March to the Arch: Thurrock progress in F.A.Youth Cup

March to the Arch F.A.Youth Cup tracker got under way last night. St Albans City entertained Thurrock. David Taverner reports on the match. This post was taking in full from our friends at St Albans & Harpenden Review.

St Albans City 2 Thurrock 4

St Albans will not be matching last season’s barnstorming run through five rounds of the FA Youth Cup following a 4-2 defeat at Clarence Park on Wednesday evening to Thurrock in the Preliminary Round of this year’s competition.

The young Saints were in trouble from early on when the impressive Christy O’Donoghue fired Thurrock in front from the penalty spot inside 14 minutes.

Six minutes later O’Donoghue provided a quite superb in-swinging right-footed cross from the Fleet left that picked out James Smith at the back post for the striker to beat City keeper Buster Thomas with an unusual lobbed effort with his thigh for the second goal.

Having been second best during the early exchanges City hauled themselves back into contention on 23 minutes with a stunning left-footed drive from 30 yards by Josh Nye that crashed down onto the goalline off the underside of the crossbar before rebounding into the roof of the net.

For Nye it was ample compensation after he was the unfortunate player to have conceded the early penalty and it sparked a spell of sustained pressure by the home side although chances on goal were limited.

The closest Steve Castle’s youngsters came to achieving parity before the interval was a fine run and fierce drive from the lively James Macey that struck the woodwork.

St Albans looked to have drawn level on 51 minutes when Jonathan Addai sent a cracking effort across keeper Billy Manning and into the far corner of the net only for a raised flag for offside against Decker Stanley following Spyros Mentis’s original free kick leading to the celebrations being cut short.

O’Donoghue missed a golden opportunity to restore Thurrock’s two-goal lead on 69 minutes when presented with a second penalty but this time keeper Thomas guessed correctly and made a flying save to his right.

But just four minutes later O’Donoghue atoned for that blip when sending a low cross into the home goalmouth that Ben Sartain stretched to meet and claim the third Thurrock goal.

To their credit the Saints reduced the deficit ten minutes from time with a smart finish from 15 yards by Macey but eight minutes into added time a quick Thurrock break saw substitute Chris Hankin complete the scoring from six yards out.

City first teamer Ross Dedman continued his comeback from a pre-season hamstring injury and played the full 90 minutes but was hampered by cramp late in the game.

Fellow teenage midfielder Rob Magwood appears a bigger doubt for Saturday’s trip to table topping Bromley after picking up a foot injury during training on Monday.

St Albans City Youth: B.Thomas, J.Butler (G.Guest 63), J.Gill, J.Nye (M.Graham 45), D.Stanley, R.Dedman, M.Dedman (A.Roth 69), S.Mentis, J.Addai, I.Machado, J.Macey, subs; L.Eadie, J.Tammaro.

Booked: Stanley.

Thurrock: B.Manning, L.Painter, J.Byrne, G.Madden (L.Smith 78), T.Spillman, M.Catherall (C.Hankin 86), D.Ford, S.Bradley, J.Smith (B.Cook 90), B.Sartain, C.O’Donoghue, subs; W.Moule, J.Maleary.