Comfortable Iron triumph over rivals

BRAINTREE 2

BISHOP'S STORTFORD 0

(Blue Square South)

THIS was a somewhat bizarre New Year's Day afternoon game of football with young referee Elliot Kaye dithering until 55 minutes before the scheduled kick-off time as to whether it should be played despite an excellent surface thanks to the hard work of Iron groundsman Andy Green.

Kaye then sent off two visiting players within the first half hour - the first a real harsh decision on defender Lai Bas Lette Jallow for accidentally clipping the heels of Sean Marks en route to goal and the second, quite rightly, on ex-Iron favourite Louis Riddle for scything down Matt Game from behind in the area as he was about to slide the ball into the net.

Brad Quinton missed the resultant penalty and then Kaye, clearly not working in tandem with his two colleagues, made several peculiar decisions.

These included the wrong booking of Mike Power for allegedly diving in the area after he was brought down by 'keeper Nicky Eyre, all of which happened when one of his assistants was flagging for several seconds for a blatant offside in the first place.

Little wonder the match assessor spent some time with him in the dressing room after the game no doubt discussing some of the finer points of contention in what was never a dirty local derby game.

All this misdemeanour from the officials apart for Iron manager Robbie Garvey all that mattered was that his players responded correctly scoring two goals, keeping another clean sheet and picking up another three league points.

"Obviously I'm pleased with the result and the points and that's what matters," he said. "Playing against nine men is not easy as some people imagine and to their credit Stortford kept trying to play football.

"We really needed to have shown a bit more experience at times by putting our foot on the ball, playing the easier square pass and being more patient in our build-up and not always going directly forward every time.

"But the younger players are still learning and it was good to win and get the points."

And those points keep the Iron comfortably situated in fifth position in the league with games in hand over teams immediately above them.

In this local derby, despite the visitors losing the two players earlier on, the Iron always had the upper hand and should have won by a bigger margin.

Early efforts by George Purcell and Marks were denied by 'keeper Eyre with the visitors only serious first half effort on goal came from Charlie Sheringham but 'keeper Craig Holloway saved well.

Iron's first goal came on 27 minutes courtesy of a defensive mistake by Tom Champion who allowed Power to cut in from the right and drive the ball low past Eyre.

It was no more than the Iron deserved and they added a second on 39 minutes when defender Mark Jones, back in the Iron side, swept a timely ball through to Marks who made no mistake as he drove the ball low into the net.

Understandably the second half was a bit of an anti-climax but again the Iron still had the upper hand although in fairness to the visitors they did at least keep trying to play attacking football despite being down on numbers.

With substitutions on both sides the game naturally lost some of its momentum, but Iron had the more chances.

Quinton volleyed over the bar and Power would have scored his second, but for a goal line clearance by Stevland Angus and then Purcell, so desperate to score as always, put his free-kick wide of the target.

But the score remained the same and in the end Iron ran out easy winners in a game perhaps more remembered for the referee's performance than anything else.

Garvey added at the end: "I will settle for an unbeaten festive run of games which keeps us up with the leading clubs."