Bromley 1-2 Hampton & Rich'd - We recognise we're in a massive relegation battle, admits Goldberg

BROMLEY  1-2  HAMPTON & RICHMOND BOROUGH
Blue Square Bet South
Tuesday 22^nd November 2011
Stephen McCartney reports from Hayes Lane

BROMLEY manager Mark Goldberg apologised to supporters’ after his side’s dismal performance against ten-man Hampton & Richmond Borough left the club languishing just two points above the Blue Square Bet South relegation zone.

Bromley’s run of picking up only six points from their last ten league games keeps them in seventeenth place in the table on 18 points from 17 games, but losing to a team that were third-from-bottom is a concern to all at Hayes Lane.

Since beating Dartford in the final qualifying round of The FA Cup at the end of last month, The Ravens have now lost five consecutive games and confidence was already fragile after losing 6-1 at Chelmsford City at the weekend.

Bromley’s problem this season has been conceding early goals and striker Joel Ledgister headed Hampton & Richmond Borough into the lead after just 156 seconds – and it went downhill when Bromley midfielder Lewis Taylor scored an own goal after seventeen minutes.

Target-man, Hakeem Araba’s tenth goal of the season gave Bromley hope on the stroke of half-time, but an equaliser wasn’t forthcoming, disappointing especially as Hampton & Richmond Borough lost right-back Lewis Ferrell to two swift yellow cards with half-an-hour left to play.

Goldberg, who emerged from the dressing room 45 minutes after the final whistle said, “We’ve got to ask questions of ourselves as a management team, we have to start asking questions of our players’, whether they’re good enough.

“We recognise we’re now in a massive relegation battle and it’s the first time I’ve ever been in that situation at Bromley.

“I’m up for the challenge and I’ll do what’s needed to make sure that we do whatever we can to avoid relegation this year and I’m just very disappointed because I thought we had a little bit more craft amongst our squad that we showed tonight.”

A defiant Goldberg, 48, added, “We have to be made of strong stuff here at the club and at the end of the day I’ve got broad shoulders and I believe that we’ve got what it takes among the management team to do what it takes to get ourselves out of this situation that we’re in.

“There are no excuses anymore.  I’ve made enough excuses about we’re young and we’re inconsistent but at the end of the day I’m responsible to put it right.   If I need to bring in more experience I need to know now where we are and we know where we are – seventeenth in the league but the gap is closing and in the wrong direction - so we know where we are and I need to put it right!

“As I’ve said to you before, I once came back from losing 40 million quid and became bankrupt (after a short spell as Crystal Palace chairman) and I picked myself up and you won’t see me not picking myself up and not picking the team up and it’s how you respond.  It’s not how you fall.  It’s how you pick yourselves up.”

Hampton & Richmond Borough opened the scoring with the first chance of the game.

Left-back Jonathan O’Donnell fed the ball to left sided midfielder Paul Johnson, who cut inside Tutu Henriques and delivered a cross into the penalty area where Ledgister sent a looping header across goalkeeper Tommy Forecast and into the bottom far corner from 12-yards.

Goldberg said: “Well, after three minutes being a goal down – again – we asked the players to make sure that we learned from Saturday.

“We showed their player inside, instead of outside and the result was a cross and a goal and suddenly we’re 1-0 down and my players, instead of responding the way I would’ve expect them to respond from Saturday, we’re making the kind of mistakes we asked them not to make!”

When asked why his side keep conceding goals inside the opening five or so minutes, Goldberg replied, “It’s inexcusable to go down 1-0 and then 2-0!  How many times this season it’s happened? 

“I can’t work out quite yet why we are showing such a level of, not inconsistency because we’re consistently being poor, but why we are conceding the way that we are and having to fight back the way that we have to.

“But it’s my job to make sure I do work it out and quickly enough that we don’t get ourselves into the relegation zone.”

And Hampton & Richmond Borough almost doubled their lead eight and a half minutes in when Dave Tarpey let fly with a right-footed screamer from 30-yards which crashed against the crossbar.

Bromley, who were guilty of miss-placed passes throughout a poor first half, gifted their fellow strugglers another chance, but after cutting in from the left, Tarpey drilled a low right-footed drive past the foot of the near post.

Bromley were in disarray when former Tonbridge Angels’ midfielder Taylor gifted Hampton & Richmond Borough a second.

Nathan Collier was released down the right and the winger cut in and guided past central defender Rob Gillman into the middle and Taylor nipped in and placed a right-footed shot from 16-yards into the bottom right-hand corner – shame it was in his own net!

Goldberg added: “Having given the ball away on the half-way line, we then score a fantastic own-goal!  It was just absolutely gobsmacking to see your own player place the ball in his net rather than clear it!

“But at the same time the fact that we allowed them to break like we did from the halfway line sums up really the first twenty minutes of a very, very dismal display!”

The opening twenty minutes was a Bromley horror show and the home faithful in the crowd of 298 were stunned to silence.

Taylor tried to make amends in the 25^th minute, looping a shot over the crossbar from eight-yards, before Araba latched onto Forecast’s punt up field and sent an angled right-footed drive over from 30-yards.

Bromley’s bid to recover saw left-back Marlon Patterson curl a left-footed free-kick just past the near post from just outside of the corner of the visitors’ penalty area.

But things got marginally better in the final five minutes of the first half.

Orlando Smith, who received treatment for a dislocated shoulder afterwards, released Rory Hill through on goal but he curled a low shot across visiting keeper Craig Ross and the ball clipped the foot of the far post and Aaron Rhule’s follow up from close range was cleared off the line by O’Donnell.

Patterson swung in the resulting corner from the right and Danny Waldren’s downward header from eight-yards at the far post forced visiting keeper Ross into making a swift low save low to his right.

But Bromley pulled a goal back with 44:12 on the clock.

Hampton central defender Tom Hickey gifted possession to a closing down Araba, who fed the ball to Taylor on his right and Taylor centred low for Araba, who slammed a low right-footed shot into the bottom left hand corner from 10-yards.

Goldberg said: “We finally picked things up in the final twenty minutes of the first half and we probably had enough chances to come back and be 3-2 at half-time.

“I think it’s fair to say that there were one or two good crosses resulting in goalscoring opportunities.  Instead of going 3-2 up at half-time we went in 2-1 down but still with some belief that we could recover things in the second half.

“Unfortunately in the second half we created one opportunity when they were down to ten-men.”

That goal rejuvenated Bromley and Goldberg sent out his troops in the hope that they would claw themselves back into the game – but Hampton & Richmond Borough had other ideas!

Bromley created a chance inside the opening three minutes when Joe Dolan swept in a cross from the right and Araba nipped in front of his marker to glance his header into Ross’s gloves.

And when Ferrell was booked for a lunge on Smith and then picked up his second yellow card for allegedly coming back onto the pitch without permission after treatment after 61 minutes, you would have thought Bromley would go on to claim at least a point.

But Hampton & Richmond Borough were solid and received a huge slice of luck nine minutes later when Hill cut inside Dean Inman and it appeared that the Bromley winger was brought down just inside the box but the referee (who didn’t consult his assistant who was closer) awarded Bromley a free-kick outside the box instead.

Goldberg didn’t make a song-and-dance over the controversial decision not to award his side a penalty.

“I’m not going to make a fuss about it, even though he (Hill) was in the box.  Apparently the referee saw that the actual foul took place outside the box.”

Patterson cut the resulting free-kick back to Taylor, whose attempted right-footed chip from 25-yards was caught above Ross’s head.

Bromley’s stunned faithful urged their side on but Patterson’s inswinging corner from the right was headed over by Dolan at the near post.

Goldberg added: “We didn’t make any of our possession count.  There was no craft, there was no good movement and we played into Hampton’s hands.  They sat back and they mopped up all the pressure and we just showed how naive we are and we showed that we lacked the ability to break down a team who are third-from-bottom in the league.”

The resilient visitors’ almost grabbed a third on the break when Josh Huggins shrugged off Rhule’s aggressive sliding challenge to release Tarpey down the left and after cutting inside his right-footed shot was tipped around the post by Forecast, diving full-stretch to his left.

Forecast made a routine collection as substitute Charlie Moone tried a speculative shot from 30-yards at the death but the silence as the Bromley players’ left the field summed up the depressing mood at Hayes Lane.

Goldberg said: “Playing against ten-men and create one goalscoring opportunity is inexcusable and all I can do is apologise to the fans’, to everybody at the club for where we are at the moment.

“But I believe I’ve had to bounce back from worse situations than this before and I believe that I can assist Bromley to get out of this situation and to avoid a relegation fight at the end of the season and I’m determined to do that!”

Bromley: Tommy Forecast, Tutu Henriques (Ugo Udogi 77), Marlon Patterson, Danny Waldren, Joe Dolan, Rob Gillman, Rory Hill (Michael Jones 76), Lewis Taylor, Hakeem Araba, Aaron Rhule, Orlando Smith (Quadir Maynard 65).
Subs: Liam Harwood, Salifou Ibrahima

Goal: Hakeem Araba 45

Booked: Marlon Patterson 11, Lewis Taylor 86

Hampton & Richmond Borough: Craig Ross, Lewis Ferrell, Jonathan O’Donnell, Dean Inman, Matt Ruby, Tom Hickey, Nathan Collier, Josh Huggins, Joel Ledgister (Charlie Moone 73), Dave Tarpey, Paul Johnson.
Subs: Dan Thompson, Aaron Morgan, Billy Jeffreys, Luke Edgecombe

Goals: Joel Ledgister 3, Lewis Taylor 17 (own goal)

Booked: Tom Hickey 45, Lewis Ferrell 60, Dean Inman 70

Sent Off: Lewis Ferrell 61

Attendance: 298
Referee: Mr David Woolford (Salisbury, Wiltshire)
Assistants: Mr Sam Purkiss & Mr Steven Rae