Matt Hann celebrates with the City fans.
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Free-scoring St Albans City returned to pole position in the Conference South on Saturday with a comprehensive demolition job on a struggling Maidenhead United side that is currently leaking goals even faster than City can score them and clearly faces a long hard winters slog if relegation is to be avoided.
St Albans, one year on from propping up the table, have no such worries and for each of their goals enjoyed the kind of rub of the green that successful attack minded sides attract. Yet to suggest that City were lucky on the York Road slope would be a complete distortion of the facts, Colin Lippiatt’s boys dominated the first half then positively slaughtered Carl Taylor’s side after the interval but were kept at bay by an inspired showing from Magpies keeper Paul McCarthy who, ironically, had been at fault for the opening two goals.
With fans favourite Lee Clarke again on the bench, City opened with Aaron Barnett replacing Anthony Allman while Maidenhead made four changes to the side beaten 8-1 at Bognor in midweek. One of those retuning was McCarthy who, by half time, probably wished he had not.
After just seven minutes the again outstanding Matt Hann latched onto a Lee Flynn pass down the Saints left and drilled a firm low drive into the penalty area where Tom Davis did not get much power behind a shot but saw the ball trickle over the goalline as McCarthy displayed all the handling capabilities of Kevin Pieterson.
Worse was to come for McCarthy on 13 minutes as Ryan Johnson presented him with a poorly judged back pass that the keeper ought to have launched to safety but instead fancied his chances of switching from one foot to the other but simply allowed Hann time to charge down the delayed clearance and run the ball into the vacant goal.
Despite controlling the rest of the half City had to wait until the 45th minute before scoring for a third time when Paul Hakim, some 20 yards from goal, battled to win possession then turned swiftly and struck a shot which took a generous looping deflection over the stranded keeper for his fourth goal in five games.
Although outplayed Maidenhead twice tested Paul Bastock, firstly with a glancing header from former Saint Matt Glynn that the keeper took to his right and later in the half Bastock dived to his left to smother a fine effort from Lee Newman through a crowded goalmouth. After the interval the only noteworthy contribution Bastock had to make was in smartly clutching a well-struck Glynn free kick.
Playing up the slope for the second half City were excellent and will be disappointed not to have matched Bognor’s goalscoring achievements. The fourth goal came on 47 minutes when Martin challenged for a long kick by Bastock but the ball glanced off Dominic White’s head towards the centre of the penalty area where first to react was Hann who neatly lobbed McCarthy for the midfielders eighth goal of the season.
Thereafter City used McCarthy’s goal for target practise and three times within the next ten minutes the Magpies keeper, using his hands and feet, made first class saves to deny Hann his second hat trick of the season. Dean Cracknell came within a whisker with a crisp long-range effort while Simon Martin also drew a fingertip save from the overworked custodian.
One thing City could not be accused of was complacency as even in the latter stages the United goal was under siege as McCarthy made further excellent saves from Hann and Martin to save the home side from their second 5-0 home defeat of the season and just two minutes from time even Clarke was thwarted superbly by the keeper as he sought to end an 11-match goalless run.
Match report by Dave Tavener. Kindly supplied by The St Albans Observer. |
