24 Oct 2025
St Albans City 2 Welling United 1 (Isthmian League Premier)
Match report from Jess Unwin at Clarence Park, photos by Jim Standen
A man-of-the-match performance from veteran defender Michael Bostwick, including what proved to be the winning goal, helped St Albans City hang on to a narrow home victory against Welling United on Saturday.
His 58th-minute glancing header from Troy Perez-Duah’s free kick put City back in front at 2-1 just moments after Welling had fought back to deservedly level the scores through Eze Ebuzoeme.
Bostwick, who had already been a powerful presence in this entertaining contest, then played a big part in Saints’ rearguard action as Welling piled on the pressure late in the game but ultimately failed to break the home team’s stubborn resistance.
Some Saints supporters will have been unsure about the wisdom of adding 37-year-old Bostwick to the long list of summer recruits, yet despite an ankle operation in close season, the centre back looks fitter and more influential with every game.
Bostwick has a 20-year 1st team career with 10 different clubs behind him but really made his name at Stevenage Borough, winning the FA Trophy, the Conference title and the League Two playoffs.
He joined Championship side Peterborough United in July 2012 in a transfer worth £500,000 and spent five seasons at The Posh, playing 228 times.
He arrived at Saints from Boston United, where he played under City’s management duo of Ian Culverhouse and Paul Bastock during their spell in charge at the Lincolnshire club.
After Saturday’s Welling game Bastock was full of praise for Bostwick, who skippered Saints in the absence of the injured Zane Banton: “Bozzy just gets better and better and I think, since the Potters Bar match, he’s been a giant for us.
“He leads by example and anyone in our squad should look at him and say to themselves, that’s how I want to be.
“We’re really chuffed with him – he’s come out and proved a point to quite a few people with his performances.”
Saints looked comfortably in control for most of the first half of Saturday’s match against Welling, who were relegated alongside City from the National League South last season.
The home side had the best chances, including a 17th-minute Jasper Mather effort that was deflected wide and a thunderbolt volley from Alex Dyer just three minutes later that Welling keeper Cory Adjetey-Brew did well to stop.
Luke O’Neil’s free kick, deflected well over the bar by City’s defensive wall on 32 minutes, was the closest Welling came to scoring before the deadlock was finally broken on 40
minutes by Leo Sery. The in-form striker cleverly got the wrong side of his marker to volley home Lewis Page’s wickedly in-swinging corner.
Many of the Saints supporters in the 1,614 crowd must have expected their team to deliver more of the same in the second half and win this game easily, but it was not to be.
City, perhaps tired after the exertions of their extra-time midweek FA cup win over Banbury, were pressed hard by Welling, who fashioned a number of half chances before Ebuzoeme slammed home an equaliser when Saints failed to clear a loose ball in the penalty area.
Bostwick’s header restored City’s lead, but the last half hour of the game was nervy end-to-end stuff for the City faithful despite the fresh legs of four St Albans substitutions.
One of those new faces, Alex Wall, had a shot saved but then Bostwick had to clear a Welling effort off the line, and the follow-up was hit into the side netting.
Another City sub, Harrison Smith, did well to pick the pocket of a defender to find himself one-on-one with the keeper in the penalty area. With Wall to his left with an open goal, Smith chose to try to score himself, but his shot was saved.
Seven minutes of extra time prolonged the agony for City fans and Magnus Norman had to make a great save near the foot of his post before combining with Bostwick to block another shot in the final seconds.
Post-match, Bastock summed it all up perfectly: “We made hard work of it but at the end of the day it’s the three points we needed. We’re winning ugly at the moment but within this group there’s so much more to come.”
