Paul Hakim in action
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With a stunning performance at Cherrywood Road on Saturday, Farnborough Town’s Kevin Scriven became the first goalkeeper in almost six months to stop St Albans City from scoring, more significantly, with just five games to go, he played a major role in toppling Colin Lippiatt’s side from the summit of the Conference South.
Against a lively Farnborough side City had little trouble in keeping a fourth consecutive clean sheet, Boro having just one on-target effort in the entire match, but the Saints were kept at bay by the Hampshire clubs custodian who, quite rightly, collected the man of the match award.
City, showing one change from the win over Maidenhead with Patrick Ada coming in for the suspended Gary Elphick, were quickly into their stride with Paul Hakim skilfully beating two defenders before seeing his rising shot palmed out by the full-stretch Scriven. Ram Marwa was first to the falling ball couldn’t quite direct his header where he wanted it go and Boro cleared their lines as the ball bounced down off the crossbar.
In the fourth minute Marwa started another attack with a ball to Lee Clarke who raced forward at speed before slipping a delightful pass into the path of Matt Hann whose clean strike was taken smartly by Scriven low to his right.
The early pressure with maintained with only an excellent tackle by Jay Gasson denying Clarke while another good run by Hakim just saw him overrun the ball close to goal. Despite showing tenacity in midfield and pace in attack Farnborough could make little headway with their first serious effort not arriving until the 33rd minute when Carl Gibbs shot wide.
A fine move, with Chris Seeby twice involved, saw Clarke cut the ball back to Marwa whose first time shot rolled just wide of Scriven’s left hand upright while a clever chipped free kick by Boro’s Scott Canham ended with Warren McBean heading wastefully over.
City finished the half strongly with a slick exchange between Marwa and Hann forcing Scriven to block with his left foot by his near post from the latter. Seeby almost failed to make it to the interval after being on the receiving end of a dreadful two-footed lunge by Steve Laidler who was fortunate to get just a yellow card.
Frank Gray’s side began the second half, played on a poor surface, in positive mood before St Albans regained supremacy only to squander their clearest opportunity on 49 minutes. Ben Walshe played a good ball inside to Marwa who fooled two defenders and created space in front of Scriven only to clip the ball over the top of the goal.
Farnborough’s best moment came courtesy of a harshly awarded handball that the excellent Ashley Sestanovich struck cleanly from the edge only for Pal Bastock to spring acrobatically high to his right to parry and then smother as players from both sides closed in on the falling ball.
Midway through the half McBean looked to be clear only for Ada to catch him with a sensational burst of speed and perfectly timed tackle. Three minutes later, the 71st, Boro’s tall defender Adam Theo was dismissed when booked for the second time in 15 minutes, this time possibly harshly as he and Walshe raised the feet to bouncing ball.
As is so often the case, City failed to make numerical advantage count and Boro saw out the final 20 minutes in some comfort although one rasping drive from Seeby, from the outstanding Lee Flynn, came within a whisker of dropping under the bar. |
