St Albans City's defence of the Herts Senior Cup commenced at Garden Walk on Tuesday night in the face of a deluge of rain and goals as the Saints marched to their biggest victory in the county cup for five years.
City boss John Kendall used the game to take a look at some players who have not figured in the starting XI too often recently and also to give first team debuts to City Youth players Greg Deacon and Mick Tominey who did themselves no harm in the fast deteriorating conditions.
Robbie Simpson continued the good form he has shown when coming on as a substitute recently and with a brace of close range goals will have let his manager know that he is ready to claim a place in the starting line-up to face Farnborough at the weekend. Even young goalkeeper Lee Clark, despite the emphatic nature of the final scoreline, gave a good account of himself particularly with four excellent second half saves.
It was not difficult to have sympathy for the home side who currently sit in the lower half of the Spartan South Midlands Premier Division. This was their biggest match of the season and although they pronounced themselves pleased with the attendance, which sadly looked meagre, the appalling weather put paid to hopes of a sizeable turnout and to complete the Town's misery their Garden Walk pitch resembled a ploughed field at the final whistle as the rain continued to lash down.
The opening exchanges were evenly contested although City did appear to be playing well within themselves and the visitors were thankful for a good stop by Clark from Royston's man of the match John Moulding to keep the scores level. Home keeper Simon Dobson was not overly troubled during the first 30 minutes but on 36 minutes was picking the ball out of the net for the first time as a right-footed Spencer Knight cross, from out on the left hand City touchline, looped over Dobson and just under the bar.
Three minutes later a good City move down the right ended with David Pratt threading a pass between two defenders for Stuart Maynard to latch onto and neatly guide inside Dobson's near post.
On the stroke of half time Simpson notched his first of the night when turning in a powerful low cross from Gary Ansell. City's bid to keep a fourth consecutive clean sheet was strengthened when Clark made two quick-fire saves from Danny Ward while at the opposite end the fourth goal was not long in coming as Maynard did well to stretch ahead of a defender and claim his second goal following a cross by Knight.
A fine save by Dobson denied Deacon a headed goal within three minutes of coming on whilst a minute later the crossbar came to Royston's aid to keep out Ansell's well struck rising drive. But City were not to be kept at bay for long and struck twice more with two almost identical goals. On 72 minutes Knight's right-sided corner was flicked on at the near post by Ollie Squires for Simpson to thump home the fifth goal and four minutes from time it was Corey Campbell's turn to benefit from Squires near post touch to Knight's corner as he notched the sixth goal with a crisp header.
Report By Dave Tavener |
