St Albans City MWY 2 Hanwell Town 2

St Albans City’s Midweek Youth’s 100% runaway start to the Allied Counties season was finally halted by a determined Hanwell Town side, with honours shared in a 2-2 draw.

Hanwell came to Clarence Park in clear second place to City’s top spot and it was unrecognisable as the team that was thrashed 6-0 in the first encounter. After fairly even exchanges the visitors opened the scoring in the 27^th minute when Hanwell’s dangerman and the Allied Counties League top scorer Liam Coles, reacted quickest to a through ball down City’s left flank. As keeper Freddie O’Connell advanced he lifted the ball over him and into the net. Fortunately within one minute City were level and had a gift of an equaliser when Tremayne Charles quickly closed down the keeper, tackled him in possession in front of goal for the easiest of tap-ins. With the match going from end to City failed to capitalise on two further gilt-edged chances in the remainder of the half. The first was from Stuart Henderson who just failed to connect with a side splitting through ball and the second from Laurence Wroe whose shot from a corner went straight at the keeper.

In the second half City looked the sharper side and in the 52^nd minute Matt Taylor arrived late into the box to smack Harry Carr’s cross off the underside of the bar to give the home side a 2-1 lead. Just like Hanwell’s goal the City lead was to stand for less than one minute with the second comedy keeping error of the evening. This resulted from O’Connell miscuing his clearance across the pitch to Andrew Bashley who placed the ball into the City net from 20 yards. In the last 10 minutes both sides had good chances to claim the points, but O’Connell redeemed himself with a superb one-on-one block. At the other end substitute Marino Hadji-Savva cut through the defence and pulled back the ball to Taylor, who agonisingly saw his shot go past the right post.

Overall a deserved point for both sides, but slight disappointment for City on a below-par performance. City’s Josh Davies was the outstanding player on the night with a passionate and commanding performance at centreback.

City: Freddie O’Connell; Myles Scott (Cieran Yapp 72), Laurence Wroe, Josh Davies, Laurie Blow (Joe Zazzera 54); Harry Carr, James Shaw, Matt Taylor; Elliot Bailey, Tremayne Charles, Stuart Henderson Marino Hadji-Savva (63).

Sub not used: Will Conway.