02 Feb 2026
St Albans City 2 Cray Wanderers 3 (Isthmian League Premier Division)
From Jess Unwin at Clarence Park, photos by Jim Standen.
A third defeat in a row, leaving St Albans City 12 points behind the play-off places, prompted Saints manager Gary McCann to concede that promotion back to the National League South might be “too big an ask” this season.
Talking to the St Albans Times after his team’s brave but unsuccessful attempt at a second-half comeback against Cray, McCann said: “I’m an optimist but also a realist. There’s a lot of teams between us and the play-off places and we’re relying an awful lot on what happens to our opposition in the league now.
“You’d have to say that we need to win a lot of games and the question is: is this team capable of that if we defend like we have today in the first half and in other games this season.
“We’ll keep plugging away and see where it takes us over the course of the next few weeks.”
In a repeat of what’s happened at too many games this season, City fell behind to early goals on Saturday, then rallied and played their way back into the contest but ultimately could not do enough to secure much-needed points.
For Saints supporters it must seem a bit like something out of the Bill Murray comedy movie Groundhog Day – but the difference is no one’s laughing at seeing City’s chances of escaping the Isthmian League at the first attempt grow ever more remote.
In mitigation, City did have Jamal Fyfield, Adrian Mariappa and Lewis Page unavailable for selection at the weekend, while Jasper Mather, who’s been scoring freely recently, could only play a bit part because of a niggling injury.
On top of that, City could argue they were unlucky with two key decisions by the match officials. The handball verdict against Jack James that brought a penalty and a third first-half goal for Wanderers seemed harsh.
And then, later, many of the 1,013 crowd at Clarence Park were surprised to see a second-half Zane Banton goal, which would have levelled the scores at 3-3, ruled out for being offside.
McCann, however, was in no doubt post-match that despite those complaints the real culprit for defeat was once again defensive shortcomings.
His team had gone 1-0 down after just two minutes of Saturday’s game with Max McEwan Fiddes netting for the visitors. Alex Hernandez made it 2-0 on 12 minutes with a free header and then made it 3-0 from the penalty spot just before the half-time.
After the break, Saints were a different team with substitute Alex Wall leading the charge. In what was probably his best game for City so far this season, he was outstanding in playing his natural role as a ‘target man’, winning aerial challenges and holding up the ball for teammates.
Defender Jack James scored with a header just a couple of minutes after the restart to make it 1-3 and there followed a second half that was mostly one-way traffic towards the Cray goal.
After 57 minutes Michael Bostwick scored to make it 2-3 when Cray failed to clear their lines from a corner, and it seemed like skipper Banton had completed the fightback a short while later, but the linesman’s flag for offside turned the crowd’s jubilation to frustration.
There still seemed to be time for St Albans to at least secure a point, and the eye-catching Keiran Petrie flashed a shot wide before Bostwick headed off his own line to deny a rare Wanderers attempt on goal.
With the game in the balance, there were some tough tackles on show – too tough, in fact, with the referee showing the yellow card to eight players overall.
Wall set up a goal-scoring chance for Leo Sery before shooting just wide himself and then seemingly miskicking when presented with another opportunity. There were further chances for Sery, Bostwick and Petrie but Saints could not break the Cray resistance and get the draw they deserved.
