Non-League and Academy football writer

In a second round tie of this season’s BBC Essex Senior Cup, Romford of the Essex Senior League (step 5) faced Rayleigh Town of the Thurlow Nunn League First Division South (step 6), on Tuesday evening at Mayesbrook Park. Rayleigh Town beat AFC Pegasus in the first round of this county cup competition, to set up this interesting cup tie with Romford. Robert Hodgson’s Rayleigh Town side put in a quite heroic team performance to win this cup tie 1-0 over Romford.

In what was quite an even start to proceedings, a confident Rayleigh Town side would work very hard for each other to really limit the home side to not very much in the way of goalscoring chances early on. After a Romford free-kick chance, Rayleigh would then go forward with the ball soon afterwards. As Mofi Tunde-Ojolowo progressed the ball forward down the left flank, before powering a decent effort wide of George Sapsford’s goal from 25 yards out on goal. Then in the third minute of first half stoppage time, Rayleigh Town would take the lead, and for all their hard work in the first half, they deserved it. 

For that Rayleigh goal, Sam Blackholly’s lofted forward ball from midfield, was flicked on and contested well by Dylan Jones up against a Romford defender, to Nathan Elgie down the left flank. The skilful winger would work the ball towards the edge of the Romford penalty area, before curling an unstoppable effort high into the top right-hand corner of the goal, 0-1. During the early stages of the second half Rayleigh Town would continue to really frustrate Romford going forward, also keeping their shape really well as a team. Next, and a long bouncing forward ball from deep, would bounce into the path of the recently introduced Rayleigh centre-forward Louie Watkins, down the right-hand side of the Romford penalty area. Watkins would however, despite Dylan Jones running through the middle, hit the ball into the side-netting of the goal.

A good and powerfully hit low effort from down the right-hand side of the Rayleigh box by Aron Gordon, was parried away by goalkeeper Josh Hudson, as we now approached the latter stages of the tie. A good move late on in the game by Rayleigh would see Arnold Acheampong progress the ball forward for a while down the left flank. The Rayleigh substitute would then play the ball across to Louie Watkins inside the centre of the busy Romford box. Watkins would turn with the ball before laying it off for Matt Oaten to hit on the edge of the penalty area. He would connect really well with the ball, powering a good effort on target which had to be well tipped over by George Sapsford. Rayleigh would defend impeccably well during the final stages of the game despite pressure from Romford, to book their place in the next round of this prestigious county cup. And deservedly so!

It’s difficult to name a player of the match, especially when a team puts in such a good performance collectively, as a team. However, and although there were some outstanding performances out on the pitch, such as those from Mason Grant, Nathan Elgie and Oliver Quick, I’m going to name Rayleigh’s captain and central-defender Taylor Armstrong as my player of the match. He put in a real captain’s performance, defending really well in all that he had to do against the step 5 side.

Team-sheets/match-day squads:

Romford:

(1) George Sapsford

(2) Edward Walker 

(3) Teddy Desmond 

(4) Ekow Owusu-Boakye 

(5) Kolade Salaudeen

(6) Jake Barlow (captain)

(7) Aron Gordon 

(8) Prince Sikiru

(9) Samir Ali

(10) Dhillon Sandhu-Nelson

(11) Fabio Vieira

Substitutes:

(12) Ben Sargent 

(14) Julius Nwike

(16) Ben McCrow

(17) Jaxon Brown

Rayleigh Town 

(1) Josh Hudson

(2) Mason Grant 

(3) Jake Pryke

(4) Sam Blackholly

(5) Oliver Quick

(6) Taylor Armstrong (captain)

(7) Nathan Elgie

(8) Jack Hyslop

(9) Dylan Jones

(10) Mitchell Ali

(11) Mofi Tunde-Ojolowo

Substitutes:

(12) Louie Watkins 

(14) Matt Oaten

(15) Arnold Acheampong 

(16) Damian Siemienczuk 

(17) Robert Hodgson