A comedy of defensive errors wiped the smiles off St Albans City faces on Saturday and left visitors Enfield laughing all the way to three points.
Before their three successive clean sheets Jimmy Neighbour’s men had earned themselves a reputation for gifting opposition goals and against a rejuvenated Enfield side they certainly didn’t want to do that!! But they did.
With a forward line minus Steve Clark failing to threaten, Neighbour’s back five were always going to have a busy afternoon against their old rivals. Sadly most of their early work was done for charity with Steve Darlington the main beneficiary. Darlington, a loadsamoney signing from Kingstonian earlier in the season, bagged a simple hat trick helped by some quizzical defending even Mr Cholmondley-Warner and Grayson would have difficulty explaining.
Darlington and his chums went ahead as early as the 13th minute when their nice-but-not-so-dim football and City’s dim defending set the tone.
A harmless free kick some 35 yards from goal caught the City defence slobbing around and Paul Moran was allowed to slip down the side of the wall and cross for Darlington’s first goal.
The second goal came 13 minutes later after more slapstick defending and a series of slips to rival any comedy show.
From an Enfield throw in Peter Risley appeared to be held, so he and Akinbolu stopped in their stride as the ball was played into the box. Alert to the danger Kevin Mudd stepped in and completely missed his kick, although Paul Turner was on hand to pick up possession. Penned in by three strikers, the midfielder bounced a back pass to Gareth Howells, whose mis-control presented Darlington with an embarrassingly easy second. It was enough to make a City supporter shout “IT‘S SO UNFAIR. ENFIELD. I HATE YOU”.
Yet another unlucky 13 minutes later City embarrassment was complete as Moran stroked home another sheepish looking goal as the Saints stood still. From a Gary Flitzgerald mis-hit his cross but the ball bobbled into the area and Moran prodded the ball home.
The fourth goal was slightly more to do with Darlington’s skills rather than City’s slackness. The striker completed his hat trick with a curling effort after being blocked by Howells at the first attempt.
The afternoon had been so unfair to the City keeper, who had made three fine saves in between the defensive disasters, while his opposite number Andy Pape kept out a Justin Gentle cross but watched Rob Haworth and substitute Clark send the only other chance wide.
Most of the 939 crowd would have backed City to beat the drop before the game.
But if City think they are going to go down. And if they think they would play many more games like they did against Enfield. Then I say “OI ST ALBANS NO”. |
