couldn't afford to merely enjoy this game. They still had a chance of winning the title, and with it automatic promotion to the Conference Premier, but they had to beat us and hope that leaders Dover Athletic lost at home to Hampton & Richmond Borough.

29 April 2017: Romford vs Farnborough

Ryan Jones was one of several players making what would turn out to be their last appearances for Romford. Sadly for Ryan, his farewell would last less than a minute, as he twisted his knee in a touchline tackle from Jake Gallagher. After Jones left Ship Lane on a stretcher, we won a couple of early corners. We failed to make the most of them, and after the second fell apart, Farnborough countered to great effect. The Yellows' target man Daniel Pappoe played a fabulous pass to Leandro Hallam, and the ex-Sunderland winger moved forward before blasting in a shot from the edge of the area. After just six minutes, we were 1-0 behind. We should've equalised in the 15th minute through Jones's replacement Colin Ingham, who picked up Jason Harley's cross and fired it into Connor Brennan's hands. Ingham had another go from much further out a minute later, and unsurprisingly failed to find the target. Our other main attacking 'threats' also disappointed me in the first half. Daniel Akindayini tried to lob the ball over Brennan after the Northern Irish keeper came off his line in the 20th minute, but he put too much power into his shot. Nine minutes later, Kieron Carroll - who really needed to break his season duck before the final whistle - swung a free-kick straight towards Brennan, who caught it comfortably. Brennan would make further saves to deny Danny and Colin before, in the last minute of normal time, Farnborough moved further ahead. Their midfielder Louis Thompson made a brilliant challenge on Daniel Morrison and knocked the ball to Kaine Sheppard. The Farnborough flyer made a stunning run from just inside the Romford half to our penalty area, where he fired the ball in off the post. Incredibly, that was Sheppard's 40th goal in the Conference South this season! Lionel Messi, eat your heart out!

To be honest, we weren't being completely outplayed, but Farnborough looked very determined and strong in all departments. The visitors took further control on proceedings after an hour, when substitute Gareth Benham turned 2-0 into 3-0 with a low strike just inside our area. I was growing increasingly concerned over our goal difference, which was now down to +1. If we wanted to finish on a positive GD, we couldn't afford to give Farnborough a bigger lead. After 68 minutes, my worst fears were realised. Farnborough once again caught us off guard with a blistering counter-attack, and Sheppard struck a 20-yarder into the bottom corner for his 41st goal of the season! It was 4-0 to Farnborough, and our goal difference had been whittled down to zero. As season finales go, this felt like the last episode of Blackadder Goes Forth.

Thankfully, some of our players had a cunning plan to save us from final-day embarrassment. In the 70th minute, Jason Harley played a free-kick into Farnborough's area, where substitute Mark Betteridge headed home a consolation goal in his last game for Romford. Colin tried to claim that he got the final touch before the ball crossed the line, but Mark got the nod - in more than one sense. A minute and a half later, Carroll threaded the ball to another Romford sub, and 17-year-old Vasilis Koutinis slipped in his first league goal! We had cut Farnborough's 4-0 advantage in half, and we started to believe that we could avenge the Yellows' three-goal comeback at Rushmoor by going one better! But when Ingham missed from inside the area in the 76th minute, any hopes of a dramatic recovery fizzled out, and we finally resigned ourselves to defeat. For Farnborough, their 4-2 win was not enough to secure automatic promotion, because Dover Athletic won their game 5-0 to take the title. David Wetherall's men would have to settle for the play-offs, and on that sort of form, I make them favourites to join Dover in the Conference Premier.

Romford - 2 (Betteridge 70, Koutinis 72)

Farnborough - 4 (Hallam 6, Sheppard 45,68, Benham 60)

Conference South, Attendance 930 - POSITIONS: Romford 9th, Farnborough 2nd

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Barnes, Peters, Georgiou (Betteridge), Allen, R Turner, Harley, Morrison, Jones (Ingham), Fenwick, Carroll, Akindayini (Koutinis).

After going ten games unbeaten, it was disappointing to end the season with a home defeat. It didn't really matter much in the general scheme of things, because we had completed the campaign with a place in the top ten... and a positive goal difference! That's not bad for the only promoted side in the Conference South, is it?

[CFuller]

I was very happy with how our first campaign in the Conference South had gone. We had done well to recover from a poor start, and we ended up coming 9th - only nine points off the play-off places. There was already plenty of optimism for next season, and Ship Lane was certainly a happy place to be...

...well, at least it was for us. Thurrock were certainly not in as joyous a mood as we were, as they had just been relegated from the Isthmian League Premier Division! That meant the tenants were now two divisions above the landlords! I didn't know whether to laugh or chortle!

As the squad broke up for the season, I met with chairman Leo Jones for my end-of-term report. Mr Jones said that he was very pleased with our results, and added that a top-half finish boded well for the next campaign. He then asked me if I had any ideas as to how the club could continue making progress.

One thing that we had been badly lacking over the years was a proper goalkeeping coach. We did have one when I first took the helm, but Neil Finn was on such ridiculous wages that I had absolutely no interest in keeping him on. Since then, our keepers have had to make do with basic training from outfield coaches, which isn't exactly great considering that Sammy Winston has as much goalkeeping ability as Massimo Taibi.

Half a decade on, I thought that it was high time we brought in a replacement for Finn. Mr Jones, however, wasn't reading from the same page. In fact, he didn't just turn down my request out of hand, but he also suggested that we should CUT BACK on our coaching staff! CUT BACK? Who on Earth does Leo think he is - George Osborne?!

I left that meeting fearing that I would have to dump one of my coaches, even though I had no desire to do so. One member of staff that I certainly wouldn't be losing, though, was my trusty assistant Wayne Daniel. Wayne had just signed a new contract to remain as my number 2 for another couple of seasons.

At the same time, I started tying up some of our players to new deals. The first two to commit their futures were 17-year-old right-back Jordan Peters and Irish winger Dean O'Halloran, who both penned new contracts that would run until the end of the 2018/2019 season.

Also staying at Ship Lane was 18-year-old centre-back Kieron Gray, who returned from his loan spell at Aveley having led them to the Isthmian North Play-Off Final, which they narrowly lost to Cheshunt. Kieron hadn't enjoyed the best of debut seasons at Romford, but I decided to keep him on for another season to see if he could start realising his potential.

I wasn't so patient with Bobby Fisk or Gerald Stroud, who both came back from Molesey. Neither of the 19-year-olds had played exceptionally well on loan at the Isthmian South club, and I told them both that their Romford contracts would not be renewed. Gerald later agreed to sign for Dunstable Town in the glamorous surroundings of the Southern League Division 1 Central.

Meanwhile, we said farewell to our trio of loanees, as Ricky Fletcher, Eddy Gnahoré and Jonté Smith all returned to their parent clubs with unbeaten records at Romford. Ricky and Jonté in particular had been great loan signings. If I ever get a chance to take either of them back to the Boro permanently, I would certainly consider it.

I would announce the other departures from Ship Lane in June, after making what would prove to be some very difficult and emotional decisions.

[CFuller]

                                   [b]P     W     D     L     F     A     GD    PTS[/b]
1.    C     Dover                  42    25    10    7     80    37    +43   85
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.          Farnborough            42    24    10    8     83    42    +41   82
3.    P     Kingstonian            42    23    7     12    67    45    +22   76
4.          Chelmsford             42    20    11    11    67    51    +16   71
5.          Braintree              42    20    10    12    78    59    +19   70
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.          Oxford City            42    19    8     15    65    57    +8    65
7.          Canvey Island          42    18    9     15    63    52    +11   63
8.          Weston-super-Mare      42    19    6     17    59    50    +9    63
[color="#0000FF"]9.          Romford                42    16    13    13    62    60    +2    61[/color]
10.         Eastbourne Boro        42    16    10    16    44    36    +8    58
11.         Hampton & Richmond     42    16    9     17    45    50    -5    57
12.         Hayes & Yeading        42    14    14    14    44    51    -7    56
13.         Bromley                42    18    11    13    59    56    +3    55 *
14.         Brackley               42    14    12    16    53    61    -8    54
15.         Bath                   42    14    11    17    60    65    -5    53
16.         Ebbsfleet              42    13    10    19    47    59    -12   49
17.         Dorchester             42    13    8     21    52    74    -22   47
18.         Havant                 42    11    10    21    44    55    -11   43
19.         Basingstoke            42    9     16    17    42    58    -16   43
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
20.   R     Tonbridge              42    11    9     22    42    64    -22   42
21.   R     Hitchin                42    10    10    22    44    74    -30   40
22.   R     Gloucester             42    8     8     26    52    96    -44   32

* Bromley deducted 10 points for entering administration

[CFuller]

GOALKEEPERS               APPS    CON  CLN  MOM  P%   TR   ST%  Y    R    AV RAT
Steven Barnes             6 (1)   12   2    0    90%  -    -    0    0    6.87
Roscoe Fryatt             43      60   9    0    82%  -    -    1    0    6.94
Paul Woolley              1       1    0    0    88%  -    -    0    0    7.00

OUTFIELD PLAYERS          APPS    GLS  AST  MOM  P%   TR   ST%  Y    R    AV RAT
Daniel Akindayini         21 (10) 6    4    1    80%  1.43 38%  1    0    6.75
George Allen              18 (9)  0    0    2    67%  2.00 0%   1    0    6.85
Mark Betteridge           10 (9)  1    0    0    71%  1.65 50%  2    0    6.74
Kieron Carroll            10 (9)  0    2    0    82%  1.76 26%  1    0    6.79
Jason Collins             22      0    3    0    78%  3.01 -    2    0    6.80
Connor Dymond             33 (6)  0    0    2    63%  2.11 50%  4    0    6.93
Nick Fenwick              11 (13) 0    2    0    75%  2.32 33%  1    0    6.77
Bobby Fisk                8 (6)   0    1    0    75%  3.11 -    5    0    6.72
Ricky Fletcher            5 (3)   0    0    1    63%  2.40 60%  0    0    7.13
Liam Georgiou             1 (4)   0    0    0    65%  0.94 -    0    0    6.66
Eddy Gnahoré              6 (1)   0    0    0    85%  5.36 100% 0    0    6.87
Kieron Gray               10 (6)  0    0    0    67%  2.84 -    0    0    6.62
Duncan Greenwood          37 (3)  24   8    12   73%  2.15 44%  5    0    7.59
Kamal Guthmy              25 (1)  1    3    0    74%  2.79 25%  3    0    7.00
Jason Harley              13 (4)  1    1    0    81%  1.51 29%  1    0    6.73
Colin Ingham              0 (5)   0    0    0    77%  0.94 60%  0    0    6.55
Ryan Jones                16 (9)  3    1    0    79%  2.74 53%  3    0    6.88
Vasilis Koutinis          0 (3)   2    0    0    88%  0.00 60%  0    0    7.45
Dan Lawlor                36 (1)  1    6    0    85%  3.75 50%  5    0    6.98
Graeme Montgomery         40 (4)  2    14   3    79%  1.93 35%  4    0    6.94
Daniel Morrison           2 (3)   0    1    0    84%  2.39 50%  0    0    6.70
Brian Neville             23 (4)  2    3    1    81%  4.38 45%  3    1    6.96
Danny Newman              28 (2)  0    0    0    77%  2.13 0%   2    0    6.75
Dean O'Halloran           32 (4)  6    7    0    77%  2.22 64%  1    0    6.89
Jordan Peters             16      0    0    0    78%  3.01 0%   0    0    6.83
Nicky Reynolds            26 (7)  14   7    4    79%  1.94 49%  0    0    7.08
Simon Rofe                30 (2)  3    0    4    67%  2.82 29%  3    0    7.13
Jonté Smith               4 (4)   2    3    0    78%  1.54 90%  0    0    7.19
Gerald Stroud             3 (3)   0    0    0    68%  0.78 40%  0    0    6.58
Rhys Turner               2       0    0    0    68%  0.50 -    0    0    6.70
Jay Vassell               12 (12) 1    1    0    79%  3.06 33%  3    0    6.77

APPS - Appearances (Substitute apps), GLS - Goals, AST - Assists,
CON - Goals conceded, CLN - Clean sheets, MOM - Man of the Match awards,
P% - Pass completion %, TR - Tackles per 90 mins, ST - Shots on target %,
Y - Yellow cards, R - Red cards, AV RAT - Average match rating

[CFuller]

Ahead of the new season, we received a rather welcome boost to our balance, which was already looking rather healthy at around £50,000. That came in the form of a new one-year deal with a local nightclub, who agreed to pay us £7,000 to sponsor our shirts. That was about £2,000 more than our previous sponsors gave us, so for once, I won't be furious if I hear that any of my players have been partying hard - just as long as they stay off the booze!

My weekly wage budget was once again set at around £3,000. As things stood, we were spending a smidgen over £2,000 per week on wages, so I didn't want to go too far above that when renewing contracts or signing new players.

Wages would not be a problem for our first signing of the summer. 17-year-old right-back Trevor Dunn agreed to join us on a non-contract deal, with his only pay coming from appearance fees and goal bonuses (and I don't expect to pay him too many of the latter). He had just been released from Southend United, although he originally came from the Black Country - Dudley, of all places.

If I'm honest, Trevor is such an unfashionable name for a young lad (seriously - how many boys born in 1999 are called Trevor?), so I planned to give him a nickname. After noting that he had an uncanny resemblance to the comedian Lenny Henry, spoke like a young Lenny Henry, and was born in the same town as Lenny Henry, I came up with an idea...

Trevor McDoughnut! Er, no, hang on, that doesn't sound too promising... erm, I'll work on it later...

Soon after Trev's arrival, I made final decisions on the futures of most of our other players. The first of them to come into my office was right-back Danny Newman. With Dunn now on board, I told Newman that he could start looking for a new club - and he didn't take very long. A couple of days later, I heard that Danny had signed for Isthmian South outfit Horsham.

The next to depart was our captain Kieron Carroll, and when you look at his season-by-season record, it's not hard to see why I decided to release him:

2013/2014: 44 appearances, 21 goals.

2014/2015: 41 appearances, 20 goals.

2015/2016: 43 appearances, 16 goals.

2016/2017: 19 appearances, 0 goals. That's right. ZERO goals.

Sadly, Kieron took the step up from the Isthmian League to the Conference South worse than any of our other star players, and I suggested he drop down to a club that was more his level. He took my advice, and after four years at Ship Lane, he signed for Slough Town - a Southern League Premier Division side managed by former England striker Kevin Phillips. If Super Kev can't reignite Kieron's spark, I doubt anyone can.

One by one, the departures from Ship Lane continued. Dan Lawlor and Nick Fenwick were told that their contracts wouldn't be renewed. Mark Betteridge and Ryan Jones were also let go, while Colin Ingham, Johnnie McGee, Nico Ramsey, Christian Turner, Rhys Turner and Paul Woolley were released from the youth team.

Then I came to Nicky Reynolds. Although my coaches thought otherwise, I still believed that the striker was a useful member of our team - and his strike rate bore that out. 14 goals from 28 Conference South matches continued Nicky's excellent record under my management. Within the last five years, he was still averaging well over a goal every other game.

Although I was eager to keep Reynolds in my squad for another campaign, Nicky was actually rather reluctant to talk about a new contract. When negotiations finally started early in June, they weren't exactly completed in a flash. I offered him plenty of enticing bonuses to sign on, but the main sticking point was his weekly salary.

You see, when I renegotiated Nicky's contract at the start of the last off-season, I convinced him to take a pay cut from £200 per week to £150. But after one good campaign in the Conference South, he wanted to get back to what he was earning when we won the Isthmian League.

This was a big problem for me. I seriously doubted whether paying Nicky an extra £50 a week was worth it, especially as we were on a budget and he was about to turn 29. But he made his feelings on the matter perfectly clear when he told me, "If you don't give me this pay rise, I'll go looking for another club."

That was not what I wanted to hear. I now couldn't help but think of what Romford FC would be like without Nicky Reynolds. It felt like watching Coronation Street without Ken Barlow, Waterloo Road without Tom Clarkson, or Sky Sports News without Mike Wedderburn acting like an embarrassing uncle in the mornings. It just would not be the same without him.

There was now a very real possibility that we would start next season without our all-time top goalscorer, our longest-serving player, our talisman - all for the sake of £2,500. Did I REALLY want to take that risk?

[CFuller]

With the 2016/2017 season well and truly over, the Romford supporters' club got down to voting for their Fans' Player of the Year. Their choice was almost unanimous, and not a massive surprise at all. With 24 goals and 12 Man of the Match awards to his name, Duncan Greenwood was most definitely our man of the season.

Big Dunc also took his place in a fans' best XI that read: Roscoe Fryatt, Danny Newman, Simon Rofe, Connor Dymond, Kamal Guthmy, Dean O'Halloran, Dan Lawlor, Brian Neville, Graeme Montgomery, Duncan Greenwood, Nicky Reynolds.

Newman had now left the club, and Lawlor was on his way after I chose not to renew his contract, but would a third member of last term's best eleven also be leaving?

After weeks of negotiating terms with Nicky Reynolds, I finally conceded that he wasn't going to back down from his demands for a pay rise. In one last attempt to get him to stay with us, I told him, "Right. I'm offering you £200 a week, £80 for each appearance, £40 for each goal, and enough bonuses to make a banker envious. Is there ANYTHING else that you want, Mariah Carey?"

Nicky took a moment to make his mind up, and then said, "Nope, that's fine by me." He got his pen out, signed on the dotted line, and finally committed himself to Romford FC for yet another season.

Phew! I thought we were about to lose him there!

After shaking hands on this new contract, I challenged Nicky to better his tally from the season just gone, and score 15 goals in the next campaign. I promised that if he did, I'd offer him another season at Ship Lane - and the chance to extend his Romford career into his 30s.

The Reynolds saga was finally resolved just as the fixture list for the 2017/2018 Conference South season came out. The first date to be marked in the calendar was 12 August, when we would host a Chelmsford City team who just fell short in last season's Play-Offs. Three days later, on 15 August, we would face our first away game against Southern League Premier Division champions Staines Town.

We also had two big dates to look forward to against local adversaries Grays Athletic, who had just secured their second consecutive promotion. We'd meet them at the Rush Green Stadium in Romford on 4 November, and at Ship Lane on 2 April.

We would be heading into that new campaign with at least two new signings. Having already secured the services of teenage right-back Trevor Dunn, we snapped up the rather more experienced legs of midfielder Romone McCrae.

26-year-old Romone joined from Canvey Island, for whom the Londoner had been a regular starter. He also played in the Championship for Peterborough United many moons ago, when he was still a teenager, so to have someone of his pedigree can only help us as we move forward.

Finally, you'll probably be relieved to hear that I won't have to axe anyone from my backroom staff after all. Chairman Leo Jones suggested last month that I should lose a coach to cut costs, but he backed down after realising how close I was to my coaching team.

I can hardly wait for the new term to kick off. Can we build on the excellent progress that we made in our first campaign at this level?

[tenthreeleader]

I now couldn't help but think of what Romford FC would be like without Nicky Reynolds. It felt like watching Coronation Street without Ken Barlow, Waterloo Road without Tom Clarkson, or Sky Sports News without Mike Wedderburn acting like an embarrassing uncle in the mornings. It just would not be the same without him.

Marvelous.

[CFuller]

Marvelous.

I like to add some humour every now and then. Stops me from going insane.

[CFuller]

Premier League

One of the best Premier League title races in years boiled down to the final day, which Manchester City and Manchester United went into level on points. In the end, it was City who came out on top for a sixth straight season after they beat Wolverhampton Wanderers 2-1 and United were stunned 3-1 at Southampton! Roberto Mancini's Citizens were inspired by the performances of veteran midfielder Yaya Touré - the PFA Player of the Year. United had to settle for second, though Josep Guardiola's side did win the UEFA Europa League, and the Top Goalscorer award through 21-goal Brazilian ace Neymar.

Tottenham Hotspur were surprisingly in the title hunt until the Manchester clubs pulled clear late in the campaign. Spurs did, though, come 3rd in their last full season at White Hart Lane. The final Champions League place went to League Cup holders Chelsea, who pipped both Liverpool and Arsenal. The 6th-placed Gunners missed out on a place at Europe's top table for the first time in 20 years, although they did win the FA Cup.

Two sides with high ambitions had disappointing campaigns by their standards. Fulham spent nearly £70million on new players, but they also went through three different managers before Javier Aguirre eventually guided them to 9th place. Newcastle United finished a lowly 15th after surprisingly being dragged into a battle against relegation. The Magpies' alarming slump promoted them to replace manager Stuart Pearce with... er, Christian Gross.

Blackburn Rovers' return to the Premier League was brief, as they finished bottom after winning just two of their last 25 league games. Paul Jewell's second coming at Wigan Athletic expired with their 13-season stay in the top flight. Four teams were still battling to avoid the last relegation place on the final day, and it was West Ham United who eventually dropped out. The Hammers' first campaign at the Olympic Stadium had ended in heartache.

Top Four: Manchester City (1st, 76 pts), Manchester United (2nd, 73 pts), Tottenham Hotspur (3rd, 71 pts), Chelsea (4th, 67 pts).

Relegated: West Ham United (18th, 41 pts), Wigan Athletic (19th, 37 pts), Blackburn Rovers (20th, 29 pts).

Championship

Two-and-a-half years after surviving administration, Queens Park Rangers continued their resurgence by winning the Championship in Mark Robins' first season as manager. The other automatic promotion place went to Reading, who never looked back after hiring Malky Mackay to succeed Simon Grayson in November.

Brighton & Hove Albion narrowly missed out on automatic promotion, but they won their Play-Off Semi Final against Swansea City to set up a dramatic Final with Leicester City, who bested Sunderland. Leicester took the lead midway through the second half against the ten-man Seagulls, who levelled five minutes from time. Two minutes later, Steven Whittaker scored a late winner for the Foxes, and Leicester at last returned to the Premier League!

Leicester's Anthony Knockaert was the division's top scorer with 26 goals - just two more than Swansea's revitalised striker Andy Carroll. Meanwhile, Everton had a strange end to the season. After reaching the FA Cup Semi Finals, they went from being just above the relegation zone to narrowly missing the Play-Offs by just two points!

In truth, AFC Bournemouth were never strong enough for the Championship, and they never got out of the relegation zone after slipping into it very early on. Final-day defeats for Millwall and Sam Allardyce's Bristol City meant that those two sides would accompany the Cherries in League One.

Promoted: Queens Park Rangers (1st, 85 pts), Reading (2nd, 78 pts), Leicester City (4th, 75 pts).

Also in Play-Offs: Brighton & Hove Albion (3rd, 76 pts), Sunderland (5th, 71 pts), Swansea City (6th, 70 pts).

Relegated: Bristol City (22nd, 48 pts), Millwall (23rd, 47 pts), AFC Bournemouth (24th, 41 pts).

League One

With such a strong defence, Middlesbrough were unquestionably the best team in League One, and they recovered from a late wobble to win the title. It was also a season to remember for fellow north-east side Hartlepool United, who astonisingly came 2nd to reach the Championship for the first time! Needless to say, Jeff Stelling was ecstatic!

Sheffield United fans were also feeling ecstatic after the Play-Offs. They beat Scunthorpe United 6-4 on aggregate in the Semi Finals and got through to the Final against Tranmere Rovers, who defeated Doncaster Rovers. Tranmere actually took the lead at Wembley, but the Blades fought back to win 2-1 and snatch promotion.

While northern teams thrived in League One this season, three southern sides - Colchester United, Crawley Town and Leyton Orient - suffered the pain of relegation to League Two. They were joined by Rotherham United, who then had to watch on as their South Yorkshire rivals won the Play-Offs.

Promoted: Middlesbrough (1st, 91 pts), Hartlepool United (2nd, 87 pts), Sheffield United (3rd, 84 pts).

Also in Play-Offs: Doncaster Rovers (4th, 81 pts), Tranmere Rovers (5th, 80 pts), Scunthorpe United (6th, 72 pts).

Relegated: Leyton Orient (21st, 48 pts), Rotherham United (22nd, 45 pts), Crawley Town (23rd, 43 pts), Colchester United (24th, 38 pts).

League Two

Fleetwood Town's yo-yoing through Leagues One and Two continued, as their ruthless strike partnership of Pádraig Amond and Mark Cullen helped them to win the League Two title by ten points. Six teams battled it out for the other two promotion places, which eventually went to Oxford United and Walsall.

Wrexham and Mansfield Town's hopes of ending their long absences from League One were ended by Portsmouth and Morecambe in the Play-Off Semi Finals. The Final itself was decided in extra-time, when Morecambe stepped up a gear to win 2-0 and take the last promotion spot.

A three-way battle against relegation resulted in agony for Port Vale and Bury, and relief for Luton Town. Port Vale valiantly bowed out of the Football League after 98 years, while Bury suffered back-to-back relegations and lost their League status after an incredible 123 years!

Promoted: Fleetwood Town (1st, 89 pts), Oxford United (2nd, 79 pts), Walsall (3rd, 79 pts), Morecambe (6th, 74 pts).

Also in Play-Offs: Wrexham (4th, 78 pts), Mansfield Town (5th, 77 pts), Portsmouth (7th, 73 pts).

Relegated: Bury (23rd, 44 pts), Port Vale (24th, 44 pts).

Conference Premier

Former Crystal Palace chairman Mark Goldberg steered Stockport County back into the Football League with victory in the Conference Premier. They will finally return to League Two, six years after dropping out.

With ten games to go, AFC Telford United were 19th - but a stunning run of form got them into the Play-Offs, where they shocked Southend United in the Semi Final. Sadly, Telford couldn't complete the fairytale, as Hereford United followed up their Semi triumph over Forest Green Rovers by winning the Final 1-0 to gain promotion.

Harrogate Town and Altrincham were the two lowest goalscorers in the league, and they were relegated from the Conference Premier along with free-falling Cambridge United and FA Trophy winners Woking.

Promoted: Stockport County (1st, 78 pts), Hereford United (4th, 74 pts).

Also in Play-Offs: Southend United (2nd, 77 pts), Forest Green Rovers (3rd, 75 pts), AFC Telford United (5th, 70 pts).

Relegated: Woking (21st, 51 pts), Cambridge United (22nd, 49 pts), Altrincham (23rd, 45 pts), Harrogate Town (24th, 37 pts).

Conference North

Promoted: Gateshead (1st, 88 pts), Guiseley (4th, 78 pts).

Also in Play-Offs: Hednesford Town (2nd, 79 pts), Boston United (3rd, 78 pts), Gainsborough Trinity (5th, 74 pts).

Relegated: Hyde (20th, 40 pts), FC United of Manchester (21st, 34 pts), Droylsden (22nd, 28 pts*).

* deducted 10 points

Conference South

Promoted: Dover Athletic (1st, 85 pts), Kingstonian (3rd, 76 pts).

Also in Play-Offs: Farnborough (2nd, 82 pts), Chelmsford City (4th, 71 pts), Braintree Town (5th, 70 pts).

Relegated: Tonbridge Angels (20th, 42 pts), Hitchin Town (21st, 40 pts), Gloucester City (22nd, 32 pts).

Regional Premier Divisions

Promoted from Northern Premier League Premier: Skelmersdale United (1st), Chorley (2nd).

Promoted from Isthmian League Premier: Welling United (1st), Grays Athletic (3rd).

Promoted from Southern League Premier: Staines Town (1st), Rugby Town (3rd).

[CFuller]

Major Transfers

• Arsenal splashed out an incredible £130million on new players this season! It was more like a cash bonfire, though, as Newcastle United midfielder Moussa Sissoko (£29million), Paris Saint-Germain playmaker Marco Verratti (£24.5million) and Celtic striker Tony Watt (£15.75million) all flopped or failed to hold down a regular starting place. The only signing to immediately justify his price tag was defensive midfielder Etienne Capoue, who was a great £23million purchase from Fulham.
  
• Chelsea spent much more wisely with money raised by selling Oscar to Barcelona for £44million and Juan Mata to Real Madrid for £19.5million. They paid £34million for Rubin Kazan's Venezuela striker Salomón Rondón, who came third in the Premier League scoring charts with 19 goals. They also got seven goals from England winger Wilfried Zaha, who was worth £22million from Manchester United.
  
• What about Manchester City? Well, they spent £20million each on two players who couldn't have had more contrasting seasons. Romanian midfielder Nicusor Stanciu had a fantastic first season at City following his arrival from Ajax, and he finished it as the PFA Young Player of the Year. Former PSG striker Rodrigo didn't fare so well. He struggled to break into the team, only making two PL appearances from the bench.
  
• Dmitrijs Morozs continued to blow millions at Fulham - with limited success. Right-back John Stones and winger Kevin Mirallas were both average at best after costing a combined £27.75million from Everton, and ex-Nurnberg midfielder Hiroshi Kiyotake was a gigantic waste of £15.75million. Things got better for the Cottagers in January, when they loaned in PSG forward Jérémy Ménez, who scored five PL goals.
  
• Liverpool may have lost Luis Suárez to Real Madrid on a free transfer, but they did find an ample replacement for the striker. They secured the services of Roman Zozulya from Dnipro Dnipropetrovsk on a Bosman, and the Ukraine international went on to score 14 league goals in his first term at Anfield.
  
• When January came along, Manchester United boss Josep Guardiola gave his former club Bayern Munich £21.5million to sign right-winger Erik Lamela. Although the Spain international did alright, he was overshadowed by a left-footed Belgian who'd arrived from Anderlecht 12 months previously. 23-year-old Grégory Lefevre bagged 18 goals and made 15 assists in his first full campaign at Old Trafford!
  

Managerial Movements

• Spain's head coach Vicente Del Bosque retired after the European Championship, and Tito Vilanova left Barcelona to succeed him. The Nou Camp vacancy was filled by Arsenal boss Luciano Spalletti, but he started very badly and was eventually sacked after Barca finished 6th in La Liga! Coincidentally, 6th was also where Arsenal's new manager - ex-Barca midfielder Luis Enrique - came in his first season at the Emirates Stadium.
  
• Fulham's Latvian owner was rather trigger-happy this season. Morozs sacked Pablo Correa in September, and surprisingly replaced him with Southampton's Alan Curbishley. Less than three months later, Curbishley was gone, but the Cottagers finally found some stability under former Genoa coach Javier Aguirre.
  
• While Curbishley was counting his severance pay, his Southampton successor Brian McDermott kept the Saints in the Premier League for a sixth consecutive season. Other managerial changes in the top flight saw Watford replace Steve McClaren with Steve Round, while Chris Powell left his beloved Charlton Athletic to fill the West Bromwich Albion seat vacated by Martin O'Neill.
  
• After winning five successive Scottish Premier League titles with Celtic, Neil Lennon wanted to pursue a new challenge. He got his chance in November, when he became the new head coach of beleaguered Athletic Bilbao - and he blew it. Lennon failed to safeguard Athletic from their first ever relegation from La Liga, and Celtic won yet another championship under new boss Owen Coyle, who was replaced at Stoke City by McClaren.
  
• Roberto Di Matteo left Chelsea shortly after they won the UEFA Champions League in 2012. On 28 September 2016, he finally returned to management with AC Milan. Di Matteo's tenure at the San Siro didn't last much longer than his reign at Stamford Bridge, because he was sacked after Milan only managed a 4th-place finish in Serie A. That was, though, significantly higher than local rivals Inter Milan, who finished an embarrassing 12th after another change of manager - Leonid Slutskiy was replaced by Pasquale Marino!
  
• Before the new Eredivisie season, Danny Blind left PSV to replace the new Schalke 04 boss Martin Jol at Ajax - following the same route that Jol took two years earlier! This wasn't blind faith from Blind, because 'de Godenzonen' clinched their second straight championship while his old club PSV languished in 7th.
  

Other Major Stories

• For the second time in three seasons, Porto are the European champions! They fought back from a first-leg deficit to beat Barcelona in their UEFA Champions League Semi Final, and that set up a Final showdown with Real Madrid. Porto's hero in Istanbul was Mexico striker Carlos Fierro, who scored a 65th-minute penalty and found the net again five minutes later to bring the big trophy back to Estádio do Dragao.
  
• That Champions League Final was one of Nemanja Vidic's final matches for Real Madrid before the former Serbia and Manchester United defender announced his retirement aged 35. Vidic's old United team-mate Michael Carrick also retired after playing in 320 league games for the Red Devils.
  
• FIFA World Cup holders Ukraine are at risk of missing out on next year's finals in Russia! Anatoliy Demyanenko's men suffered early defeats to Northern Ireland and Romania in their qualifying group, and they are currently 3rd with four rounds to go. In contrast, European champions France are set to sail through after scoring 27 goals without reply in six games. ELEVEN of those came in one match against the Faroe Islands, during which Real Madrid's Olivier Giroud topped the charts with four.
  
• Wigan Athletic made some unwanted Premier League history in their 2-0 home defeat to Wolverhampton Wanderers in February. Maynor Figueroa, James McCarthy, Gary Caldwell and John Flanagan were all sent off for the Latics, who finished the match with just seven men left on the pitch!
  
• There were a couple of interesting stories from Spain's La Liga. Granada enjoyed their best ever season as they finished 2nd behind Real Madrid, who they also beat to retain the Copa Del Rey that they first won in 2016. Things did not go so well for Malaga, because their Qatari oil money dried up and they were relegated along with Athletic Bilbao.
  
• Paris Saint-Germain continued to blow the rest of France's Ligue 1 apart with their fifth title in as many years. They finished the campaign with 98 points, 99 goals (29 of them from Robert Lewandowski), a goal difference of +68, and a gigantic 22-point gulf between them and runners-up Valenciennes!
  

Cup Winners

FA Cup: Arsenal 3-1 Newcastle United.

League Cup: Chelsea 1-0 Manchester United.

Community Shield: Manchester City 2-0 Liverpool.

Football League Trophy: Swindon Town 1-0 Rochdale.

UEFA Champions League: Porto 2-0 Real Madrid - at Ataturk Olympic Stadium, Istanbul.

UEFA Europa League: Manchester United 1-0 Borussia Moenchengladbach - at Stade Vélodrome, Marseille.

UEFA Super Cup: Real Madrid 3-1 Liverpool - at Stade Geoffroy-Guichard, Lyon.

FIFA Club World Championship: Real Madrid 2-1 Internacional - at FNB Stadium, Soweto.

Major European Leagues

Dutch Eredivisie: Ajax (1st), FC Utrecht (2nd), AZ Alkmaar (3rd).

French Ligue 1: Paris Saint-Germain (1st), Valenciennes (2nd), Lille (3rd).

German Bundesliga: Bayern Munich (1st), Borussia Dortmund (2nd), Schalke 04 (3rd).

Italian Serie A: Juventus (1st), Napoli (2nd), Roma (3rd).

Portuguese Primeira Liga: Porto (1st), Benfica (2nd), Sporting CP (3rd).

Russian Premier League: CSKA Moscow (1st), FC Krasnodar (2nd), Anji Makhachkala (3rd).

Scottish Premier League: Celtic (1st), St Mirren (2nd), Rangers (3rd).

Spanish La Liga: Real Madrid (1st), Granada (2nd), Atlético Madrid (3rd).

Award Winners

PFA Player of the Year: Yaya Touré (Manchester City).

PFA Young Player of the Year: Nicusor Stanciu (Manchester City).

FWA Footballer of the Year: Sergio Aguero (Manchester City).

Premier League Manager of the Season: Roberto Mancini (Manchester City).

PFA Premier League Team of the Year: Hugo Lloris (Tottenham Hotspur), Sébastien Corchia (Manchester City), Jonas Olsson (Southampton), Vincent Kompany (Manchester City), Leighton Baines (Manchester City), Wayne Rooney (Manchester United), Sergio Aguero (Manchester City), Yaya Touré (Manchester City), Neymar (Manchester United), Steven Fletcher (Liverpool), Salomon Rondón (Chelsea).

FIFA Ballon d'Or: Lionel Messi (Barcelona).

World Soccer World Player of the Year: Lionel Messi (Barcelona).

European Golden Shoe: Robert Lewandowski (Paris Saint-Germain).

UEFA Best Player in Europe: Lionel Messi (Barcelona).

FIFA/FIFPro World XI: Iker Casillas (Real Madrid), Danilo (Porto), Samuel Umtiti (Real Madrid), Gerard Piqué (Barcelona), Leighton Baines (Manchester City), Lionel Messi (Barcelona), Eden Hazard (Paris Saint-Germain), Mario Gotze (Borussia Dortmund), Sergio Aguero (Manchester City), Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid), Robert Lewandowski (Paris Saint-Germain).

[Johnny Ace]

Wow pal! Only just stumbled upon this but excellent work! I'll be having a full read once I find a few spare hours

[CFuller]

Wow pal! Only just stumbled upon this but excellent work! I'll be having a full read once I find a few spare hours

Another new reader! Ace to have you on board, Johnny!

[CFuller]

It was hard to believe that I'd been in charge of Romford FC for half a decade. Quite a few football managers have failed to last five months in their jobs, so for me to still be at Ship Lane after five years was quite an impressive achievement, especially considering that I'd never been a coach before!

I celebrated my fifth anniversary at Romford by signing a one-year extension to my current contract. I will now be staying on as Romford manager until at least 2019 - unless we suffer a total collapse or I lose the enthusiasm for the job. To be honest, though, the latter is less likely than me losing the will to live, because I am loving it here!

Our 9th-place finish in the Conference South last season gave us plenty of encouragement ahead of the 2017/2018 campaign. The chairman reckoned that we should be aiming for another season in the upper end of mid-table, and I thought that was reasonable. After looking at our current group of players as they returned for pre-season, I wasn't convinced that we were yet strong enough to challenge for promotion to the Conference Premier.

If pre-season did go well, I would perhaps be inclined to change my view on that. We had six pre-season friendlies to prepare for, although none of them came against Barrow, who are - or should I say were - our 'parent club'.

As 'parents' go, Barrow were about as caring and considerate as Mick and Mairead Philpott. They didn't send us any players on loan last season, and when we tried to arrange a friendly against them at Ship Lane this month (as per our agreement), they moaned that the 300-mile journey from Cumbria to Essex was too long. If that was the case, I fumed, why in William Wordsworth's name did they ever agree to be our parent club in the first place?

The 'special partnership' was terminated there and then, and Leo Jones reluctantly agreed to find another club to affiliate with. A couple of weeks later, he announced a deal with Conference Premier side AFC Telford United. I was hopeful that Telford would be more willing to loan us some of their reserve players. Even if they didn't, at least we'd get an annual fee of £10,000 from the Bucks.

Back to pre-season now, and we lost another player just days before our first friendly. Striker Daniel Akindayini received offers from five clubs in the Isthmian and Southern Leagues, and he eventually decided to sign for Tonbridge Angels, who'd recently been relegated from the Conference South.

During three seasons at Romford, Danny scored 19 goals in exactly 100 games. For a forward, that's not a particularly great strike rate, but someone of his ability was certainly going to leave a big gap that needed filling.

Akindayini's replacement might well come from our youth team. We have a 17-year-old called Vasilis Koutinis, who scored two senior goals last season and looks set to become a good Conference striker in the future. There's also Garry Morath-Gibbs, who is younger, taller, quicker, and has the potential to become even better! I would give both lads plenty of chances to shine in pre-season.

I'd also give opportunities to two trialists who were hoping to earn contracts at Ship Lane. Zimbabwean midfielder Shepherd Murombedzi, who had just left Ebbsfleet United, and former Charlton Athletic winger Shane Nurse both started their trials in time for our first friendly at home to AFC Wimbledon. We lost to the Dons' Under-18s team four years ago, but would we fare any better against the senior side?

15 July 2017: Romford vs AFC Wimbledon

In the very first minute of our very first game this season, we had an injury scare. Simon Rofe went down in pain after heading a back-pass to Roscoe Fryatt. Thankfully, Simon was fine to carry on after receiving treatment. We made a bright start at the other end of the pitch, as Duncan Greenwood skimmed the Dons' bar with a fierce strike in the 5th minute. Four minutes later, he lobbed a volley into the hands of AFC Wimbledon's new goalkeeper Connor Wareing. Big Dunc's best chance of the opening stages came after 18 minutes, when his free-kick thumped the crossbar. About a minute and a half later, Wimbledon created their first meaningful attack. Dons striker Calum Gallagher skipped past Jordan Peters into the area, and then fired a half-volley. His shot hit the bar and rebounded off Fryatt's back before Gallagher's strike partner Billy Winnard finished the job. It was a rather unfortunate way to go 1-0 down, but I wasn't disheartened, and with good reason. We were actually playing rather well, and after 40 minutes, we got the equalising goal our play merited. It was set up by Boro debutant Romone McCrae, who sent Greenwood through and then watched his new skipper smash the ball home. Two minutes later, it got even better for Romford and for Big Dunc, who ran onto Jason Collins' deep cross and knocked it past Wareing. We now led Wimbledon 2-1 - we couldn't have wished for a better start to pre-season!

Greenwood was chasing a hat-trick in the second half. On 52 minutes, his long-distance attempt at goal number 3 was brilliantly kept out by Wareing. Two minutes later, Fryatt parried away a shot from Winnard, who was looking to join Duncan in scoring his second goal of the day. Another Romford defender picked up an injury in the 59th minute. Collins was left unable to carry on after Dons winger Ted White hacked him down. On came Kamal Guthmy, who just three minutes later supplied the left-wing cross that Greenwood buried to wrap up his treble! That completed a super display of shooting from Dunc, who then came off to a standing ovation! He'd enjoyed a wonderful day, but one Romford player who didn't have a memorable afternoon was George Allen. After 72 minutes, George tripped Terry Daly in the Boro area to give away a penalty, which Luke Gilbert duly converted for the Dons. That made it 3-2. We missed several opportunities to restore our two-goal advantage before our lead came under serious threat with five minutes to go. Allen was booked for pushing Solomon Ahmed 25 yards from the Romford goal, and Finlay Ryan curled Wimbledon's free-kick just wide. Two minutes later, we finally put the game to bed. Jason Harley played a slide-rule pass towards Kenny Pollard, who took the ball off Dons defender Stanley Melvin before marking his 17th birthday by hammering in his first senior goal! It was a red letter day for Kenny, and indeed for all of us at Romford!

Romford - 4 (Greenwood 40,43,62, Pollard 87)

AFC Wimbledon - 2 (Winnard 20, Gilbert pen72)

Friendly, Attendance 307

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt (Barnes), Peters (Dunn), Dymond (Gray), Rofe (Allen), Collins (Guthmy), O'Halloran (Harley), Neville (Morrison), McCrae (Murombedzi), Montgomery (Nurse), Greenwood (Pollard), Reynolds (Morath-Gibbs). BOOKED: Allen, Morrison.

That was another major milestone for us - our first ever win against a senior professional team! It didn't come without loss, as Jason Collins had twisted his knee in that challenge from Ted White. The left-back was ruled out for at least three weeks, and therefore the remainder of our pre-season preparations.

Less than 24 hours later, our other left-back - Kamal Guthmy - stunned us by announcing that he was joining Daniel Akindayini at Tonbridge Angels. After four seasons and 114 appearances for Romford, Kamal had decided to move to Kent for a new challenge.

Kamal's departure was a bolt out of the blue, and it left us without enough time to find a replacement for our next game. We thus headed into our away fixture at Isthmian South outfit Godalming Town without a natural left-back. Centre-half Simon Rofe would have to fill the gap for the first period.

18 July 2017: Godalming Town vs Romford

We could - and perhaps should - have taken the lead after just five minutes. Kenny Pollard struck the post, and the rebound came to Jason Harley, who sent it across goal. Five minutes later, Harrison Tweddell hit a powerful first effort for Godalming, and Steven Barnes tipped it aside. When the two next crossed paths in the 16th minute, it was Tweddell who came out on top. Lebo Khomane's cross took a deflection off his Town team-mate Quentin Poole, who then centred it for former Dagenham & Redbridge forward Tweddell to tap in from close range. Three minutes after that, things got even better for Godalming and their manager Jack Lester. Robbie Craven weighted a lovely long pass into the area, and Khomane rode Simon Rofe's challenge before firing the Gees into a 2-0 lead! To make matters worse for us, Vasilis Koutinis came off for injury treatment moments later following a nasty fall. The treatment seemed to do Vas the world of good, because he pegged a goal back for us after 25 minutes! With his back to goal, Koutinis picked up Harley's pass into the Godalming box, turned sharply, and then blasted home. That halved the deficit, but after a lacklustre conclusion to the first half, the lads still needed geeing up against the Gees.

My half-time team talk and substitutions seemed to have an effect early in the second half, especially where our defenders were concerned. While the likes of George Allen and Trevor Dunn seemed to struggle in the first half, their replacements Liam Georgiou and Connor Dymond fared much better. But it wasn't until the last 15 minutes that our attackers started to up their game. In the 78th minute, Garry Morath-Gibbs made a fine run into the area before seeing his shot kicked away by Godalming's replacement keeper Jack Munday. Garry displayed his pace again four minutes later after a home counter-attack fizzled out. He advanced well into the Godalming half and then played a through-ball to Brian Neville, who was hacked down by Gees defender Liam Simpson. Penalty! There was only one man for the job, and sure enough, Nicky Reynolds put the spot-kick away to draw us level from 2-0 down! We now wanted one more goal for victory! On 84 minutes, Morath-Gibbs headed Graeme Montgomery's cross against the woodwork, and a scramble in the six-yard box ensued before Boro defender Keston James blasted wide. Further attacking drama occurred in injury time, but despite the best efforts of Monty and Garry, neither of them could quite complete the comeback. The game finished in a 2-2 draw, and not the win we were hoping for.

Godalming Town - 2 (Tweddell 16, Khomane 19)

Romford - 2 (Koutinis 25, Reynolds pen82)

Friendly, Attendance 34

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Barnes (Fryatt), Dunn (Dymond), Gray (James), Allen (Georgiou), Rofe (Peters), Harley (O'Halloran), Morrison (Neville), Murombedzi (McCrae), Nurse (Montgomery), Pollard (Morath-Gibbs), Koutinis (Reynolds).

Later that week, I had my annual look at the pre-season promotion odds. While Woking, Welling United and Grays Athletic were among the favourites to go up from the Conference South, we were priced heavily at 40-1, putting us with the candidates for RELEGATION! Of course, we finished in a very respectable 9th place last season, but this particular bookmaker was clearly thinking that we would suffer from 'second season syndrome'.

I printed off the list of those odds, and then placed it on the notice board in our training ground dressing room. That should motivate the players, I thought!

[CFuller]

In the middle of July, we formally opened talks with Duncan Greenwood over a new contract. Negotiations with him would be a bit more complicated than usual, because he was now infected with a blood-sucking parasite (or, to give them their official name, an agent).

Eventually, those negotiations concluded with Duncan signing a much-improved two-year deal worth £250 a week. We did, though, have to pay Greenwood's representative £1,500 - the first time we have ever had to pay a fee to an agent. It sure won't be the last.

The following Saturday, I decided to give the squad - now boosted with 18-year-old trialist left-back Arran McAuley - a pleasant surprise. I told the players that I'd be taking them to Wembley for the afternoon! Of course, I wasn't actually taking them to the national stadium with its famous arch, but to Vale Farm, where they would play the local football team from the Combined Counties League.

22 July 2017: Wembley vs Romford

Vale Farm was where we beat Hendon 4-3 in a memorable match from three seasons back, and our return to that venue started well enough. After six minutes, Duncan Greenwood fired a free-kick into the Wembley wall, and he sent the rebound to Jason Harley, who tapped in an accurate low finish. We dominated the first half from that point on, although we suffered a major blow when centre-back Connor Dymond was forced off with a serious groin injury after 18 minutes. Despite us losing a key defender, Wembley could not threaten our lead at all. A woeful long-ranger from captain Jon Joyce in the 25th minute was the only shot the Lions had in the first half. Duncan then had a couple of chances to double our advantage, but when we did get our second goal on 32 minutes, it came from a much more surprising scorer. Graeme Montgomery played a free-kick into the six-yard box, where Kieron Gray of all people gathered the ball and placed it into the far corner! This was turning into a nice, easy pre-season game - just what we wanted after the disappointing result at Godalming Town!

It wouldn't stay nice and easy for too long, because the Lions woke up for the second half. On 61 minutes, Sonny Smedley swung in a corner, and Graham Swayne outjumped Liam Georgiou to head home a potentially game-changing goal for Wembley! They could've pulled level just a minute later through 16-year-old striker Jordan Parker, but he missed from long range. Parker went closer in the 79th minute, when he skimmed a shot just past the post, and again in the 88th, when Roscoe Fryatt caught his edge-of-the-area effort. Ultimately, Wembley's efforts would not quite be enough to get them a draw. In a role reversal of the first half, we were restricted to a single meaningful shot midway through the period from Greenwood. It was only thanks to our earlier efforts that we came away with a victory - by the slimmest of margins.

Wembley - 1 (Swayne 61)

Romford - 2 (Harley 7, Gray 32)

Friendly, Attendance 34

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Barnes (Fryatt), Peters (Dunn), Dymond (Georgiou), Gray (James), McAuley (Rofe), Harley (O'Halloran), Neville (Morrison), McCrae (Murombedzi), Montgomery (Nurse), Greenwood (Reynolds), Morath-Gibbs (Koutinis).

I wasn't exactly over the moon with our performance, and my mood didn't improve when the physio told me that Connor Dymond had torn his groin muscle. Connor faced between two and three months on the sidelines, and we needed to find a temporary replacement.

We turned to our parent club AFC Telford United, who kindly lent us a reserve centre-back called Stuart Close for the next three months. Stuart is a 21-year-old Scot who came through Aberdeen's youth academy. In his young career, he has played for a number of British footballing behemoths such as Buckie Thistle, Cove Rangers and Worksop Town.

Another defensive boost came when Simon Rofe decided to stave off interest from Slough Town and commit his future to Romford. At the other end of the pitch, we acquired another attacking option after speedy ex-Brentford striker Dan Bentley joined us on trial.

Both of our new boys would take part in our next friendly at home to one of east London's biggest teams - Leyton Orient. The O's were recently relegated to League Two after eleven seasons in League One.

25 July 2017: Romford vs Leyton Orient

We had an opportunity to stun Leyton Orient in the very first minute, but Brian Neville's shot from just outside the area didn't go particularly close to finding the target. From that point, it was pretty much one-way traffic as far as attacks were concerned. After 18 minutes, Roscoe Fryatt caught an ambitious 20-yard right-wing chip from Dean Cox. Roscoe then wasted possession by hastily throwing the ball past Boro left-back Simon Rofe and straight to Cox! After Orient probed the ball around our area, Ross Barbour hit a deep cross into the box, where Brian Woodall's headed goal made Fryatt pay for his wastefulness. Fryatt did make amends to some extent in the 22nd minute, when he caught a fierce long-range effort from O's defender Joe Davis. Ros was nearly beaten again two minutes later, though, as former Dagenham & Redbridge striker Woodall hit the post. For the remainder of the half, we had to sit back and stifle some more Orient attacks. By the end, we were relieved to only have a single-goal deficit.

Leyton Orient added another dimension to their attack when they brought on ex-Everton forward Jermaine Beckford early in the second half. Although the 33-year-old journeyman wouldn't score in this game, he remained a danger when it came to creating chances for his team-mates. On 65 minutes, Beckford hit a through-ball to fellow sub Moses Odubajo, who blasted his shot over the crossbar. Orient hit the post again seven minutes later, this time through Cox, who had switched to the left flank. We had our best equalising chance in the 77th minute. Nicky Reynolds did brilliantly to stop Kenny Pollard's long ball from crossing the Orient byline. He cut the ball back to Vasilis Koutinis, who in turned centred it to Romone McCrae. Sadly, Romone missed the target, just like he'd done with a long-range effort about two minutes earlier. Towards the end of the game, we threw every drop of energy we had left at Leyton Orient. In the dying minutes of normal time, winger Shane Nurse played a stunning through-ball to trialist striker Dan Bentley in the area, but Dan was thwarted by a brilliant tackle from Australian defender Jordan Wilson. Orient then countered to great effect, getting their second goal within less than half a minute. French full-back Romain Vincelot made it 2-0 from Odubajo's cushioned header to the centre of the box. The O's had another goal two minutes later, as the excellent Cox finally scored from a killer Beckford pass. A 3-0 win was just what Leyton Orient deserved. Their class had eventually shone through, and our defence couldn't cope with them.

Romford - 0

Leyton Orient - 3 (Woodall 19, Vincelot 90, Cox 90)

Friendly, Attendance 392

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt (Barnes), Peters (Dunn), Gray (Close), James (Allen), Rofe (McAuley), O'Halloran (Nurse), Neville (McCrae), Murombedzi (Morrison), Montgomery (Koutinis), Greenwood (Pollard), Reynolds (Bentley).

After the Leyton Orient, winger Shane Nurse and I mutually agreed to end his trial early. This was partly because I had been unimpressed by his performances, but mostly because Shane had agreed to sign a part-time contract with Merstham.

Our next pre-season friendly was away to Witham Town - our old foes from the Isthmian League. I had won just two of my last seven meetings with Garry Kimble's team, and I hoped that particular record would read three out of eight by the final whistle.

29 July 2017: Witham Town vs Romford

We conceded a corner to Witham in the second minute, though Ben Long's delivery didn't cause us any problems, as goalkeeper Steven Barnes punched it away. Barnes was given a sterner test in the 15th minute, when he caught a byline cross from Greg Pearson. Chances for us at the other end were limited early on, and we needed our shooting to be much better than Dan Bentley's was in the 17th minute. The trialist received a crisp pass from Romone McCrae, but then skewed his shot high and wide. We also needed cool heads in our defence, and Simon Rofe was proving to be ice cool. After 27 minutes, Simon hacked Nathan Bellamy's header off the goal line, and then headed away a follow-up cross from Long. We test Town a bit more towards the end of the first half. Witham keeper Aldi Haxhia made his first save from George Allen's close-range header in the 34th minute. Winger Dean O'Halloran blasted a vicious shot well wide four minutes later.

Although the first half was goalless, that sure wasn't the case in the second half. After 65 minutes, a well-crafted string of Witham passes ended with Ashley Harrison-Barker threading the ball through to full-back Eddie Odhiambo, who hit a powerful finish. We were trailing 1-0, so I sent Duncan Greenwood on in a bid to change the game. Five minutes later, that was precisely what he did. O'Halloran's cross took a lucky deflection off the head of Witham defender Dylan Casey and came towards Big Dunc, who blasted in a volley with his apparently weaker left peg! That levelled the scores, but it also fired Witham up, and they finished the game strongly. We had to survive a 78th-minute free-kick from Kyle Haynes that just scraped the bar, and a fierce volley from Town skipper Jack Edwards that sailed wide three minutes later. We also had to rejig our defence after left-back Arran McAuley picked up an injury with five minutes to go, but we held firm for a draw.

Witham Town - 1 (Odhiambo 65)

Romford - 1 (Greenwood 70)

Friendly, Attendance 49

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Barnes (Millen), Dunn (Peters), Close (Gray), Allen (Liggett), Rofe (McAuley (Reynolds)), Morrison (Neville), McCrae (Greenwood), Murombedzi (Montgomery), O'Halloran (Harley), Koutinis (O'Reilly), Bentley (Morath-Gibbs). BOOKED: Morrison.

As July came to an end, I was satisfied with how pre-season was going, certainly in terms of results. We had won twice as many friendlies as we did last pre-season, and we'd also lost just once. There was only one more friendly to go, and that would turn out to be a real humdinger.

[CFuller]

The new season was upon us, so it was time to appoint Kieron Carroll's successor as captain. In truth, there was only one real candidate. Last season's vice-captain Duncan Greenwood was promoted to first-choice skipper as his influence on the team continued to grow.

Duncan's fellow forward Nicky Reynolds moved up to the role of vice-captain, while local boy Brian Neville will be our third-choice skipper in the event that neither of our senior strikers are available.

To wrap up our pre-season campaign, we gave our Ship Lane landlords Thurrock - now playing in the Isthmian League Division 1 North - an opportunity to renew our rivalry. Even though this was only an exhibition, the match would see both sides play to a tempo usually seen in full-blooded league games, and it made for a classic.

2 August 2017: Romford vs Thurrock

Sadly, one of our star frontmen was badly injured just two minutes into the match. Nicky Reynolds was taken out by a crunching tackle from Thurrock defender Sullay Cumberbatch and landed awkwardly on his arm. Nicky couldn't possibly continue after that. The 4-2-3-1 I had in mind for this game changed back to 4-4-2, with substitute Dan Bentley partnering Duncan Greenwood up front. The switch seemed to work a treat, as we had the ball in the net after seven minutes. Duncan's header was ruled out for offside (rightly, I may add), but he made up for that a minute later. Big Dunc spotted Daniel Morrison coming into the Thurrock area, and his pass was duly converted by the teenage midfielder for his first senior goal. Moments later, tough-tackling Morrison picked up a yellow card - his third of pre-season - after upending Ryan Watters. Greenwood almost got us a second goal in the 11th minute, when he turned neatly and hit a shot past Fleet centre-back Earl Moffet, but he was denied by the post. Five minutes later, the big man's header skimmed the top of the crossbar. The relentless Romford attacks carried on, as our slick passing moves kept Thurrock on their toes. Morrison and Greenwood each came close to scoring a number of times before the 31st minute, when the pair linked up again to finally put us into a comfortable position. 17-year-old Daniel's through-ball was drilled into the far corner by captain Duncan, and we were 2-0 up at last. Bentley hoped to add his name to the scoresheet before half-time, but he disappointed greatly. Despite having bundles of pace, the trialist couldn't get into enough space to seriously trouble Thurrock keeper Iain Wardley, and he kept firing his shots straight at the defenders. If he'd been a bit more clinical, we might've had more than a two-goal lead at half-time. Nevertheless, we dominated the shots count 14-2 in the first half, and this derby was turning into a rout.

Whatever Thurrock's new manager Steven McArdle said to his players at half-time seemed to inspire his players in the second half, as the Fleet looked more like the Spanish Armada! We could've sunk them in the 51st minute after Greenwood headed Jordan Peters' cross into the net, but Big Dunc was flagged offside for a second time. Two minutes later came the game-changer. From inside the centre circle, Fleet midfielder Anthony Howell aimed a long pass for Henry Cross in the Boro area. Cross and Romford keeper Roscoe Fryatt came forward to meet the ball, but it evaded both of them and bounced into the net! Thurrock had pulled a goal back, and Fryatt's fluff-up was punished with him being substituted for Steven Barnes. In the 64th minute, though, Barnes made a blunder of his own! Steven charged out of his six-yard box to boot a loose ball away from Cross. His clearance only went as far as Thurrock midfielder Dean Cracknell, who struck a 35-yard half-volley that flew straight into an unguarded net! From two goals up, we'd been pegged back to 2-2! I now feared the ultimate humiliation of conceding a third goal - even more so when defender Iain Liggett strained his groin on 73 minutes. Iain showed surprising courage in playing through the pain barrier, and two minutes later, we started our bid to retake the lead. Kenny Pollard struck from the edge of the area, and Thurrock's substitute keeper James White pushed his shot away. After 87 minutes, with full-time fast approaching, White made another stunning save from Pollard's header. Thurrock captain Faisal Hemati then tackled Kenny to stop him from converting the follow-up. However, Hemati knocked the ball towards another young Boro striker, and Garry Morath-Gibbs popped up to snatch a dramatic winner for Romford! Morath-Gibbs then had at least two half-chances to finish the Fleet off, and although he wasted them, he was still our derby day hero!

Romford - 3 (Morrison 8, Greenwood 31, Morath-Gibbs 87)

Thurrock - 2 (Howell 53, Cracknell 64)

Friendly, Attendance 214

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt (Barnes), Peters (Dunn), Close (Rofe), Gray (Liggett), McAuley (Allen), McCrae (Murombedzi), Morrison (Neville), Harley (O'Halloran), Reynolds (Bentley (Morath-Gibbs)), Montgomery (O'Reilly), Greenwood (Pollard). BOOKED: Morrison, Neville.

I lost goodness knows how many buckets worth of sweat in that second half - and when I heard the injury report from physio John Kelly, I felt like I had also lost the match. John informed me that Nicky Reynolds had been taken to hospital with a broken arm, and it looked like he wouldn't be back in action until October at the earliest. I was in despair.

That left us with a real problem. With Nicky on the sidelines, Duncan Greenwood was now our only striker old enough to call himself an adult.

We needed another experienced striker to cover for Reynolds, and we found one in the shape of 30-year-old Matt Green. The fast but fragile forward, who had in the past graced the Football League with five different clubs, joined us on loan from Conference South newcomers Welling United for the next three months.

We also snapped up playmaker Shepherd Murombedzi on a season-long contract following his trial. Although the 22-year-old former Reading man hadn't notched up any goals or assists during pre-season, I still thought he could give us a much-needed creative spark from midfield.

This was a historic signing, because Shep was - as far as I knew - the first full international to sign for us since we reformed a quarter of a century ago. He had only one cap for Zimbabwe, and that came nearly three years ago in an Africa Cup of Nations qualifier against the Seychelles, but he was an international player nonetheless.

As for our two remaining trialists, I chose not to sign full-back Arran McAuley or striker Dan Bentley to permanent deals, and they quietly left the club.

All in all, I'd call this pre-season a qualified success. We won three games, drawn two, and lost one against a far superior Leyton Orient team, but our defensive record remained a cause for concern. We hadn't kept any clean sheets, and that didn't bode well for our first game of the Conference South season - a home fixture against one of the division's strongest teams.

[CFuller]

(All ages correct as of 1 August 2017)

GOALKEEPERS

Steven Barnes (age 19, English)

Steven is a decent backup for Fryatt, and he hasn't had too many poor performances so far at Romford.

Roscoe Fryatt (age 20, English)

Roscoe is now our firmly-established number 1, and he commands his area with much more authority now.

Moses Millen (age 16, English)

Moses could be our regular goalkeeper in the future, but he needs much more development before then.

DEFENDERS

George Allen (age 23, English)

After a woeful pre-season campaign, long-serving George is battling to save his Romford career again.

Stuart Close (age 21, Scottish)

Brave centre-back Stuart is with us on loan from parent club AFC Telford United until late October.

Jason Collins (age 20, English)

Although the left-back has yet to fulfil his early promise, Jason's work rate is second to none.

Trevor Dunn (age 19, English)

Trevor will be looking to hit the ground running in the league after struggling in our pre-season friendlies.

Connor Dymond (age 22, English)

Connor remains our most solid centre-back, although his fifth Boro season has been delayed by injury.

Liam Georgiou (age 17, English)

Expect to see Liam in the first-team a bit more this season, because he is really starting to improve.

Kieron Gray (age 19, English)

I'm hoping that resilient Kieron can prove any doubters wrong after a difficult first season at Ship Lane.

Keston James (age 16, English)

Trinidad-born Keston's ultra-aggressive approach could either get him in big trouble or into the senior side.

Iain Liggett (age 17, Northern Irish)

Shortish centre-half Iain may have turned a corner in pre-season, as I really doubted his potential before then.

Jordan Peters (age 18, English)

Can our determined right-back Jordan make a smooth transition from young talent to first-team regular?

Simon Rofe (age 20, English)

Simon was excellent last season, and I'm expecting the versatile defender to get even stronger in 2017/2018.

MIDFIELDERS

Jason Harley (age 20, English)

Jason is certainly a popular figure here, but I'm not sure whether he's good enough for the Conference South.

Dean Kurrant (age 17, English)

Left-winger Dean has barely improved at all, and if his attitude doesn't change, he has no future in football.

Romone McCrae (age 27, English)

Jovial Romone looks like a solid central midfielder who can serve as a mentor to our younger players.

Dave McGrath (age 16, English)

Dave won't play again until 2018 after the speedy right-winger heartbreakingly tore his ACL in April.

Graeme Montgomery (age 29, English)

Graeme's crossing created plenty of goals in the first half of 2017, and I really hope that continues.

Daniel Morrison (age 17, English)

Despite his tender age, I feel that athletic ball-winner Daniel is ready for an extended run in the first team.

Shepherd Murombedzi (age 22, Zimbabwean)

We need more creativity from midfield, and in Shepherd, I think we've found the man to provide that.

Brian Neville (age 20, English)

Brian is now part of the midfield furniture here, and he is close to making his 100th appearance.

Dean O'Halloran (age 21, Irish)

Dean's electric pace is always an asset, and the winger could be devastating if he improves his crossing.

FORWARDS

Matt Green (age 30, English)

Provided he stays clear of injuries, veteran Matt could be a prolific poacher over the next three months.

Duncan Greenwood (age 21, English)

Almost everything revolves around big Duncan - our lanky top scorer who is now also our captain.

Vasilis Koutinis (age 17, Greek)

Vasilis is good in the air and from close range, so he should add to his two senior goals from last term.

Garry Morath-Gibbs (age 16, English)

Garry has the talent to turn professional if the quick forward can improve the accuracy of his shooting.

Tom O'Reilly (age 16, English)

Although he is a consistent performer in our youth team, Tom's temper sometimes lets him down.

Kenny Pollard (age 17, English)

Kenny is brave, fit and ambitious, and that combination could get him into the senior team.

Nicky Reynolds (age 29, English)

He's had 132 goals in 230 games for me, but deadly Nicky won't be adding to those stats until October.

BACKROOM STAFF

Manager: Christopher Fuller

Assistant Manager: Wayne Daniel

Coaches: Mitch Fellows, Simon Glover, Sammy Winston

Head of Youth Development: Ricki Mackin

Physio: John Kelly

Scout: Dean Standen

[berrers]

Been a while since I've been on here and checked your thread. Well done for sticking at it and getting to to the CONF SOUTH

[Johnny Ace]

Is that current Birmingham City striker Matt Green you have in your ranks there?

& good luck in the upcoming season!!

[CFuller]

Been a while since I've been on here and checked your thread. Well done for sticking at it and getting to to the CONF SOUTH

Thank you. The first season went better than I expected, so hopefully the second will see us make further progress.

Is that current Birmingham City striker Matt Green you have in your ranks there?

& good luck in the upcoming season!!

The very same. I see that Green's not fared too well at Birmingham in real life. Let's hope he has a much better strike rate during his loan spell here!

[CFuller]

On 12 August 2017, almost exactly a year to the day that we played Chelmsford City for the first time last season, we faced them again as the new Conference South campaign kicked off.

We had home advantage in our opening-day fixture, and if recent history was up for repeating itself, we would surely start off with three early points. However, our extraordinary sequence of always winning our first home league game was destined to end at some point, and I feared that this would be the day. We played City four times last season, and got the better of Wes Brown's charges in none of them.

12 August 2017: Romford vs Chelmsford City

Our players were bright-eyed and bushy-tailed at the start of the game - they were really up for this! In the 9th minute, Daniel Morrison made a superb challenge on Chelmsford midfielder Sam Cox and knocked the ball forward to Duncan Greenwood. Duncan could've given us an early lead at that point, but City keeper Rob Peet charged off his line to push Greenwood's shot behind. Sam Clucas crashed a drive just over the bar for Chelmsford in the 12th minute, but we had our next big chance a minute later. Duncan flicked Kieron Gray's long ball to teen striker Vasilis Koutinis, whose effort was parried by Peet. On 26 minutes, Greenwood nodded another pass to Koutinis, who then attempted a diving header that Peet caught well. Chelmsford steadily worked their way into the match, and they had a number of opportunities through Clucas prior to half-time. In the 33rd minute, Roscoe Fryatt had to stop the left-winger's cross from swinging into his goal. A minute later, Clucas moved into the six-yard box after receiving a cross from 38-year-old David Rainford. If his shot hadn't clipped Roscoe's fingers and gone out at the other end of the goal, he surely would've found the net. Another chance came Clucas' way after 43 minutes, when he headed Rainford's corner narrowly over. After weathering Hurricane Clucas, we headed into the break still on course to start the season with a point.

Two minutes into the second half, we went from having one point... to having none at all! Gray made a brilliant interception to head away Danny Whitehead's cross, but unfortunately for him, the man at the other end of his clearance was Cox. The former Tottenham Hotspur youth player controlled the ball with his left foot, and volleyed it into Fryatt's corner with his right. We now needed our strikers to replicate their form from pre-season. The pressure got to Koutinis, and he blasted wide from a ridiculous range in the 51st minute. Greenwood had a calmer head on broader shoulders, as he headed Gray's long pass into the City net eight minutes later. However, the referee's assistant quickly put his flag up, and Big Dunc had been caught offside for the third time in two games! Our situation got more dire three minutes later, when Chelmsford doubled their advantage in rather fortunate circumstances. Lewis Lavender's shot from the Romford 'D' struck Whitehead and deflected towards Aaron Scott, who pinched a second City goal with a quick finish. I later decided to throw on Matt Green in the hope that he would be a supersub. Although Greenwood's accuracy in this game was worse than Koutinis's, I let Duncan carry on and took off Vas instead. On 72 minutes, Big Dunc cushioned a header to Green on the edge of the centre circle, and Matt moved forward before hitting a vicious shot that missed the target by inches. Greenwood had one last attempt from distance two minutes later, but it skimmed the bar, summing up his and our day. Our shooting really wasn't up to scratch, and a 2-0 home defeat was perhaps the worst possible way to start the season.

Romford - 0

Chelmsford City - 2 (Cox 47, Scott 62)

Conference South, Attendance 524 - POSITIONS: Romford 21st, Chelmsford 2nd

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Peters, Close, Gray, Collins (Rofe), O'Halloran, Morrison, McCrae (Murombedzi), Montgomery, Greenwood, Koutinis (Green). BOOKED: Collins.

That was not a good opening-day result at all, but let me put it into context. Chelmsford finished 4th last season and reached the Play-Off Semi Finals, and quite a few people in the know have been predicting them to go one or two steps further this term. It isn't a disgrace to lose against them.

After our defeat against a team fancied for promotion, we took on a team that many have tipped for relegation. We travelled to the fabulously-named Wheatsheaf Park to play Southern League champions Staines Town, who had drawn the opening match of their first Conference South campaign since 2013/2014.

15 August 2017: Staines Town vs Romford

Following Duncan Greenwood's poor display against Chelmsford City, I replaced him in the starting line-up with 17-year-old rookie Kenny Pollard. Kenny's first shot of the game failed to find the target in the 3rd minute, but his second went significantly closer. In fact, just nine minutes into his competitive debut, young Pollard scored with a delicate header from Graeme Montgomery's cross! An early goal was just what I wanted, but could we hold onto that slender lead for the rest of the game - or even the rest of the half? Three minutes after Kenny's opener, Staines threatened to equalise through Northern Irish youngster Patrick Rooney, whose hard and low shot was turned away by Roscoe Fryatt. In the 25th minute, Swans striker Dominic St Louis blazed his first scoring chance over, albeit from a tight angle. Seven minutes later, Kieron Gray made an excellent sliding challenge on St Louis, but our defender seemed to pull a muscle and was in some discomfort. I quickly took Kieron off before he did any serious damage, and his substitution thankfully didn't hinder our lead. By half-time, Staines - for all their efforts - had still not broken through, although Rooney seriously tested Fryatt with a 43rd-minute curler that stung Ros's palms.

Brian Neville could have given us a 2-0 cushion on 51 minutes, but after playing a brilliant one-two with Jason Harley, our stand-in skipper blasted the ball over. Three minutes later, Staines winger Dan Bennett crossed to substitute Charlie Taylor in the Romford area. Taylor leapt like a salmon to reach the ball, and Fryatt could only push his header on towards St Louis, who rammed in the rebound at the near post. That was Staines' equaliser, and it made us much more nervous. In the 65th minute, Matt Green received a flick-on from Pollard just on the edge of Staines' penalty area, but Matt rushed into his shot and volleyed into the stands. Shortly afterwards, I replaced Green with Garry Morath-Gibbs, who like Pollard was making his league debut. Ten minutes from full-time, what was already an excellent competitive bow from KP became a dream debut. Harley intercepted a clearance from Staines keeper Josh Helm and played it to Kenny, who then fed it through to Neville. Brian ran through unmarked and tucked the ball into Helm's far corner to make it 2-1 Romford! Were we about to make amends for our opening-day defeat? Er... no. Pollard wasted an opportunity to send us 3-1 up in the 82nd minute, and three minutes later, our lead was gone - again. Fryatt made another fantastic save to deny Taylor, but the ball was diverted to Liam Kelly, and the Swans midfielder fired into a clear target. Staines were level again at 2-2, and that was how the scoreline stayed. Though that draw did give us our first point of the season, I felt we should've had all three.

Staines Town - 2 (St Louis 54, Kelly 85)

Romford - 2 (Pollard 9, Neville 80)

Conference South, Attendance 379 - POSITIONS: Staines 14th, Romford 19th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Dunn, Close, Gray (Rofe), Collins, Harley, Neville, Murombedzi (McCrae), Montgomery, Pollard, Green (Morath-Gibbs).

I was still smarting at our failure to secure victory by the time our next home match came along. For me, it was imperative that we took maximum points against Eastbourne Borough, who like us had started poorly with just one point from the first couple of games.

[CFuller]

19 August 2017: Romford vs Eastbourne Borough

Both teams were on edge after their disappointing starts to the season, and it seemed to me that they wanted to avoid defeat rather than go for the win. In the 6th minute, Romford keeper Roscoe Fryatt had to track back to pluck Eastbourne midfielder Chris Shephard's shot out of the air. Roscoe saved us again in the 19th minute, when he dived low to catch a header from Yannis Drais. Our first chance to threaten the Sports goal came after 26 minutes, but Dean O'Halloran's free-kick didn't threaten at all. Just before half-time, Eastbourne defender Jason Brewer seemed to jump unfairly with O'Halloran in the corner of the Sports area, and we claimed hopelessly for a penalty. With that, a first half that contained three yellow cards but no goals and little attacking action fizzled out.

We showed a bit more intent after the break. Matt Green skimmed the bar with a 20-yarder in the 49th minute, and he pulled another effort wide three minutes later. Matt disappointed me greatly, and with 15 minutes to go, I brought on Duncan Greenwood in his place. I hoped our skipper would turn a dire game in our favour, but in fact, it was Eastbourne who finished stronger. On 76 minutes, Shephard fired a vicious strike just past the far post. Seven minutes later, Shephard cut the ball to Brewer on the left wing. Brewer aimed a first-time cross at the far post, and Drais outjumped Fryatt to flick the ball in off the upright! I turned away from the dugout in disgust at having conceded a late goal... but then my assistant Wayne Daniel called me back, "Chris! It won't count! The ref's blown his whistle!" It seemed that the referee judged Drais to have fouled Fryatt, so we were spared a second successive home defeat. It also maintained my unbeaten record against Eastbourne, though this was the third time in five meetings that the two Boros had slugged out a goalless draw. I'll probably bring a book for our next clash.

Romford - 0

Eastbourne Borough - 0

Conference South, Attendance 451 - POSITIONS: Romford 18th, Eastbourne Boro 16th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Peters, Close, Gray, Rofe, Morrison (Neville), Murombedzi, McCrae, O'Halloran (Montgomery), Koutinis, Green (Greenwood). BOOKED: O'Halloran.

Now, I said it was imperative that we beat Eastbourne... but to be honest, I was rather satisfied with a point on this occasion. I was certainly very happy with the performances of our defenders, particularly young Jordan Peters, who started as captain for the first time and was named man of the match. Credit was also due to Kieron Gray, who had started this campaign consistently well.

After back-to-back draws, would we finally get our first win on the board in our next game - a rare Sunday afternoon fixture at Welling United? We fancied ourselves against the Wings, who were flapping in the drop zone... but if Kevin Davies' side ended their winless start to the season here, we would replace them in the bottom three.

We were without two of our forwards for this match. Matt Green was ineligible to play against his parent club, while Vasilis Koutinis tore his hamstring in a youth game and was subsequently ruled out for three months. Another injury absentee was Trevor Dunn, who was nursing a strained wrist.

27 August 2017: Welling United vs Romford

I gave 16-year-old striker Garry Morath-Gibbs his first competitive start, and in just the second minute, he found himself through on the Welling goal! Unfortunately, the nerves got to Garry, as after storming past full-back Christian Burgess, he rattled his shot against the goal frame. Three minutes later, Welling's Kieran Sadlier drilled a low shot towards our goal, but the Irishman missed by a matter of inches. Sadlier was booked on 14 minutes for a holding foul on Boro defender Stuart Close, and within moments, we created another scoring opportunity. Romone McCrae's attempted through-ball to Duncan Greenwood was intercepted by a perfectly-timed challenge from Wings centre-half Ollie Monguel. About three minutes later, a scuffed clearance from Monguel allowed Romone to gobble up the loose ball and find Duncan with another long pass. Greenwood chested the ball into the box and controlled it brilliantly before blasting it into the net! Big Dunc was back on the scoresheet, and we were 1-0 ahead! That lead was hardly threatened before half-time. Welling's only equalising chance came from a 34th-minute David Lacey screamer that Roscoe Fryatt caught easily. The home team got edgy as the half-time whistle loomed, with two more of their players joining Sadlier in the referee's notebook.

During the break, I encouraged the players to get one more goal, while I also had a quiet word in Garry's ear to try and settle the young boy's nerves. Once play resumed, though, I was the one feeling anxious! In the 47th minute, Sadlier blasted another shot high and wide, and Lacey bulleted the ball into Fryatt's hands six minutes later. After those two missed chances for Welling, we settled back down and looked to stretch our lead. Substitute winger Dean O'Halloran sent the ball across Welling's goalmouth to Graeme Montgomery in the 61st minute, but Monty was in too tight an angle to worry the Wings' Turkish goalkeeper Bulent Un. We had another go after 72 minutes. Full-back Jordan Peters played a one-two with captain Greenwood and looped a curling cross to the middle of the penalty area. The recipient was Morath-Gibbs, who got above Un and headed a good 'un into the net! The unbridled joy on GMG's face said it all, as his first ever league goal put us firmly in control of the match! All was certainly not well at Welling, whose captain Lee Bell missed an opportunity to make it 2-1 on 82 minutes. The Wings were broken, and the points were ours!

Welling United - 0

Romford - 2 (Greenwood 17, Morath-Gibbs 72)

Conference South, Attendance 458 - POSITIONS: Welling 20th, Romford 15th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Peters, Close, Gray (Allen), Collins, Harley (O'Halloran), Neville (Murombedzi), McCrae, Montgomery, Greenwood, Morath-Gibbs. BOOKED: Neville.

With our first league win secured at the fourth time of asking, our season is finally underway!

[stockportguy86]

Congrats loving the series which league are my local team Stockport County doing?

[CFuller]

Congrats loving the series which league are my local team Stockport County doing? ��

Stockport County are in League Two. They won the Conference Premier last season, having lost in the play-offs in 2015 and 2016.

By the way, if anyone else wants to know how their local/favourite team is doing, by all means ask. I won't bite.

[CFuller]

Team spirit was rather high at the start of September, but one player threatened to upset the apple cart. After our first training session of the new month, goalkeeper Steven Barnes confronted me, wanting to know why he had yet to play a league game this season.

When I told him the honest truth, that Roscoe Fryatt was playing consistently well and didn't deserve to be dropped, Steven reacted very badly. He exclaimed that he wanted to leave, but before I could get a response in, he stormed off.

Hmm... I may need to find a new backup goalkeeper soon...

Barnes had calmed down by the following afternoon. He reluctantly took his place on the bench for our away game at Essex rivals Braintree Town.

The Iron narrowly lost last season's Play-Off Final to Kingstonian, and they sat 8th early on in their bid to go one better. It would take a great effort to beat them, and our slender squad was being stretched to its very limits, with Jason Harley the newest absentee through illness.

2 September 2017: Braintree Town vs Romford

In the fourth minute, Romford midfielder Brian Neville made an X-rated challenge in the centre circle that brought down Braintree's Oliver Muldoon - and almost took out the referee as well! Only God knows how Brian escaped with a yellow card, but he did, and the Iron couldn't make their free-kick count. Declan McGivern sent the ball left to Gareth Gwillim, but Dean O'Halloran closed him down brilliantly and dribbled unchallenged up the flank. When he got to the byline, Dean aimed a cross at Duncan Greenwood, and the big man beat Ryan Peters to head it into the net! We had a very early lead, but to keep hold of it, we would have to deal with Braintree's troublesome twosome of Ashley Miller and Danny Kedwell up front. Moments after the restart, Miller stormed past his marker Kieron Gray to try and latch onto Oliver Kelly's through-ball. Boro keeper Roscoe Fryatt had to boot the ball away before the former Gillingham ace could fire it into the net! Miller brushed Gray aside again in the 13th minute, and another brave stop from Fryatt stopped him from equalising. Three minutes later, Kedwell pulled his first shot of the game wide of the target. Miller left Kieron for dead once more after 29 minutes, and this time, he made his shot count. After charging onto Kedwell's through-ball, he floated a 20-yarder over Fryatt and scored a superb equaliser for Braintree. Most of the final 15 minutes of the first half were spent trying to claw back our lead. Matt Green failed to trouble the target in the 31st minute, while Greenwood didn't come remotely close to scoring from a long-range free-kick two minutes later. Kedwell came close to putting Braintree ahead on a couple of occasions, most notably in the 40th minute, when Fryatt tipped his shot behind.

For the second half, we ditched our man-marking strategy, which was allowing Braintree's strikers to frequently break clear of our centre-backs. However, the switch to zonal marking was a disaster worse than when Coca Cola adopted a new formula in the 1980s! After three minutes, Iron midfielder William Miller passed to namesake Ashley, who then laid the ball off for Kedwell to volley in Braintree's second goal! Worse was to come in the 53rd minute. Josh Dawkin cushioned a header to Kedwell just inside the Romford box, and the 34-year-old blasted home again! Danny's double salvo left us 3-1 behind, and we were back marking man-to-man before long. Despite the switch, a bad half would soon get even worse. Green tripped McGivern in the 62nd minute and picked up a knock that forced him to come off. On came Garry Morath-Gibbs, who was looking to follow up his first league goal against Welling United with his second. The youngster got his chance after 79 minutes. He played a one-two with fellow Boro substitute Shepherd Murombedzi, and then drilled past Iron keeper Bobby Smith before reducing the arrears to 3-2! Morath-Gibbs tried to create an equaliser six minutes later, when he fed the ball to winger Graeme Montgomery. Disappointingly, though, Monty's subsequent cross was flicked weakly past the post by Big Dunc. With that, our chance of taking home a point from a tricky away game was gone.

Braintree Town - 3 (A Miller 29, Kedwell 49,53)

Romford - 2 (Greenwood 5, Morath-Gibbs 79)

Conference South, Attendance 477 - POSITIONS: Braintree 6th, Romford 15th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Peters, Rofe, Gray (Close), Collins, O'Halloran, Neville (Murombedzi), McCrae, Montgomery, Greenwood, Green (Morath-Gibbs). BOOKED: Neville, O'Halloran, Rofe.

After that defeat, I attempted to try and boost our squad with a couple of left-sided loan signings: full-back Mike Cestor from Dartford, and winger Bayan Fenwick from Kingstonian. Unfortunately, Bromley beat us and several other clubs to both of them, and we were stuck with what we had for the time being.

Attention quickly switched to a midweek match against Weston-super-Mare. We lost our first home game against Chelmsford City, and then drew our second against Eastbourne Borough, so could we finally win at our third attempt?

6 September 2017: Romford vs Weston-super-Mare

The opening minutes looked like a good advert for non-league football. We won ourselves a corner in the very first minute, but Weston-super-Mare counter-attacked and soon won a free-kick, which Joe Heath curled just wide from the edge of our area. However, the rest of the half was so terrible that it was actually a good advert for spending your Wednesday nights watching QI repeats on Dave! Those away fans who'd travelled east from Somerset looked like they were about to fall asleep - and to be fair, so were some of our local supporters!

The first half may have been goalless, but that wasn't the case in the second... because one of our defenders seemed to nod off! In the 48th minute, full-back Jason Collins attempted to flick a long ball from Weston's Lewis Hogg back to his keeper. Instead, he scuffed his header towards Andy Barcham, and the Seagulls striker thanked him for his generosity after tapping Weston-super-Mare into a 1-0 lead! Collins' clanger was unforgivable for me, and I swiftly hauled him off! His replacement was Simon Rofe, who in the 56th minute played a fantastic long pass to Garry Morath-Gibbs just inside the Weston half. The young striker then ran all the way to the area, where his fierce shot was turned behind by visiting keeper Billy Baker. We couldn't score from the resulting corner, and neither could we from another in the 61st minute. Graeme Montgomery's corner was met by a header from Stuart Close that didn't come, er, close. We later took our frustrations out on the Weston players, as George Allen and Brian Neville both picked up bookings. This was the third game in a row in which Brian had been booked, and with less than a quarter of an hour to go, I replaced him with young Daniel Morrison. In the 79th minute, Roscoe Fryatt parried away a shot from Ross Davis and launched a quick Romford counter-attack. Morath-Gibbs made another storming run towards the box, but when Weston's defenders got in his way, he sought out Morrison to his right. Danny then hit a first-time shot past Baker to give us the long-awaited equaliser! Then, with five minutes to go, we looked to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat. After Monty had a string of crosses intercepted by the Seagulls' in-form defender Exodus Geohaghan, we instead sought penetration through our other winger Dean O'Halloran. Dean's attempted cross to Duncan Greenwood hit Weston captain Paul Phelan in the head, but Morrison was nearby, and with lightning-quick reactions, he struck the most delicious volley into the top corner! Ship Lane erupted into a chorus of cheers, because it was 2-1 Romford, or should I say 2-1 Morrison! Talk about a super sub! After five more minutes plus injury time, the Boro fans were cheering again for our first home win of the season... and our most dramatic for some time!

Romford - 2 (Morrison 79,85)

Weston-super-Mare - 1 (Barcham 48)

Conference South, Attendance 396 - POSITIONS: Romford 13th, Weston-super-Mare 16th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Peters, Close, Allen, Collins (Rofe), Murombedzi, Neville (Morrison), O'Halloran, McCrae (Greenwood), Montgomery, Morath-Gibbs. BOOKED: Allen, Neville.

Mozza really lit our fire there, and we hoped to keep the fire burning into our next home game, although it was against a side whom we had never played before.

Worcester City had just been moved to the Conference South after seven seasons in the Conference North, and that switch seemed to do the Dragons the world of good. After six games, the West Midlands side were in 2nd place and still unbeaten!

[CFuller]

9 September 2017: Romford vs Worcester City

A very early Romford attack fizzled out after about 20 seconds. Matt Green overhit an attempted cross to Graeme Montgomery at the far post, sending it out of touch. Worcester launched a quick attack of their own roughly a minute later. Ryan Stayte fed a lovely ball past a sea of Boro defenders to Kamaron English, who volleyed over from close range. In the 9th minute, City's former Tranmere Rovers midfielder Danny Harrison tried an ambitious shot from 30 yards out, and he missed the bar only by a matter of inches! Worcester were showing plenty of ambition going forward, and they also had a strong defence to back them up. A Dragons backline that had only conceded two goals thus far this season didn't give us a shot at goal until the 27th minute. Romone McCrae's through-ball put Green one-on-one with goalkeeper Chad Collins. Matt could not end his Romford goal drought, though, as Collins got a hand to the loanee's tame shot. Boro goalie Roscoe Fryatt made a superb save of his own in tipping wide Harrison's volley on 38 minutes. Neither keeper had been overly strained in the first half, and the game remained goalless at half-time.

Worcester nearly went ahead just two minutes after the restart! Full-back Ellis Deeney - the brother of ex-Watford striker Troy - exchanged passes with Matty Mainwaring, and then somehow missed the target from short range! On 58 minutes, we had our first scoring chance of the half through Dean O'Halloran. The Irish winger jinked his way into the box, and then smashed the ball against the bar before Worcester skipper Richard Bryan headed it away from a lurking Green. Soon after that, I replaced the ineffective Green with our talisman Duncan Greenwood. I didn't start Duncan because I thought the big man didn't suit a single-striker formation, but after 71 minutes, he proved me very wrong! Montgomery did the hard work with a lung-busting run down the left flank, and his subsequent cross was turned in by Big Dunc! Were we about to end the Dragons' unbeaten start? It certainly seemed that way, as two City players picked up needless bookings, but with five minutes left, disaster struck. Jordan Peters dived into a challenge on English, and hurt himself too badly to continue! With all our subs used up, we had to hold onto our lead with a man less... and that proved to be too tough an ask. In the 89th minute, English's superb challenge knocked Kieron Gray's pass away from George Allen and to his young Worcester team-mate Erik Jones, who blasted a shot in off the post. City had grabbed two points out of our hands. Football can be rather cruel sometimes.

Romford - 1 (Greenwood 71)

Worcester City - 1 (Jones 89)

Conference South, Attendance 434 - POSITIONS: Romford 13th, Worcester 2nd

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Peters, Close (Allen), Gray, Rofe, Neville, McCrae, Morrison (Murombedzi), O'Halloran, Montgomery, Green (Greenwood).

Missing out on another victory so late on was a real blow to me, and this match also left me questioning the wisdom of loaning in Matt Green.

An experienced striker with nearly 100 league goals to his name was surprisingly having problems with getting his shots on target, let alone into the target! Matt's shooting accuracy was so poor, at just 11%, that I might as well have signed Dick Cheney! If that ratio didn't improve in the next few games, Green would be back at Welling United long before his three-month loan was due to expire in late October.

On a brighter note, Nicky Reynolds recovered from his broken arm quicker than I expected. In fact, he was even fit enough to travel to Dorchester Town the following weekend! 3rd-placed Dorchester had enjoyed a cracking start to the season under their new manager - former Wolverhampton Wanderers hardman Karl Henry - but we held the psychological advantage after beating them twice last term.

16 September 2017: Dorchester Town vs Romford

Dorchester picked up a couple of corners within the first 15 minutes, but a quick counter-attack helped us to win one of our own just as the quarter-hour mark was about to be passed. Although Graeme Montgomery's delivery was headed out of the penalty area, we managed to keep the ball in or around it for a good while. Eventually, Dean O'Halloran found the space to centre the ball to Garry Morath-Gibbs, who poked it into the net! Morath-Gibbs' excellent start to his debut season had continued with his third goal, and we were 1-0 ahead! That opening goal was followed by a fierce assault from Dorchester. Liam Hurst fired a long-distance effort wide in the 17th minute, and a similarly ambitious effort from Steven Brisbane two minutes later had the same outcome. The Magpies' woeful shooting continued to hinder them, and it wasn't until after 27 minutes that they finally forced Roscoe Fryatt into making a save. Even then, Tony Garrod's strike was too tame to seriously worry the Romford goalkeeper. On 36 minutes, Dorchester's goalie Leigh Bedwell brilliantly tipped over a Duncan Greenwood free-kick that could've doubled our lead. Shortly after they cleared the corner that followed, the Magpies launched a blistering counter. Winger Chris Flood put the ball into the six-yard box, where Mitch Harding diverted it towards Brisbane, who was about to score until our left-back Jason Collins made a last-ditch tackle. The good news was that it kept us in a 1-0 lead at half-time. The bad news was that Collins picked up a nasty knock and had to come off before the break.

Moments into the second half, another Romford boy was joining Jason on the treatment table. Morath-Gibbs made a desperate attempt to reach O'Halloran's cross into the Dorchester box, and he crashed into Magpies defender Jake Simpson before landing heavily on the pitch. GMG had bruised his head - an injury that would keep him out of action for up to a fortnight. Nicky Reynolds came on in Garry's place, and after seeing Dorchester miss a couple of chances to equalise, he had his first chance of the game. On 59 minutes, Daniel Morrison floated an exquisite weighted pass to Nicky... but the Boro hero's attempt on goal came back off the post, and Dorchester's Daniel Wyatt booted it behind for a Romford corner! Greenwood doubled our advantage from that corner by stabbing Montgomery's hanging ball into the net! We had scored as many goals against the Magpies as their first seven opponents this season put together... and we weren't finished! After 65 minutes, a crucially-timed challenge from Kieron Gray on home striker Craig Reid set the wheels in motion for another Romford breakaway. The end result was a Romone McCrae through-ball to Greenwood, who went one-on-one with Bedwell and slotted past him, despite Wyatt's last-ditch attempt to clear the danger! Big Dunc's second goal of the day was the 50th of his Romford career, and it put us into a comfortable 3-0 lead! The game was surely over...

...or perhaps it wasn't. In the 69th minute, about two minutes after Bedwell saved Duncan's headed attempt to wrap up his hat-trick, Dorchester pulled one goal back. They needed a fair bit of luck, mind, because Harding's volley ricocheted off Reid, who had to quickly finish from a tight angle before the ball crossed the byline. There were anxious times ahead, and I desperately hoped that Dorchester wouldn't get a quick second. My worst fears were realised six minutes later, as Garrod surged past Stuart Close to meet Brisbane's cross with a diving header that beat Fryatt. The score was now 3-2. We'd surrendered three-goal leads before, and I could see history repeating itself. I watched the last few minutes between the gaps in my fingers, and in the 88th, I actually shut my eyes as Brisbane aimed to cross the ball home from the edge of the penalty area. I heard the home fans groaning at the cross-shot hitting the bar, and breathed a sigh of relief. I then breathed a huger one about five minutes later, when the final whistle blew. Dorchester's players looked devastated at full-time, as they'd lost a game in which they had an incredible 21 shots on goal! We only had a third of that total, but we just about came away with all three points!

Dorchester Town - 2 (Reid 69, Garrod 75)

Romford - 3 (Morath-Gibbs 16, Greenwood 59,66)

Conference South, Attendance 508 - POSITIONS: Dorchester 6th, Romford 7th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Dunn, Close, Gray, Collins (Rofe), O'Halloran, Morrison, McCrae (Murombedzi), Montgomery, Greenwood, Morath-Gibbs (Reynolds). BOOKED: McCrae.

A big away victory against one of the early pacesetters had shot us six places up the table from 13th to 7th - and we were only two points off the play-offs! No, let's not get ahead of ourselves yet...

We could easily have given away two crucial points at Dorchester Town, so I looked to wipe out any complacency before our next game - at home to Havant & Waterlooville. I let the players know exactly what I expected of them, and I told them that, in my book, defeat to Havant would not be acceptable.

20 September 2017: Romford vs Havant & Waterlooville

The Romford players took my words on board and made a very lively start to the match. After less than half a minute, Duncan Greenwood hit a fierce half-volley from near the centre-circle. Havant keeper Ross Etheridge could only parry it to Jason Harley, whose first-time cross struck defender Kiel Robinson and would have diverted into the net had Etheridge not gathered it quickly! Havant's first chance, from Jonny Allan in the fifth minute, wasn't too threatening, but their midfielder Jack Dean just skimmed the bar from long range a minute later. In the 12th minute, Nicky Reynolds - making his first start of the season - floated a byline cross into the Hawks' area, where Duncan met it with a magnificent header. Etheridge did wonderfully well to turn it onto his bar and out of play! Two minutes after our near-miss, we were despairing again, as Havant scored against the run of play. Boro defender Kieron Gray was booked for bringing down Guy Madjo just outside our area, and Malcolm Melvin's free-kick was headed in by Allan. That would be the only goal of a poor first half from our point of view, as Reynolds got himself booked and winger Jason Harley picked up a knock later on. I was expecting a much better performance in the second half.

Things did not look too promising after the restart. Although we had more possession, Havant & Waterlooville made good use of what little of the ball they had. Havant could easily have gone 2-0 up after 55 minutes had Roscoe Fryatt not got down to reach Declan John's powerful low drive! In the 64th minute, the Hawks unsuccessfully argued for a penalty after Romford defender Stuart Close appeared to run into Rob Nash. At the other end, our crossing was not working at all. Havant's defenders, especially Raphael Branco, were doing a magnificent job of stopping our wingers' crosses from reaching either Big Dunc or little Nicky. I was about to switch to a less direct approach when, after 69 minutes, a delivery from Dean O'Halloran finally found its mark. Soon after Havant captain Chris Arthur wastefully gave the ball away, Dean lobbed the ball over Branco and straight to Nicky in the six-yard box. Although Etheridge kept out Reynolds' header, he could not stop the home favourite from burying the follow-up to level the scores! Two minutes later, Reynolds had a couple of quickfire chances to give us the lead. His first came back off Hawks defender Farrend Rawson, while the other went past the post. We wouldn't threaten the visitors again, and the points were shared after an anti-climactic end to the game.

Romford - 1 (Reynolds 69)

Havant & Waterlooville - 1 (Allan 14)

Conference South, Attendance 425 - POSITIONS: Romford 9th, Havant 16th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Peters, Close, Gray (Collins), Rofe, Harley (O'Halloran), Neville, McCrae, Montgomery, Greenwood, Reynolds (Green). BOOKED: Gray, Reynolds, Rofe, Greenwood.

Yes, we did pick up four yellow cards in that game, and that was rather worrying. We had one of the more aggressive teams in the division, and although that could be a good thing, we were giving away too many free-kicks and bookings for my liking. Discipline could become a real problem for us as the season progresses.

[CFuller]

We were on the road for the rest of September, and our first trip was all the way to mid-table Bath City. Bath had one of the division's worst defensive records, so there were likely to be plenty of scoring chances for Nicky Reynolds and young Kenny Pollard, who replaced the tired Duncan Greenwood.

23 September 2017: Bath City vs Romford

Both sides missed the target in the opening three minutes, but the first shot that really troubled either keeper came from Bath after seven minutes. Jake Speight got his head to a swerving free-kick from Ben Harding, and Roscoe Fryatt had to dive to catch it in time. Eight minutes later, Shepherd Murombedzi hit a superb first-time pass to Nicky Reynolds, who then tried to play a one-two with Daniel Morrison inside the City area. Bath's Luke Joyce got in the way of the pass, but he knocked the ball back to Nicky, who buried it into the far corner! 1-0 to Romford, then, but Bath reacted strongly to going behind. In the 20th minute, their experienced forward Rowan Vine played in Darren Mullings, who couldn't strike cleanly enough to worry Ros. Two minutes later, Fryatt pushed a dangerous James Malcolm cross on to Vine, and Daniel Morrison had to make a last-ditch tackle on the 35-year-old. Vine would finally find a way through in the 31st minute, when he rushed onto Malcolm's header and finished at the far post. The tide had turned, and Vine came close to giving Bath the lead two minutes later, when he headed Malcolm's cross just wide. There was a brief period in the 41st minute when we looked like going 2-1 ahead. Bath captain Jamie Young made a point-blank stop from George Allen, and the rebound came to Stuart Close, whose low shot was hacked off the line by Sam Ford! Both teams were relieved to go into the break with the score at 1-1.

We attempted to slow things down in the second half. In hindsight, that was a poor tactical move on my part, as Bath did the opposite - and upped the ante! After just seven minutes, their greater endeavour paid off. Vine brushed aside Close's challenge on the edge of the area and threaded the ball to Harding, who got past Peters and tidied up for 2-1 Bath. There were suspicions of offside in that goal, but we shouldn't have let Bath open us up in the first place. From then on, there was only one team in the match - and it sure as hell wasn't us. More woeful marking from Peters allowed Vine to have another chance in the 58th minute, but he headed Ford's cross into Fryatt's hands. About a quarter of an hour later, in the 71st minute, another Peters mistake resulted in Bath's third goal. Speight sliced a pass through our defence to Mullings, and although Jordan managed to get it away from him, all he did was return it to Speight. The former Mansfield Town striker scored, and Bath led 3-1. This was turning into a Somerset shocker for us, and one player who particularly struggled late on was Morrison. Daniel was booked for a 77th-minute trip on Joyce, and he picked up a knock seven minutes later following another tackle on the same player. The shower of Bath shots finally ended in the first minute of injury time. Substitute Kieran Roberts got to the rebound first after Speight's shot was parried by Fryatt, and he completed Bath's victory with a fourth goal. We succumbed to our heaviest defeat yet this season, and I was furious at how much our defence disintegrated after the break.

Bath City - 4 (Vine 31, Harding 52, Speight 71, Roberts 90)

Romford - 1 (Reynolds 15)

Conference South, Attendance 436 - POSITIONS: Bath 9th, Romford 8th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Peters, Close, Allen, Collins (Rofe), O'Halloran, Morrison, Murombedzi (McCrae), Montgomery (Dunn), Pollard, Reynolds. BOOKED: Allen, Morrison.

Another shocker from our full-backs reinforced my belief that we really needed strengthening in that department. Fortunately, I had a new signing lined up, and on the long journey back home from Twerton Park, I got a phone call from said player to confirm that he was joining us.

Our new arrival was a 19-year-old left-back named Russell Bradley. Russell was an offcast from Chelsea's youth academy who spent last season at Hitchin Town, but he had been a free agent since Hitchin's relegation from the Conference South.

Bradley made his Boro debut in our next game, which marked the start of our newest assault on the Essex Senior Cup. Our Round 2 tie was away to Great Wakering Rovers - an Essex Senior League side based near Southend-on-Sea.

26 September 2017: Great Wakering Rovers vs Romford

We enjoyed the perfect start, with our first goal coming after just 95 seconds! Debutant Russell Bradley sent a throw-in to Matt Green, and Matt laid it off to Romone McCrae before the midfielder drilled home from the edge of the penalty area. Things were obviously going very well, but on a less positive note, Connor Dymond's comeback from injury lasted just three more minutes. Connor suffered a dead leg in a tackle from Great Wakering striker Chris Dempsey, and he was replaced by Liam Georgiou. In the 18th minute, Romford goalkeeper Steven Barnes slipped on the wet pitch as he tried to retrieve a loose ball, but Liam spared him from embarrassment with a perfectly-timed challenge on Dempsey. That mini-scare spurred us on to double our lead in the 26th minute. Inside-forward Tom O'Reilly marked his debut with a fabulous assist for Green, who finally scored his first Romford goal with a deadly finish! 2-0 became 3-0 in the 39th minute, as a third Boro boy broke his Romford goalscoring duck! This time, the plaudits went to 17-year-old Georgiou, who headed Jason Harley's corner into the net! Hayden Johnson hit the side netting for Rovers just before half-time, but Great Wakering needed a great escape in the second half if they were to prevent us from reaching the next round.

The second half would not see a sensational turnaround. Great Wakering's shooting was very ordinary, and substitute Ed Cook was particularly wasteful. By the final whistle, Rovers had managed six shots at goal, and our sulking stopper Barnes hadn't needed to save any of them. Steven's first game of the season was a quiet one, while our new left-back Russell enjoyed a very solid debut. Victory - and a place in Round 3 - was never in doubt, although we really should've won this game by more than 3-0. Green had a clear chance for 4-0 in the 71st minute, but his shooting demons returned as he somehow scuffed Harley's deep cross wide of the goal.

Great Wakering Rovers - 0

Romford - 3 (McCrae 2, Green 26, Georgiou 39)

Essex Senior Cup Round 2, Attendance 60

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Barnes, Dunn, Dymond (Georgiou), Gray, Bradley, Neville, Murombedzi (Morrison), McCrae, Harley, O'Reilly, Green (Greenwood).

One round down, and five more to go in the Essex Senior Cup, then! Our next game in the competition was another away tie against Billericay Town's Reserves, but that wouldn't come around until November.

It was back to league matters at the end of September, as we faced an in-form Oxford City side at Court Place Farm. City have become notoriously slow starters in recent seasons, and that was the case again this time round, as they lost their first four games on the bounce! Since then, though, their fortunes had rapidly improved, and they went into this match having won three of their last four.

30 September 2017: Oxford City vs Romford

One of Oxford City's biggest threats was their teenage striker Eric McLean, who had scored 11 goals in 10 league appearances to this point. If Roscoe Fryatt hadn't bravely punched away a Dymon Labonne cross in the third minute, McLean would surely have headed in his 12th in 10-and-a-bit games! After 12 minutes, the former Bradford City youngster got his head to a volleyed delivery from Chimdi Akubuine, but Boro defender Kieron Gray nodded it clear. Ten minutes later, a string of passes produced our first real attack of the game. Duncan Greenwood's header was well held by Oxford goalkeeper Vince Bannister, who later caught a 27th-minute effort from Dean O'Halloran. We were soon on the back foot again, and after just under half an hour, we were trailing 1-0. Cormac Burke's cross into the Romford box was met by a weak interception from Gray, and he knocked the ball to McLean, who continued his excellent form with a fine strike from a tight angle. We should have paid extra attention to McLean after that, but in the last minute of normal time, he got through our defence again. Labonne timed his cross to perfection as McLean sauntered past a slack Stuart Close to bury his second goal from close range. Oxford City were 2-0 up and controlling possession beautifully. We were just falling apart.

McLean got a hat-trick in City's last game at Worcester City, and he could've done the same against us in the 47th minute. Fryatt parried his low shot from point blank range, and he kept the deficit down to two goals - until the 57th minute. George Allen conceded a free-kick in a dangerous position for pushing McLean, and former Northern Ireland youth winger Burke made the most of it with an unstoppable curler over Fryatt's head. To make matters even worse, we were reduced to ten men after 64 minutes. Daniel Morrison suffered the horrendous misfortune of dislocating his shoulder - an injury that would rule him out until December at least - after we had already used all three of our subs! That was particularly ironic, because Danny had moments earlier been involved in a clash with Jonathan Lynch that ended the Oxford midfielder's game early. Anyway, we struggled on through even more adversity, and we tried to take something home from another wretched away day. Gray was unlucky not to score with a 68th-minute header that Bannister just tipped over his bar. After a couple more half-chances slipped away, we eventually got a consolation goal through Nicky Reynolds in the final minute, though it merely papered over the cracks.

Oxford City - 3 (McLean 30,45, Burke 57)

Romford - 1 (Reynolds 90)

Conference South, Attendance 280 - POSITIONS: Oxford City 10th, Romford 14th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Peters, Close (Allen), Gray, Collins, Neville, Morrison, Murombedzi (McCrae), O'Halloran, Montgomery, Greenwood (Reynolds).

Consecutive away defeats have left us back in the bottom half of the Conference South, and just three points above the dreaded drop zone. For all the progress we seemed to have made over the last 12 months, we still have the same record after eleven games (Won 3, Drawn 4, Lost 4) as we did last season!

Mercifully, there's a two-week break before our next league game, and we have something else to concentrate on in the meantime. Unlike last term, we really are up for the cup!

[CFuller]

                                   [b]P     W     D     L     F     A     GD    PTS[/b]
1.          Canvey Island          11    8     2     1     20    6     +14   26
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2.          Ebbsfleet              11    7     1     3     21    13    +8    22
3.          Chelmsford             11    6     3     2     19    11    +8    21
4.          Farnborough            11    6     1     4     17    14    +3    19
5.          Brackley               11    6     1     4     13    11    +2    19
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
6.          Worcester              11    5     4     2     10    13    -3    19
7.          Dorchester             11    5     3     3     12    7     +5    18
8.          Staines                11    2     9     0     12    10    +2    15
9.          Bromley                11    4     3     4     15    15    0     15
10.         Oxford City            11    4     2     5     23    19    +4    14
11.         Woking                 10    3     5     2     17    14    +3    14
12.         Hampton & Richmond     11    2     7     2     12    12    0     13
13.         Havant                 11    3     4     4     11    12    -1    13
[color="#0000FF"]14.         Romford                11    3     4     4     15    19    -4    13[/color]
15.         Bath                   11    4     1     6     13    18    -5    13
16.         Welling                10    3     3     4     11    10    +1    12
17.         Braintree              11    3     3     5     17    27    -10   12
18.         Weston-super-Mare      11    3     2     6     15    18    -3    11
19.         Eastbourne Boro        11    1     7     3     7     10    -3    10
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
20.         Grays                  11    2     4     5     13    18    -5    10
21.         Hayes & Yeading        11    1     5     5     10    15    -5    8
22.         Basingstoke            11    0     4     7     8     19    -11   4

[CFuller]

Worryingly, we made a loss of just over £3,000 in September, which followed up a £2,300 loss in August. Both those figures included the £8,000 or so that our chairman Leo Jones pumps into the club every month. Our league fortunes were declining, and so was our financial situation.

It was clear that we couldn't keep relying on our wealthy chairman to prop us up and keep us in the black. After all, Mr Jones won't be around forever.

What we really needed in order to move forward again was another lucrative cup run, just like we had in the FA Cup two seasons ago. If we won our opening match of this year's competition, in Qualifying Round 2, it would certainly be a start.

This first hurdle wasn't likely to be an easy one to negotiate. We were drawn away to Ashford Town (Middlesex), who romped to the Isthmian League Division 1 South title with a massive 103 points last season. The Surrey side now plied their trade in the Southern League Premier Division, and although they were struggling in 20th place, their form had improved in recent weeks.

7 October 2017: Ashford Town (Middlesex) vs Romford

As per usual, I got my scout Dean Standen to compile a report on our opponents before the game, so I could plan my tactics accordingly. In my pre-match team talk, I highlighted some of Ashford Town's key men - and also a couple of potential weak links. One of those I singled out for the latter reason was midfielder Allan Makin. I told the players to force Ashford to play through Makin, because he was apparently slack and out of form.

Six minutes into the game, that plan fell apart in spectacular fashion. While our defenders concentrated on other players, Ashford winger Pete Howells played the ball to an unmarked Makin, who fired it into the net from 30 yards out! To make things even more embarrassing for us, Makin had scored with what was apparently his weaker left foot! I'd made a big mistake on Makin, and we were chasing the game as a result! On 17 minutes, a promising Romford riposte saw Graeme Montgomery play a first-time pass to Nicky Reynolds, but Nicky fired straight into the hands of Jack Smelt. We launched another attack two minutes later. Romone McCrae got the ball to target man Duncan Greenwood in the Tangerines' area, and Big Dunc turned towards goal before drilling a shot beyond Smelt! The big man had once again come to our rescue, but shortly after his equaliser, he picked up a minor knock. That hampered Duncan somewhat, as he hit a weak shot directly at Smelt in the 24th minute. Greenwood had another go in the 35th minute, when he ballooned the ball over the crossbar. Ashford looked to restore their lead three minutes after that, but Roscoe Fryatt easily caught a poor long-range effort from Peter Philpott, who was also carrying a minor injury. Ashford finished the half strongly, and after 42 minutes, their so-called 'weak link' Makin came closer to getting them a second goal! We needed left-back Jason Collins to clear Makin's header off the goal line and keep us level. The half-time whistle killed the Tangerines' momentum, and I felt that we were now the favourites.

We made one change at half-time, as struggling centre-back Stuart Close was replaced by Connor Dymond, who made just his second appearance of the season. Connor's first game was ended by injury after just a few minutes, but seven minutes into his second comeback, he found the back of the net! Dymond headed in Montgomery's corner at the far post - but his goal was chalked off, apparently because Big Dunc was impeding the goalkeeper in the six-yard box. We were all incensed with that decision, as we felt robbed! A minute later, though, Jason Harley's cross was slid into the net by Reynolds, who scored in his fourth consecutive game! We were leading 2-1 after 53 minutes, although we couldn't afford to get complacent. After nearly an hour, Ashford brought on their secret weapon - a 6ft 8in beast called Nathan Hollis. On the Romford bench, we thought that Hollis was little more than a failed basketball player. In the 64th minute, Tangerines defender Madani Djibo made a superb challenge on Brian Neville and knocked the ball forward to Hollis, who played a one-two with strike partner Sean Davies. The giant striker then burst through on goal, and before we knew it, he'd equalised! At 2-2, the pendulum had swung again, and Ashford were looking likely to get their third goal! On 74 minutes, Hollis supplied a pass to Howells, who charged down the right wing before crossing from our byline. Fryatt got his fingertips to the cross, but he could only help it onto his far post. Ashford's Alfie Laird then made a last-ditch effort to slide it across the line before Simon Rofe could hack it away! The left-winger's strong challenge left Simon with a dead leg... and it also left our FA Cup hopes dead in the water. We still had hope of forcing a replay from 3-2 down, but despite our very best efforts, Smelt would not be beaten again. When the final whistle blew, the Tangerines' cup dream was still alive, while our latest FA Cup journey had been brought to a sudden halt after just one match.

Ashford Town (Middlesex) - 3 (Makin 6, Hollis 64, Laird 74)

Romford - 2 (Greenwood 19, Reynolds 53)

FA Cup Qualifying Round 2, Attendance 551

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Peters, Close (Dymond), Rofe, Collins, Harley (O'Halloran), McCrae, Neville, Montgomery, Greenwood (Morath-Gibbs), Reynolds. BOOKED: Peters, Montgomery.

I was totally stunned. For the second consecutive year, we'd been knocked out of the FA Cup at our first hurdle by lower-league opposition - and we didn't even get a replay at home this time!

That defeat left me seriously questioning my own abilities as well. I'd been completely outgunned in the tactical department by Ashford's manager Paul Burgess, and that really dented my confidence. I was feeling as low as I had ever felt since we joined the Football Conference.

A week later, we attempted to pick up the pieces by kick-starting our Conference South campaign. In what was our fifth consecutive away game, we travelled to Brackley Town, who were on a high after a recent run of good form thrusted them into the play-off spots.

We too were feeling in slightly better spirits, having seen England secure their place at the 2018 FIFA World Cup the previous night. I didn't expect Romford to repeat the scoreline of England's 8-1 win in Andorra that ensured the Three Lions' qualification, but even if we only won 2-1, I would be delighted!

14 October 2017: Brackley Town vs Romford

Brackley made a quick start, as after just 25 seconds, Dominic Dell picked out the run of his team-mate Jacob Blyth into the penalty area. Blyth headed the lobbed pass at goal, and it looked for all the world as if he was going to score. Boro keeper Roscoe Fryatt just about turned the ball against his cross, and after it bounced back down, he finally secured it! We had our hearts in our mouths there, and so did Brackley in the 7th minute, when their goalie Aljaz Cotman had to tip Duncan Greenwood's free-kick over before it could fly into his net! The Slovenian denied Big Dunc again on 21 minutes with a more comfortable save. Two minutes later, Duncan picked up Russell Bradley's cross inside the Romford half and skipped past defender Zac Andrews to go through on goal! Cotman charged out of his area to meet Greenwood, and his quick-thinking seemed to affect our captain, who slipped and threw the chance away. When Big Dunc got another chance in the 30th minute, though, he did not chuck it back into the fire. He rose above Saints full-back Dale Tonge to head home from Graeme Montgomery's corner, finally giving us the advantage! That slender lead would soon come under threat from Brackley. On 39 minutes, Romford defender Connor Dymond suffered another injury setback, as he picked up a knock whilst challenging Dell on the edge of our area. That would be a turning point, because three minutes later, we failed to see off Tomi Adeloye's corner, and Lewis Chalmers fired it into the target for Brackley. The Saints had pulled back level just before half-time, and we had to regroup.

The second half was spent almost exclusively in our own half, as Brackley redoubled their attacking efforts. The Saints had numerous scoring opportunities, but they found it difficult to convert them against a much more rigid Romford defence. One player who particularly struggled up front was Dell, who missed two more chances in the 54th and 60th minutes. Shortly after Dell's last effort, Blyth went for a 30-yard stunner - and he wasn't a million miles away from catching Fryatt out! Dell picked up an injury in the 72nd minute, and he came off to be replaced by former Bristol City trainee Scott Wilson. After a mini-lull, the Saints had another scoring opportunity on 85 minutes. Bradley missed a header from Adeloye's long ball to Blyth, and the ex-Leicester City man's shot was parried away by Fryatt. Brackley regained possession and worked the ball back to Chalmers, whose piledriver went just over the bar. Even as time was running up with the score still at 1-1, the dogged hosts would not give up hope of claiming all three points. They had one last effort in the third and final minute of injury time. Wilson picked up a dangerous through-ball from Blyth and tried desperately to slide it past Fryatt... but he instead sent it out of play for a goal kick. When the whistle blew seconds later, we could finally draw breath.

Brackley Town - 1 (Chalmers 42)

Romford - 1 (Greenwood 30)

Conference South, Attendance 294 - POSITIONS: Brackley 4th, Romford 15th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Dunn, Dymond (James), Georgiou, Bradley, Harley (O'Halloran), Neville (Murombedzi), McCrae, Montgomery, Greenwood, Reynolds. BOOKED: Neville.

It was such a relief to come away from Northamptonshire with a point, especially as we didn't have a single effort on goal in the second half! After a poor run of five away matches that yielded three defeats and just one win, we couldn't wait to get back home to Ship Lane!

[CFuller]

Almost exactly four weeks after our last home fixture, we finally returned to Ship Lane, hoping that we could pick up just our second league win there this season. Lying in wait were 2017 FA Trophy winners Woking, who were just inside the top half of the Conference South table.

Our only previous meeting was back in August 2015, when we completely folded against the Cards in a friendly that finished 5-1 to the then Conference Premier side. More than two years on, our fortunes had changed so much that we would actually overtake Scott McNiven's men with a victory!

17 October 2017: Romford vs Woking

I was impressed with how we started the first half, as every time we lost possession, we pressed Woking to get it back again. That was evident in the 8th minute, when full-back Jordan Peters got the ball after Dean O'Halloran lost out to Woking's Jamie Sendles-White. Moments later, Jordan slid a pinpoint pass for Nicky Reynolds to run onto and place into the far corner of the net! That gave us a very early breakthrough. Four minutes later, Garry Morath-Gibbs tried to double our lead after a lung-busting run into the box... but the youngster got nervous and pulled his shot wide. Woking had their first chance midway through the half, as midfielder Jack Parkinson struck the bar from distance before Romford's Stuart Close make a superb block to prevent Jim Willis from tapping in the rebound. Our defending in the first period had been superb - so much so that we restricted the Cards to just one more opportunity before half-time. After bang on 45 minutes, Jamal Lowe fired his effort over the bar for Woking.

All was going well for us, but that changed five minutes into the second half. Big Duncan Greenwood - playing in an unusual inside-forward role - was left writhing in agony after being taken out by a firm challenge from Woking winger Courtney Harris. Duncan's injury looked so severe that he had to be stretchered off and taken to hospital. Losing our captain affected us for a bit, and when Woking's Dominic Green curled a free-kick inches wide in the 61st minute, a comeback from the Cards looked... well, on the cards. We had settled back down by the 68th minute, and we started pressing the visitors again. Jordan brilliantly closed down Green and then sent the ball to playmaker Romone McCrae, whose excellent through-ball set up a great opportunity for Morath-Gibbs. Woking goalkeeper Connor Keane did brilliantly, though, to parry Garry's shot away. Our 16-year-old talent eventually got the better of Keane four minutes later, with a cool finish putting us 2-0 up! That two-goal advantage would only last until the 75th minute. Woking left-winger Green's cross was converted by the Cards' own 16-year-old striker, Gareth Mowthorpe. That goal set up a nervy final quarter-hour at Ship Lane.

Keane caught an 82nd-minute Simon Rofe header that would've secured victory for us. Three minutes later, Green narrowly missed out on an equaliser from his free-kick. The late tension reached its highest point in the 88th minute. Moments after our substitute Matt Green had a shot parried away by Keane, Woking set out to hit us on the break. Mowthorpe crossed from deep to find Lowe in the penalty area, and the striker looked a dead cert to head Woking back to parity. However, Roscoe Fryatt somehow palmed the ball off his line, and Lowe then volleyed the rebound out off the post! That was the Cards' last chance, and the full-time whistle led to an eruption of cheers from the Romford fans! We had recorded a great home victory against the FA Trophy holders!

Romford - 2 (Reynolds 8, Morath-Gibbs 72)

Woking - 1 (Mowthorpe 75)

Conference South, Attendance 278 - POSITIONS: Romford 10th, Woking 15th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Peters, Close, Rofe, Collins, Murombedzi, Neville, O'Halloran, Reynolds (McCrae), Greenwood (Green (Harley)), Morath-Gibbs.

After congratulating the boys on a fabulous result, my thoughts quickly turned towards Duncan Greenwood. I visited Duncan in hospital the following morning, and although he was obviously in a lot of discomfort, he was in surprisingly high spirits.

When I asked him about that incident with Courtney Harris, he said, "When he came in from behind, I felt this awful pain in me calf. The doctor says it might me torn. I'll have a scan this afternoon, and then I'll know for sure." As I despaired at the thought of losing my star man for a lengthy period, he told me, "I'll get through this, boss. Don't worry."

I could not help but worry, and later that afternoon, the scan confirmed my worst fears. Big Dunc had indeed torn his calf muscle, and for at least the next four months, we would have to cope without our captain, leading scorer and attacking linchpin. It was like being told my cat had died.

Greenwood's injury left us without a big frontman, and even though we had 11 days to find a replacement, we couldn't find a loanee or cheap freebie to fill the void before our next game. For the time being, I would have to abandon my usual 4-4-2 and adopt one of my alternative single-striker formations.

We lost another first-team player during that 11-day rest period. Centre-back Stuart Close returned to his parent club AFC Telford United after playing 13 games for the Boro. Stuart had been a useful squad member during his three-month loan spell, even if his form did tail off towards the end.

We finished off October with another home game against Hayes & Yeading United, who were really struggling in the relegation zone. This was United's first match under what was their fourth manager in less than two years - Irishman Pat Dolan, who lost his last job after getting Cambridge United relegated to the Conference North!

28 October 2017: Romford vs Hayes & Yeading United

There was little to write about in the first 15 minutes... but after 15 minutes and two seconds, Nicky Reynolds hit a powerful strike that was well held by Hayes & Yeading goalkeeper Ross Flitney. In the 17th minute, Romford winger Graeme Montgomery struck from just inside the United area, and he missed badly. Two minutes later, Graeme hit a free-kick that did at least force Flitney into a catch. Otherwise, it was a rather frustrating day for Monty. He narrowly missed the target in the 28th minute, hit the crossbar three minutes later, and also struggled to get his crosses to our lone striker Garry Morath-Gibbs. At the other end, Hayes & Yeading showed why they were among the division's least prolific goalscorers. Hicham Abdellah fired a 37th-minute volley straight into brave Boro defender Kieron Gray, and that was one of four shots United missed in a goalless first half.

If you thought the second half would be any better, prepare to be disappointed. Aaron Cole fizzed a free-kick just past the post for Hayes & Yeading in the 55th minute, and Abdellah hit the upright in the 67th, shortly after he had a close-range goal disallowed for offside. That was pretty much it for the visitors. Thanks to the excellent defensive efforts of Gray and Connor Dymond, we didn't let them have a single shot on target! A 79th-minute injury to Reynolds curtailed our own hopes of getting a match-winning goal, as we had to see the game out with just ten men. All in all, though, I was content with a draw, not to mention only our third clean sheet of the season!

Romford - 0

Hayes & Yeading United - 0

Conference South, Attendance 458 - POSITIONS: Romford 13th, Hayes & Yeading 20th

ROMFORD LINE-UP: Fryatt, Peters, Dymond, Gray, Bradley, McCrae, Neville (Murombedzi), O'Halloran, Reynolds, Montgomery (Harley), Morath-Gibbs (Green).

With a third of the Conference South season complete, we look reasonably healthy in mid-table, but we need to get some more wins under our belts to stay clear of the drop zone.