Braintree 3 Chester 0

[4whatitsworth]

Chester (crude & cynical)FC must be by far the worst side seen at the Amlin for a very long time. How we didn't win by 5 or 6
I don,t know. They were fouling all over the pitch from the off, and the Ref (who was abysmal) lost control of the game early on
and didn't show any cards until far too late. IMO he wasn't even up to reffing a Sunday league match on that showing.
How Chester managed recent draws with Cambridge and Kidderminster I do not Know.
We will miss Charlie Strutton when he returns to Wimbledon, but on this performance by all the TEAM who knows what we can achieve.

[rustynail]

Straight from the off Braintree started the games as if to show Chester why we are at the top end of the table and they are at the bottom.
This tactic paid dividend after 5 minutes a shot from the left from Charlie Strutton crept over line. After the restart Charlie ran onto a loose pass to slot the ball into the net. Iron continued to dominate and at the 30 minute mark Dean Wells volleyed a ball from a corner into the net.
Chester tried to get back into the game but were woeful, they resorted to some physical play and were assisted by a then sympathetic referee.

After a brighter start by Chester in the second half Braintree again started to dominate with some surging runs by James Mulley and good creative play by Chez Isaacs who just gets better with each game. Charlie had a run at the defence and was pulled down just outside the box the Chester player was sent off. The resulting free kick just went over the top. Jordan Cox came on for Sean Marks and tried hard though the Chester defence had been shored up by former Stoke City player Danny Higgenbottom who showed his obvious experience.
A reckless challenge on Luke Daley in midfield resulted in a second sending off.
The last ten minutes was spent by Braintree stretching the nine men of Chester by switching the ball from wing to wing then passing or crossing the ball into the box Chez and Jordan both came close to adding a fourth.

Quite rightly Charlie Strutton was made man of the match and his name was chanted loudly at the end of the game. He has been a very successful loanee and I'm sure all Iron fans will agree we will be sad to see him return to the Dons and wish him good luck in the future.

Another good win by the Iron moves us up to fourth, a break now for the FA cup lets hope we can maintain this form.

[ontheterrace]

It wasn't a loose pass that led to the second goal. It was a superb through ball from James Mulley. I was pleased to see he was back on the right wing and Sparkes on the left. I know the modern trend is to put them the other way round but they looked far more effective today than they have in recent games.

An excellent all round performance. I think we can go to Weymouth with confidence. But just make sure we don't underrate them!

[ironmansimon]

I think we can safely say we will not be seeing Chester at the Amlin next season, a team that plays that poor with such ill discipline does not deserve to be in the elite non league. First half we drove at them an quickly exposed their weaknesses. Our second goal was a great example of clinical finishing and great althletisism shown by Deano for our 3rd, The second half was all in cruise control.
I hope our 4 strikers have seen how to finish and learnt from having Charlie on loan He will always have a place in our Iron hearts. I for one now hope his parent club utilise him to the huge potentail we have seen.
Great crowd again, Defence solid again 2nd tightest in the league all working for each other. I hope we dont take our foot off the gas for the Weymouth trip, be great to have an away day at Wolves in the 1st round proper.
Well done Devs and the boys.
Just quickly why was noone selling programmes at 2:37 from the egg box ? or are we following the same lines of raffle ticket selling and missing 70% of the attendance, #justsaying
COME ON YOU IRONS

[Iron Webbo]

Hi Simon, with the weather forecast as it was, the crowd rather caught us out yesterday and we'd sold out by half two! With the benefit of hindsight, we could have done with an extra 100 or so copies.

Sorry for those that missed out - if anyone needs a copy - we found a few copies in the board room and put them in the Club Shop.

...

We never used to have these problems when we were bottom of the Ryman League ...

[ozbrit]

Lets hope we always run out of programmes on match days as our support goes up. Being an amateur psychologist I believe that people love a throng and well attended clubs encourage even more in.

[ad75]

Another well deserved 3 points.
I was surprised at how physical Chester were, and how much they complained when they were penalised for it. I don't think I've ever seen so many high elbows go unpunished in aerial challenges. We were guilty a few times ourselves, but I think that was more from frustration than anything else.

I liked our shape today, using two players a little wider again, and with Mulley and Sparkes on their more natural sides. We were very solid all around.

I'd have liked to see us kill them off with a little more adventure towards the end, but I am still very happy with the outcome.

A huge thank you to Charlie Strutton, who I hope gets a chance back at his home club.

Well done to the management and the players.