After last season’s horror show, Romford supporters are enjoying life again, and this was a game and a result especially worth savouring.

Early play was concentrated in the Romford half, but Boro had the first clear sight to goal when Jake Gordon was brought down on the edge of the Potters Bar box to earn a free-kick. Kris Newby’s strike at goal was pushed away and the home side broke quickly, but the pacy Bejon Noel-Williams was denied by a good block by Tambeson Eyong.

The home side’s big forwards were proving to be a handful at corners, and from one such in the 18th minute, they went ahead, Jacques Kpohomouh forcing the ball in at the far post for a scruffy goal.

Two minutes later, Kris Newby picked out Jake Gordon with a pin-point cross that Gordon headed over, although he was offside anyway.

Both sides were committing men forward, but much of the play in the first half (and the second half for that matter), was broken up by numerous free-kicks, not that the referee was over fussy, in fact he handled a game that became increasingly fractious, very well.

On the half-hour Potters Bar’s Kasim Aidoo’s low shot from an acute angle was deflected wide for a corner that the Boro defence dealt with, and Boro were level with 34 minutes played when Charlie Morris bagged his sixth FA Cup goal of the season. Kris Newby’s left-wing corner was headed back across goal by George Allen, and Morris, lurking on the edge of the six-yard box, headed past Collins.

Former Boro man Tyler Christian-Law did himself and his team no favours just four minutes into the second half, first fouling Newby and then throwing a punch. Referee Alaistair Wilson had no option but to show a red card, and he was showing it again after 57 minutes, to Potters Bar assistant manager Darren Beale this time, for a show of dissent after a decision had not gone his team’s way.

Charlie Morris had a sight of goal after being set up by Gordon, but Collins pushed his shot away, and then after a Newby corner had been partially cleared, George Cox crashed a shot just wide of Collins’s goal.

Potters Bar nearly got their noses in front again when Romford were caught on the break after 63 minutes as Noel-Williams found Joseph Boachie, whose effort was cleared off the line, and they were ruing that miss with 13 minutes remaining when Emmanuel Robe, on for Jake Gordon, put Boro ahead. Well found by a through ball, Robe cut in from the left and placed his shot wide of the dive of Bar keeper Collins.

Both sides had chances to score again; Alex Balisani shot wide for Boro when well placed and Potters Bar were similarly off target with efforts, the last of which proved to be an injury time shot that rose over the bar.

Despite the pressure that the ten men of Potters Bar exerted in the second half, Romford held out comfortably enough and were well worth the win, a fact acknowledge by home boss Sammy Moore, who described Boro as “better in every department.”

Romford: Jake Anderson, Tambeson Eyong, Danny Hurford, Kris Newby, Scott Doe, George Allen, Jesse Olukolu (Martin Touhy, 83m), Camilo Restrepo, Jake Gordon (Emmanuel Robe, 59m), George Cox (Alex Balisani, 65m), Charlie Morris. Subs not used: Toby Barlow, Tyrese Sibanda, Bleron Ademi, Billy Lawlor