On a cold, windy and wet afternoon Redbridge started in bright fashion and showed great promise and
determination and after just seven minutes almost took the lead when from 25 yards out Ryan Wade struck the ball hard and low but unfortunately hit the upright with the Maldon goalkeeper well beaten.

This woke up the home side and four minutes later Maldon went and did the same by going up the other end and hitting the post.

Redbridge were playing some nice football in midfield and creating a lot of chances. On 25 minutes, Wade received a long pass just outside the home penalty area from Glen Golby, beat two players then tucked the ball between the goalkeeper’s legs to go one up.

Although the Maldon defence held out up to half time, we had a couple of chances to increase the lead which all went begging and as later would realise would prove to be very costly.

The second half started with a down pour of rain and hail stones which made it difficult for the players. On 49 minutes Maldon were awarded a corner kick, over it came and with Ryan Murray almost standing on the goal line he could only head the ball into his own net. That goal seemed to knock the stuffing out of the Redbridge lads and for the next 10 / 15 minutes we seemed to lose direction. After almost being buried in the first half the home side were now in control of the match and were awarded a free kick on 62 minutes some 35 yards out which was pumped into their penalty area and an important deflection sent it for a corner kick.

This was cleared and went straight to a Redbridge player who unfortunately slipped allowing the ball to break free and Maldon’s Ross Wall was quickest to react and proceeded to run 30 yards before looking up and passing to Berquez who hit a good shot into the corner of the net to give the home side the lead .

On 64 minutes a double substitution from Redbridge saw Murray taken off and replaced by Shane Wyllie. whilst at the same time Daniel Hopkins was replaced by Aarun Best. Redbridge were not giving up and were still giving it a go and Joe Ellul went very close to scoring when only two feet from goal he stretched his leg out and put this knee out of joint which saw play halted for six minutes whilst he received treatment before being taken from the field on a stretcher to be replaced by Mitchell Das.

On 71 minutes it was game over when Berquez popped up to score his 2nd goal of the match, this time with a scorcher of a kick. With the rain still falling heavily and six minutes of injury time coming from Ellul’s injury we were unable to score and it was in fact the home side who looked most likely to increase the lead.

Redbridge: Joe Wright, Billy Sendall, Vinnie Durrant, Joseph Ellul (Mitchell Das 65), Glen Golby, Daniel Hopkins (Aarun Best 59), Jamie Haywood, Lewis Dark, Ryan Murray (Shane Wyllie 59), Ryan Wade, Joe Gardner.

Report by Len Cordell