Bromley fell to their third defeat in a row at Hayes Lane on Tuesday night, Danny Cowley’s Braintree Town side ran out 2-1 victors in front of a crowd just under 800. Daniel Sparkes and new signing Jordan Chiedozie scored in either half to secure the three points for the Essex side.

Bromley were attempting to move on from the harsh defeat up at Grimsby on Saturday and The Ravens showed some positivity early on with Alex Wall striking from distance, but he failed to trouble Will Norris in the Braintree goal. The game then entered a rather cagey period with both sides misplacing paces and not really finding a cutting edge. Braintree captain Kenny Davis was then gifted an opportunity 20 minutes in, Julian produced a great save to deny the Braintree captain but the Bromley defence didn’t do well enough to clear the ball. Daniel Sparkes was on hand for the Iron to tap home.

Bromley failed to muster up any sort of counter in the first half, the only real chance of note is a strike from Brad Goldberg that struck the outside of the post. The effort had Norris scrambling down to his right but Braintree went into half time 1-0 up.

New signing Chiedozie, who faced Bromley in pre-season for Cambridge, again was looking threatening and got his rewards 5 minutes after the interval. Julian was again in fine form denying the first effort from Davis but Chiedozie was quickest to react to the rebounding ball and acrobatically overhead kicked it into the net, 2-0 Braintree and a subdued Hayes Lane.

Max Porter was introduced into the game on 60 minutes and brought an element of composure in the Bromley midfield. Bromley were now playing some decent football and Cook was at his best once again. Taking his position on the left side of midfield he sprayed a fantastic ball over the head of the Braintree centre half finding Emmanuel. Moses, one on one with the keeper, kept his cool and cheekily chipped the ball into the nearside corner, game on.

The crowd were now right behind the Bromley side and Braintree now had their backs to the walls. Cook found himself in a one on one situation but couldn’t repeat what Emmanuel had done moments before, he fired direct at Norris. Pierre Joseph-Dubois and Louis Dennis were introduced as Mark Goldberg set up to find an equaliser. But, with the all-out attack approach comes vulnerability in defence and that showed with Akinola missing two decent chances late on to kill any chance of a draw. The small travelling group of Braintree fans had to endure a nervy end to the game but their defence stood firm and were rewarded with all three points. Braintree had picked up their first win under Cowley who now sit 16th in the table with 4 points. They face Southport at home on Saturday and Bromley make the journey up to early strugglers Halifax who are without a point so far.