Sacre bleu! Well beaten on foreign soil!

Hayes Lane Ultras (Bromley supporters) 7
"The Rabblers" 2
Saturday 28th February 2009
at Norman Park, Bromley, Kent
IFA League fixture.

Report by SHAUN DOOLEY.


A trip to Norman Park to play our old friends/foes from Bromley!
We lined up with a back three at the start, which had a combined age of 158, thats our youth policy kicking in! On the IFA Yahoo group Bromley later described us as an experienced side, which made it sound like we'd packed our side with former Isthmian League First Teamers! ;-)
From the outset it was clear to see that we would have our work cut out with a Bromley side that had a couple of outstanding players.
Early in the game some slick interchange and followed by an accomplished finsh gave Bromley the lead. We replied straight away with the goal of the game. Jack McInroy released James O Shaunessy down the right, he run at the defender took him on, took the ball to the byline, then supplied a superb cross which was dispatched into the back of the net by one of the 'guest' Whtton brothers from the edge of the six yard
box on the run. This proved to be our only clear opportunity in the first half as we spent most of it trying to repel wave after wave of Bromley attacks. By half time we found ourselves 4-1 down!

The second half started pretty much in the same vein as the first, the one big difference though was we were defending with more steal
confidence, every now and then attacking ourselves. The storm was weathered for a good 20 minutes of the second half but once our defence was breechedfor the first time in the half two more goals followed fairly quickly so with 15 minutes to go we found ourselves 7-1 down, To our credit we fought to the end and finally got some reward, one of our attacks looked to have reached a fruitless end but evergreen Jack McInroy chased the ball to the byline getting there just before the Bromley keeper and after bringing the ball under control pulled it back to the six yard line and the other Whitton kept it in the family as he guided the ball home past the two defenders on the line. This proved to be the last action of the match as the referee blew for full time straight after.

Amin Haque; James O'Shaughnessy; Mark Whitton; Aaron Whitton; Chris Garrett; Ian Gannon; Jack McInroy; Matthew Virgo; Paul Verrico; Richard Strivens; Shaun Dooley;; Ian Wright & Phil Baker.

Scorers: Mark Whitton; Aaron Whitton.