26 Nov 2025
St Albans City 3 Burgess Hill 4 (Isthmian League Premier Division)
From Times sports correspondent Jess Unwin at Clarence Park, photos by Jim Standen
After the elation of Saturday’s late, late victory, St Albans City found themselves on the wrong end of a last-gasp winning goal on Tuesday night, with a 4-3 defeat to Burgess Hill meaning they missed out on the chance to leapfrog their opponents and move into a top 10 league table spot.
Martyn Box headed home for the Hillians’ on 97 minutes with the very last action of this extraordinary game, completing his hat-trick and leaving Saints supporters shellshocked.
They had seen their side go 3-0 down after just 25 minutes in the first half, then mount an astonishing fight-back that culminated in Alex Wall netting on 92 minutes to level the scores at 3-3 before Box claimed all three points for the visitors.
Speaking to the St Albans Times, manager Gary McCann said: “We worked so hard to get ourselves back and recover a near impossible situation, and credit to the players for that, but we’ve given away four horrendous goals. We can’t defend the way we did and expect to win.
“It’s not just the back four – the goals we’ve conceded have involved second-phase situations where responsibilities are given to midfielders or forwards to mark players and we’ve come up short.
“That’s something that we need to improve. It’s a tough situation because we’re game, game, game at the moment and we’re not getting too many moments on the training pitch, but we’ll analyse it and show the players the goals we’ve conceded, not just in my tenure but before too.
“We need to change the mindset because it looks like we lack a bit of intensity and focus on the most important parts of the game – defending our box and creating in the opposition’s box. It’s an area of our game that we need to improve and quickly.”
After winning the first two league games following McCann’s arrival at Clarence Park, Tuesday’s defeat sees City exactly one third of the way through their 2025-26 campaign fixtures and sitting in 14th place in the Isthmian League Premier Division.
This coming Saturday, Saints will have to pick themselves up for an away match at top three side, Chatham Town. The two sides shared a goalless draw at Clarence Park back in August.
McCann warned: “Chatham is an extremely tough game, and we’ll need to be the best version of ourselves for that.”
Saints had started well on Tuesday night against Burgess Hill but that early promise evaporated when the Hillians scored with their very first attack of the game – Box heading home from a freekick delivered by the artful Luke Gambin.
There was no undue alarm among the St Albans supporters in the 375 crowd with so much of the game still to play – but on 15 minutes a Burgess Hill counterattack brought a second goal. This time, two City players appeared to tackle or fall over one other, and in the resulting confusion George Vorster took full advantage to slot home.
Again, there was a sense that City’s record of resilience so far this season meant they could still work their way back into the game and Leo Sery had a good chance when clean through on goal only to shoot wide of the post.
However, City were left with the proverbial mountain to climb when they went 3-0 down on 24 minutes as the usually reliable Michael Bostwick missed a chance to clear a long ball, allowing Box to steal in and finish clinically for his second goal of the game.
Sery did get a goal back for City on 35 minutes, giving the faithful a glimmer of hope, but for the first 20-odd minutes after the break there were few chances for either side, despite the inevitable introduction of a flurry of substitutes.
All that changed on 69 minutes when Sery tangled with Burgess Hill keeper Rocco Rees as both players went for a deep cross. Rees and the ball ended up in the net and many in the crowd expected a free kick to be given, but after the referee had consulted with his assistant, a goal was given.
Now, with just one goal in it, a comeback seemed possible for City and Troy Perez-Duah had a golden chance to equalise but miskicked his volley.
The game went into extra time and when Wall did score from Jack James’s excellent cross to make it 3-3, it looked as if Saints had salvaged a point before Box’s late reply sparked wild celebrations from the Burgess Hill players and supporters.
On Tuesday next week St Albans City return to Clarence Park with a game against Hertfordshire rivals Potters Bar, who are currently bottom of the table. Saints won the reverse fixture 4-2 in September. Kick-off is 7.45pm.
