Romford boss hoping to have more success at Halstead

Boro play their first Essex Senior League fixture in a fortnight as they head to Rosemary Lane on Saturday, sitting three points behind leaders Woodford Town.

And they are looking for a fourth successive win under Spinks at the home of the Humbugs, having won in the Peter Butcher Memorial Trophy (3-2) and league (2-1) towards the end of last season, and the FA Cup extra preliminary round (4-1) in August.

“I’ve not had many games as a manager, but I’ve won three out of three up there so it’s not a bad place for me!” said Spinks.

“The league table on the website is wrong, though. It’s got us down as drawing at Tilbury but we won, so we’re only three points behind Woodford.

“If someone had said after 10 games we’d be three points off the top I would’ve taken it. I’m really pleased with how we’ve started.

“We’re getting a couple more back now. Finlay [Dorrell] should be back for the weekend, having trained on Tuesday.”

Boro were without a game last weekend, but undertook a team-bonding exercise.

“We had a game of Footgolf on Saturday which was a good laugh, all the boys enjoyed it,” added Spinks, having seen his side come from behind to beat Great Wakering Rovers in the Essex Senior Cup last Wednesday.

It was the proverbial game of two halves at the Lawtech Stadium, as Rovers dominated initially to lead by two goals at the break.

Harrison Topliss converted at the far post on 11 minutes, with Joshua Simpson running onto a through ball to beat Wayne Baker after the half-hour mark.

But Boro substitutes George Cox and Toheeb Elegushi had a big impact in the second half to help turn the tie around.

Elegushi netted his first goal for the club within three minutes of the restart, before Hassan Nalbant headed home from Kris Newby’s corner on 64 minutes.

Newby collected a crossfield pass from Jacob Wiggins to tee up Nalbant for his second soon after and it was 4-2 with a quarter of an hour to go when Elegushi won possessin and Nalbant fired home.

It completed his second hat-trick of the campaign and made Nalbant the first Romford player since 1992 to score four trebles for the club.

Boro will host Athletic Newham in the next round, with Spinks adding: “We started really slow again, they pressed us high and we couldn’t get out.

“But the second half was the most one-sided all season and we could’ve finished with six or seven.

“We showed what we had in the seocnd half but we can’t keep giving ourselves uphill tasks like that every week and we’ve been working on starting sharper.”

Romford return to host Little Oakley on Saturday week (October 8), but will be without Junior Luke as he completes a suspension for his red card in the 3-2 loss at Frenford.

“Junior got three games, which was slightly annoying,” said Spinks. 

“It’s a shame we haven’t got a midweek fixture as he will miss the next two Saturdays and it’ll be three weeks for him with no game.”