Chesham United 0-3 Romulus

[Simon N]

Chesham:

1. Richard Hayward
2. Alex Duffy
3. Sam Ledger
4. Steve Obeng
5. Ollie Adedeji
6. Mark Lambert (booked 90 mins)
7. Dave Fotheringham
8. Steve Wales
9. Leon Archer (booked 80 mins)
10. Darrell Cox
11. Danny Burnell

Subs:
12. Adam Parker
14. Simon Ellis (for Obeng 70 mins; booked 76 mins)
15. Joe Hatcher
16. Chris Bangura (for Cox 70 mins)
17. Dom Marsala (for Duffy 68 mins)



Chesham went down to their heaviest home defeat since March 2007. This had all the makings of a potential slip-up: a home game (all Chesham’s three league defeats this season have been at home), a big physical opposition, and the knowledge that a win would take the team to the top of the league. In fact a win was never on the cards from the moment Romulus took the lead in the tenth minute.

There were three changes to the starting line-up, with John Kyriacou suspended, Lewis Laws injured and Dom Marsala on the bench, replaced by Mark Lambert, Alex Duffy and Danny Burnell. With Jack Pattison also injured Simon Ellis made his first appearance in eighteen months as a second-half substitute. Chesham made a bright start with Steve Wales finding Darrell Cox whose shot from the area produced a fine save from visiting keeper Matthew Sergeant, but it was Romulus who took an early lead when Nicholas Heath crossed and Lei Brown stole in at the near post to head in. Chesham never recovered from this setback and Romulus went on to control the game, with the main threat coming from long balls into the area. After 26 minutes a Heath corner came to defender Colm Tiernan at the far post who put a free header wide, then in stoppage time Leo Brown beat Richard Hayward to a long ball and passed to Tom Wilmore whose angled lob was turned behind by Hayward.

Any hopes Chesham may have had of getting back into the game were snuffed out within six minutes of the restart. Four minutes in Lei Brown’s long free kick into the area glanced off a head onto the post and Richard Munday scored from the rebound. Two minutes later another free kick into the Chesham box was headed in by Munday to make it 3-0. It could have been worse two minutes later but Richard Hayward made a great save to keep out another header, this time by Leo Brown. Romulus were rampant and Chesham demoralised, and for once the visitors played the ball along the ground and Tom Wilmore’s shot was turned behind by Hayward. The game became bad-tempered in the later stages with the referee showing seven yellow cards in the second half. Six minutes from time Chesham had their only chance of the half, Leon Archer bringing down Richard Hayward’s long clearance and beating Sergeant but the ball just went past the far post.