Badly in need of a morale boosting win to restore their fast disappearing promotion chances, Braintree had their hopes dashed once again with yet another sad Cressing Road performance on Saturday.

Having collected only two points from a possible 15, Iron's lead at the top of the division one table has been whittled away and they have now relinquished top spot to Canvey Island who become strong favourites to take the title.

Although theoretically it is possible for Braintree to finish in the top three, a minor miracle would probably now be necessary.

Once again it was a failure to rediscover their scoring touch that proved Braintree's downfall.

Despite remaining the top goal getters in the division, the supply has dried up in recent games and after Romford had taken an early lead the home side struggled to get back into the game.

The signs were there as two opportunities went astray, before Romford ably demonstrated how it should be done with Trevor Paul snapping up a chance to put the visitors ahead in the eighth minute.

From then on it was an uphill battle with Brain-tree unable to make any impression near goals in spite of having plenty of possession.

On the other hand Romford always threatened whenever their lively front pair Paul and Smith got the ball.

And so it remained for most of the game until Braintree finally got their long overdue equaliser with just five minutes of normal time remaining.

Even then it was a defender who came up to grab the all important goal when John Bishop headed in from a Nicky Smith cross.

This was just the beginning of an amazing finale to an otherwise uneventual match.

As tension mounted Romford's Stanbrook was sent off after a second bookable offence, and moments later, in a separate incident, Alan Vincent of Braintree was also dismissed for a second booking.

Then as the game entered stoppage time came another major incident when John Cheesewright was adjudged to have brought down a Romford forward as the two went for a loose ball.

The goalkeeper was shown the yellow card and, from the resultant penalty kick, Paul made no mistake to restore Romford's lead.

So, having gained what had seemed an invaluable point, Braintree suddenly had it snatched away from them and even then there was still time for another goal as play continued to fluctuate.

Braintree had fleeting chances to get on terms, but it was the visitors' clinical finishing that prevailed with the pacy Paul eagerly grabbing the opportunity to complete his hat-trick thanks to a dreadful back pass from Lee Hunter which failed to reach Cheesewright.

This just about summed up another disappointing afternoon for Braintree supporters who quietly dispersed as the Romford fans noisily celebrated what for them had been an unexpected victory.

Braintree Town: Cheesewright, Hunter, Vincent, Cawley, Bishop, Forbes, Smith, Betson, Bennett, Tanner, (Bell), and Rippingale.

On Saturday Braintree visit Oxford City for a Ryman League fixture.

Converted for the new archive on 19 November 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.