Iron look for derby tonic

10:47am Monday 25th August 2008

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Braintree Town will head to arch-rivals Chelmsford City today in search of their first points of the Blue Square South season.

They slumped to a fourth consecutive defeat on Saturday, after losing 2-1 to Hampton and Richmond at Cressing Road and are now bottom of the table.

A penalty from Ryan Lake scored with 19 minutes to go, awarded after Braintree's stand-in captain Billy Burgess had pushed Ian Hodges in the area, proved to be the winner for last season's play-off finalists.

Manager Lee Patterson said: “We look like we're right out of luck at the moment.

“We felt it was an extremely harsh penalty awarded against Billy and we didn't deserve to lose the game.

“We have lost four games but no team has opened us up and no-one has out-battled us.

“We have to just stick with it – we had a chat on the pitch after the game where we said the only people who can get us out of this situation is us.

“We just have to work hard at it but losing is a habit, just as winning is.”

Braintree fell behind after 14 minutes when Hodges headed in powerfully from Barrie Matthews’ cross.

But the Iron were level within ten minutes through Sean Marks, who turned and fired past Matt Lovett after Louis Riddle's pass had been flicked up by Chris Piper.

Braintree had a busy spell in the second half when they forced several corners but they created few clear-cut chances.

The closest they came in this period was a strong header from Ryan Moran which was athletically tipped over the bar by Lovett.

But at the other end, Braintree keeper Craig Holloway had to dive full length to palm Stuart Lake’s header round the post.

Substitutes Wayne O’Sullivan and Giuliano Grazioli were introduced in the second half in an attempt to produce some magic for the home side.

But they could do little to prevent Hampton and Richmond from coming away with all three points.