Ollie Bell felt an old injury in the warm up and so Regent lined up with Turner in goal, George, Ribchester, Day and Osinfolarin at the back; Durling, Gilbert, Locke and Skinner in midfield and Barnby and Blair up front. Zak Littlejohn was suspended after receiving a red card and Jamie Bennett was still out injured.

A bumper crowd of 302 turned out on a cool dry afternoon with a sizeable contingent of noisy travelling fans from Hornchurch. As events would show, though, they had plenty to shout about.

Hornchurch, playing in purple, kicked off and won an early corner which was cleared but the pressure was already on the Regent goal. After just four minutes a Regent clearance went high rather than long and was met by Hornchurch captain Spence lurking on the edge of the penalty area who hit a first time volley past Turner. It was as good as Kovacic’s stunner for Chelsea the previous evening.

Hornchurch continued to make, but fail to convert, chances. A free header was put over the bar from a corner and a second attempt at a wonder volley was hit high and wide. Regent won a series of corners in an attempt to respond but all the real chances were made at the other end and the impressive Ola Ogunwamide managed to screw the ball just wide of the post and then another chance from a free kick was put wide.

The pressure was bound to tell and after half an hour a desperate tackle led to a penalty kick which Tom Wraight converted confidently to double the visitors’ lead.

Hornchurch continued to be profligate with their chances but dealt confidently with attempts to penetrate their defence. As half time approached a weak defensive header came to Ogunwamide who calmly made space and curled the ball inside the far post.

Hornchurch reached half time 3-0 up but could easily have had double that lead.

Second half
Regent brought on Valter Rocha and Tim Ogunrinde for Dom Locke and Kane Gilbert for the second half.

It made little difference and after just three minutes Hornchurch went further ahead when the ball was given away and their strikers passed the ball around until centre forward Tobi Joseph tapped the ball home.

Things looked bleak when Chris Ribchester was booked for a predictable foul and when Oganwamide passed the ball across the face to the Regent goal without anyone connecting, the talk in the stands was about how many more Hornchurch would score without reply.

Regent managed to get one back when they floated a free kick on the left into the penalty box and Chris Ribchester redeemed himself by poking the ball home from close range. Conor Barnby then narrowly missed with a good attempt and Regent started to string together some decent bits of play.

But Hornchurch knew they had put the game to bed and started to bring on substitutes knowing that they could rely on Ogunwamide’s pace and trickery to create dangerous chances.

From one of these they won a corner and Charlie Ruff, the smallest player on the pitch, rose to head the ball home to make it 5-1 to the visitors.

Match verdict
Regent supporters have learned that here is an enormous gulf in class between teams at the top of this league and the rest. Hornchurch are simply too good for this league on this display and we can only wish them well for the rest of the season and hope they get promoted to the Conference South in 2022-23.