Redbridge made the journey up the A12 only a few days after their last foray into north Essex had seen them gain a point at Maldon & Tiptree.

However Brightlingsea, themselves going into the game unbeaten, started the brighter and went about attacking the Redbridge goal straight from the start. James Ogunleye had to head away a Brightlingsea free kick in the early stages and Jack Avery was also called upon to cut out a dangerous looking cross with barely a few minutes on the clock. Redbridge did have an early chance themselves when Lewis Francis had a shot deflected from a corner . The resulting corner saw Michael Ogboin place his header just wide of the target.

However Brightlingsea took the lead on 13 minutes when Josh Mayhew latched onto a poor clearance and drilled the ball past Avery. The Redbridge keeper was required to pull off a string of saves to deny the Brightlingsea frontline and the Redbridge defence also stood firm, under solid and at times, unrelenting Brightlingsea pressure.

Redbridge always looked lively when they did venture into their opponents half with Lewis Francis, Daniel Jones and Michael Ogboin always looking to cause problems but most of action was happening around the Redbridge box. Jake Gordon can consider himself unfortunate not to have got his name down on the Brightlingsea score sheet having twice seen efforts tipped away by the Redbridge keeper. The end of the half couldn’t come quick enough for Redbridge who were fortunate to go in a goal down.

Redbridge came out a lot more buoyant in the second half and were looking to play pass and move football and this almost paid off on 50 minutes when Francis picked up a pass just outside the box but could only drill his shot wide of the target. All of a sudden it was Andrew Plummer in the Brightlingsea goal who was being kept busy and he had to dive at full stretch to tip away a Riges Kabashi shot on 55 minutes and barely a minute later had to dive to his right to parry away a Daniel Jones effort.

Billy Drake and Joe Gent then pulled off a fine passing manoeuvre which split open the Brightlingsea defence but Gent’s cross was well cut out by Plummer. However Redbridge were now in their ascendency and it was no surprise that they were able to equalize on 61 minutes after Jones picked up Ogboin’s pass and slotted past Plummer. Barely a minute later Redbridge took the lead after Plummer was only able to parry Francis’ shot onto the path of Ogboin who tapped in the rebound.

Brightlingsea were able to test our defence but found themselves coming up against a brick wall. However they did almost find an equaliser when Lamell Howell unleashed a free kick towards the top comer only for Avery to pull off yet another superb save to tip the ball over the bar.

However Redbridge wrapped up the victory on 76 minutes when Billy Drake played in Ogboin who sped past 2 defenders before slotting the ball past Plummer.

Co-manager Ricky Eaton said felt his side were perhaps fortunate to go in only a goal down at half-time and that his half-time team talk told his players to get in their opponents faces, play passing football in the right areas and to take make sure they took their chances. ‘It’s been a great start as the opening fixtures looked tough but we dominated Witham and could have beaten them by a bigger margin, we got a great away point at Maldon and today we produced a great second half performance to secure another 3 points. I couldn’t ask for more from my players who worked very hard in pre-season and its now starting to come off.’

Report by Scott Lanza