Redbridge made the short journey to East London where they faced Clapton at the Terrence Mcmillan Stadium , Sonny Fish lined up for his first start of the season with new signing Nathan Okoye on the bench whilst Olamiji Ayoola returned to the defence after duel signing with Aveley .

There was very little of note in the early stages with Clapton having a couple of sniffs at goal which failed to trouble George Martin , Redbridge first opportunity came via a free kick taken quickly by Robbie Norris who tried to catch the Clapton keeper off his line however he got back quickly enough to palm the ball away before standing tall to deny Ayoola from the rebound.

Sloppy defending from the Motormen presented the home side with an opportunity as they failed to clear the initial shot allowing the Clapton number 7 to fire in a volley which Martin was glad to see fall just wide.

Both sides were failing to take control of the match which was seeing plenty of misplaced passing however Clapton should have opened the scoring when a cross was headed straight into the arms of Martin from close range by a Clapton striker who really should have done better.

At the other end and Redbridge went close through skipper James Barlow who beat the goalkeeper to the ball but failed to get the accuracy on his shot which drifted wide of the empty goal .

Redbridge did however soon get on the score sheet, a free kick was whipped in met with a powerful header from Dean Hall to score his second goal of the season. Just like buses two came at once as within sixty seconds the away side doubled their advantage , a through ball was seized upon by Abdishakur Farah who had time to just lift the ball over the keeper and watch it roll into the back of the net.

Into the second half and the home side were soon reduced to ten men when an apparent stamp on a Redbridge man resulted in players from both sides getting involved before the referee showed a red card to a Clapton player.

Barlow came forward but chose the wrong option in deciding to shoot from a wide angle when a cross into the middle would have been the better option before Clapton had a great opportunity to level the match when the ball was played into the middle finding number seven who fired straight at Martin with the rest of the goal gaping.

Farah then had a chance to make Clapton pay for that miss as he was put through one on one with the goalkeeper only to see his delicate chip fall the wrong side of the upright.

With time running out Clapton’s job was made even tougher after an awful two footed challenge on Jack Chawner left the referee with no option but to send off a second Clapton player.

Norris saw a final effort fly wide before the full time whistle was blown as Redbridge pick up their 3rd away win of the season , a result which seems them move to 5th in the ESL table.

report by Adam Silver