A SERIES of calamitous individual mistakes were to blame for Chelmsford City's 4-0 defeat at Boreham Wood.
Three goalkeeping errors, a handball in the box and Nicky Eyre's sending off handed the Clarets their heaviest defeat of this Conference South season.
Mark Hawkes made two chances from the 1-0 win over Bromley, with Luke Callander and James Love coming in to replace Michael Cheek and Rob Girdlestone.
On a perfect playing surface at Meadow Lane, both teams got the ball down early, but without being able to create any chances in the first 15 minutes.
The first real chance of the game fell to the host, after Yado Mambo sloppily gave the ball away. Wood played the ball across, but Graeme Montgomery guided his header over the bar from close range.
The Clarets had their first chance in the 23rd minute, when Wood defender Josh Hill made a hash of his clearing header after a long ball over the top. Lee Sawyer ran through on goal, but he couldn't keep the bouncing ball down, blasting his first-time effort over the bar.
Callander latched onto a Nicky Nicolau ball on the half hour mark, cutting inside on his right foot but firing his effort straight at Wood keeper James Russell.
But after that the visitors were put under real pressure. Boreham had two decent chances within the space of a couple of minutes, when firstly Montgomery missed an open goal. With Eyre committed and missing a cross, the ball fell to the winger, but his first-time volley drifted over the bar.
Then Lee Angol seemed certain to score when he rounded Eyre after racing onto a through ball. But Love recovered brilliantly to slide in and block the striker's effort.
The opening goal then came when Chelmsford switched off at a short corner. The ball came in from Montgomery and deflected high in the air. Eyre came up to claim it under pressure and seemed to take control of the ball, but on his way down he dropped the ball and it trickled over the line.
And Eyre's afternoon got even worse when he gave away a penalty and was sent off five minutes after half-time. The Clarets' stopper could only parry a Ricky Shakes shot and on the rebound brought down Matty Whichelow. Referee Serrano pointed to the spot and gave Eyre his marching orders. Substitute keeper Nik Freund's first job was to pick the ball out of his net, as Luke Garrard sent him the wrong way with the penalty to make it 2-0.
And then with twenty minutes to go Chelmsford handed Wood another gift to score their third goal. Mambo and Freund failed to clear a long ball, with Lee Angol nipping in to take ball past Freund and score into an empty net.
Just three minutes later Wood were four up when they were awarded their second penalty of the game. The ball bounced up in the box and struck Smith's hand, with Garrard stepping up and firing it past Freund from the spot.
Chelmsford pressed hard to get some consolation from the game, but it was a mammoth task as the Clarets slipped down to 19th in the table.
Boreham Wood: Russell, Nunn (Hope 81'), Garrard (Parsons 75'), Cox, Hill, Reynolds, Whichelow, Shakes, Angol, Lipman (Moli 75'), Montgomery
Subs not used: Noto, Morgan
Bookings: Garrard (27'), Reynolds (39')
Goals: Eyre (OG 41'), Garrard (52', 72'), Angol (69')
Chelmsford City: Eyre, Love, Redwood, Hughes, Haines, Mambo, Sawyer, Smith (Morgan 75'), Callander (Kouassi 70'), Ward, Nicolau (Freund 51')
Subs not used: Gordon, Ekpiteta
Bookings: Hughes (36'), Callander (70')
Sent off: Eyre (50')
Referee: Mr A Serrano
Attendance: 301
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