Things started badly for Romford when James Gammons was sent off after three minutes (which included two minutes of mass pushing and shoving) for allegedly headbutting Nicky Cowley, the Concord captain. Gammons, who apologised to club officials at half-time, accepted the decision but the visiting fans behind the goal, never the most unbiased group, were none too happy.

Imagine their delight when Joe Sweeney put Concord ahead on the half-hour with a goal that might have been offside and/or handball, provoking Boro defender Paul White to shout "Don't worry about this chap" as play restarted. Words to that effect, anyway, and he didn't say chap. Now it was 11-9.

Concord failed miserably to make the most of their two-man advantage and managed to add only a Danny Heale penalty before, remarkably, it became 11-8 with 15 minutes left when Richard Oxby's wild challenge earned him a second yellow. The curious thing about it was that it wasn't a particularly dirty game and that Romford's nine men had more than held their own against their star-studded opponents.

A three-man deficit was a bit much to cope with, though, and Concord knocked in another four goals. Just to rub it in, the sixth and last was a backheel by Cowley, not the visiting fans' favourite player.

It's long time since I've seen a side reduced to eight men, though I have fond memories of a brutal Essex Senior League game that finished 8-9 and that only because the referee simply refused to issue any more red cards. He was left with no choice, however, when a home forward broke through and the keeper rushed ten yards out of his box to scythe him down with a thigh-high tackle. He had to show red for the 'professional foul' or the height of the challenge, but out came a yellow card. This was doubly unfortunate because the keeper had been wearing the no.5 in the first half and had been booked in that role.

I mentioned this fact to a league official after the game and he turned rather pale before rushing off to the officials' dressing room, returning ten minutes later to announce that the no.4, not the no.5, had suffered the first-half booking. Yeah, right.

What made it even more entertaining was that the home side had invited all their local councillors and quite a few of them turned up, including the mayor whose chain was heard to be rattling furiously as the game went on.

I had toyed with the Halstead-Enfield replay last night, Halstead being one of the closer senior grounds I've never visited. I tried to once, but became hopelessly trapped in a traffic jam behind a major accident. It was most frustrating; five minutes earlier and I'd have missed it all. But that would have been even more frustrating in the end because the opposition got stuck as well and failed to arrive. Anyway, the Halstead game finished 2-0 to Enfield on penalties, which doesn't speak well of the marksmanship. The national press had it as 4-0 on penalties which, if you think about it, would have been a world record.