Sports Report - Frenford 1 The Bridge 0

The poor run that The Bridge have been on since the 5-2 win at FC Clacton continued in Ilford as Frenford took a rare win that saw The Bridge increase their losing streak to five in a row.

The home side, 18th at the start of play, won only their 5th home game out of 18 with a solitary goal from Kai Haysman enough to confirm the home victory and continue The Bridge’s miserable run.

A bit of a shuffle to The Bridge line-up saw James King, Leo Wood, and Tobi Coker starting along with the returning Jason Banton. A decent enough-looking team and one that Hullbridge fans would have thought strong enough to trouble the home side who hadn’t won since the 17th of February, ironically against FC Clacton, 7 games ago.

However, it was a familiar story for The Bridge, whose play-off challenge has dropped away due to that run of defeats and, despite having plenty of the ball, once again The Bridge failed to find the net for the 5th game in a row. That lack of goals has put pressure on the team as any goals conceded have meant a defeat and the run extended to 0-1, 0-1, 0-2, 0-1, and with this one, 0-1 and another one-goal defeat.

When The Bridge beat FC Clacton 5-2, they were 7th in the table with 49 points, just 1 behind 5th-placed Athletic Newham who occupied the last play-off place. That damaging five-game run since then has seen no points and no goals and we are still on 49 points but now in 10th and 12 points behind Sporting Bengal United in 5th, with play-off dreams well and truly over.

For this match, read as most of the last four, with a similar pattern of lots of Bridge play but not enough chances created and, the ones that were, not taken. Then, the inevitable goal from the opposition and another day ends with zero points.

That familiar pattern saw The Bridge on the ball for most of the first half but with few chances. Tobi Coker had a long-range effort in the 13th minute saved by keeper Jimmy Parker and then went close again in the 28th minute with a good save from Parker as the two continued their personal battle but then came a familiar sucker punch when Kai Haysman put Frenford in front on 40 minutes and that’s how it stayed when the referee blew his whistle 7 minutes later.

The Bridge changed it around a bit at half-time with Adam Topley and Zayshaun Asamoah on for James King and Michael Dixon. As Frenford kicked the half off, whether they could hold on to that lead would have been uppermost in their minds and, once again The Bridge had most of the play without creating too much in front of goal.

Leo Wood and Gary Cohen made way for Jon Evans and Kunle Adeyemi (I think, his first game, having been an unused sub previously) as the visitors tried to find a way, if not back into the match, at least back on level terms. As time began to run out, Jon Evans almost became Jon Evans, super-sub when he went close with a header with a little over 10 minutes left on the clock but that was all that The Bridge could muster in their quest for the equaliser.

It was now time for Frenford to make some changes as they held onto their slender lead and Charlie Munns came on for Samir Sedauio and 10 minutes later Jordan Elongo was replaced by Jay Batchelor. The changes, however, did not change the scoreline but Frenford held on for their 5th home win of the season which left them comfortably above the bottom two in the table in their first ESL season.

Not the expected result The Bridge were looking for and the season is ending with a bit of a whimper but I know @ThGaffer will want to finish as high as possible and will be aiming for as many wins as possible in the remaining games. As ever, the lads will need as much support as we can give them, so…

Another disappointing day for The Bridge and one of those games where it’s difficult to pick someone who stood out but he’s been close to winning one of these a few times and this time he has!

Brad has been pretty good since coming back into the team. Like all goalkeepers, he has his moments but overall he’s done really well and deserves to, finally, win the MOM accolade… well-done mate!