BROMSGROVE Sporting suffered their heaviest ever away defeat as title rivals Leicester Road ran riot on Saturday.
A run of five successive wins in Midland Football League Division One provided a reason for optimism at the Victoria Ground, with manager Paul Smith predicting his side could go the entire season undefeated.
But the Bromsgrove boss now has a job picking his players up after they were on the receiving end of a hammering at the Leicester Road Stadium.
The only highlight for the Rouslers was an own goal by Road’s goalkeeper Will Highland, while Leicester proved too strong, with braces for Amarvir Sandhu and James Hicks and a Jake Holt penalty.
Sporting’s disastrous day at the office was then rounded off when striker Josh MacKenzie received a second yellow card.
Despite the scoreline, it was all Bromsgrove in the opening stages, but they were unable to penetrate a well-organised Leicester defence.
The visitors then suffered a set back on the eighth minute when Sandhu nipped through a narrow gap between Craig Jones and Aaron Roberts before firing his shot into the top of the net.
This was followed by a second goal two minutes later after Shaun Edwards spilt Hicks’ shot allowing the striker to hit home the rebound from ten yards out.
Liam Spink, Reece Hewitt and Luke Dugmore worked hard in midfield, but too many speculative shots simply rebounded against a packed defence.
Edwards was having an afternoon to forget and it got even worse on the 17th minute. The keeper hesitated to pick up a loose ball that found its way to Hicks who easily tapped in his second.
Although not having a poor game, Smith replaced Dale Edwards with McKenzie to give Sporting a bit more presence up front but still chances were coming to nothing.
The Rouslers manager also brought on John Pykett for James McKeon and unfortunately for the wide-man, his first contribution of the match was to clatter Greg Downes in the box. Holt converted the resulting penalty.
Whatever chance Sporting had of rescuing something from this game went out of the window moments later. A defensive mix up involving Edwards and Roberts allowed the grateful Sandhu to drive home the loose ball from a narrow angle.
Sporting did manage to pull a goal back on the 76th minute and in somewhat bizarre circumstances. Sam Wills had an angled shot from 20 yards out that hit the goalpost stanchion.
The ball bounced back into play and was smothered by Highland only for the dumbfounded ‘keeper to see the assistant linesman flag that the ball had crossed the goal line.
But McKenzie capped off a woeful showing from Bromsgrove when he received a second yellow card and his marching orders.
