Matt Hann celebrates...
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With their most emphatic away league victory for three years St Albans City moved into the top four of the Conference South on Saturday and in collecting their 16th point from six matches established themselves as the joint leading scorers in the Division.
From the concern of defeats in the first two games of the season Colin Lippiatt’s talented side are now handing out football lessons to all and sundry with the long ball merchants of Dorchester Town being firmly put in their place courtesy of an outstanding Saints performance.
Dorchester’s laborious ‘route one’ style does a great disservice to the wonderful setting provided by the excellent Avenue Stadium whilst City’s absorbing display, crowned by the ultimate team goal – tucked away by the former Magpies player Matt Hann – underlined how the game should be played.
For the second successive season the Saints experienced dreadful traffic problems in getting to Dorset with Paul Bastock, Lee Clarke and Chris Seeby all coming close to missing the kick off. And the disruption to City’s preparations was fully capitalised on by the home side with Gary Middleton playing a ball forward for Jamie Brown to head it on to Justin Keeler whose blistering curling low left-footed drive across the diving Bastock opened the scoring with barely 18 seconds played.
New City signing Peter Castle found himself in arrears without having yet touched the ball but, supported by the again excellent Patrick Ada, the 18 year-old central defender went on to enjoy a fine debut.
Buoyed by that goal the Magpies were highly charged for the next 30 minutes and allowed the Saints no time to settle into their passing game. Indeed, Mark Morris’s side could have moved further ahead on 21 minutes following a half cleared corner which ended with Alex Browne’s shot being deflected into the path of Jamie Brown who fired an effort against the outside of Bastock’s right hand post.
By then City had already begun to impose themselves on the game and went close with a Castle header from Mark Graham’s near post free kick. City drew level on 31 minutes with a move started deep in the visitors half by Clarke who played the ball up to Nick Roddis who in turn played it wide to Graham. After moving forward Graham slipped the ball between two players to Hann who crossed low for Simon Martin to sweep home the equaliser from close in.
With their defence now dominating the Dorchester attack and dealing effectively with the stream of high balls that came their way, City were now able to dominate proceedings and only a low fingertip save by the sprawling Craig Bradshaw denied Martin a second goal after he smartly turned two defenders inside the penalty area.
Other than for a couple of tame headers and searching crosses, expertly taken by Bastock, Dorchester’s threat had virtually expired where as St Albans went into the second half expressing themselves in grand style but a golden opportunity was spurned when Martin somehow clipped the ball over the top from virtually on the goalline following a good build up involving Bastock, Clarke and Hann.
City belatedly moved ahead on the hour with a move begun by Ada and continued by Graham and Cousins with Graham crossing for Clarke to head into the centre of the goal to maintain his record of scoring in every game this season.
A brief Dorchester revival was thwarted by two strong tackles by Castle on the edge of the penalty area while the game was put firmly out of the Magpies reach on 72 minutes with another stunning goal. Hann, a revelation so far this season and clearly enjoying a return to his old stomping ground, won the ball wide on the City right and ran at the home defence before crossing for Martin to score with a glorious glancing looping header over Bradshaw’s flaying arms.
A minute later Keeler almost matched his spectacular strike at the start of the game but this time Bastock smothered the ball cleanly by the foot of the post and Bradshaw matched that with a block with his right foot when Martin looked destined to complete his hat trick. Undeterred, City continued to seek their 20th goal of the season, their best return from the opening eight matches for 11 years.
In the 85th minute Dorchester, still pointless at home after four games, were undone for the fourth time as City scored a simply magnificent team goal.
Bastock threw the ball wide to Ada, he and Cousins worked the ball along the touchline with two audacious drag-backs before Cousins played the ball inside to Roddis. With perhaps the most devastating through ball the former England semi professional has played since joining the Saints Roddis sliced Dorchester open with a stunning slide rule pass through the heart of the defence that Hann raced after and, outside the penalty area, nudged wide of the advancing Bradshaw before guiding it low into the goal ahead of two retreating defenders for his fifth goal in three games.
Still City were not finished and in added time Graham played in Hann this time this rising angled drive was parried high by Bradshaw who just managed to smother the falling ball a yard from the goal.
Match report by Dave Tavener. Kindly supplied by The St Albans Observer. |
