08 Apr 2026
Wingate & Finchley 2 St Albans City 0 (Isthmian League Premier Division)
Report by Jess Unwin, file photo by Jim Standen.
St Albans City slipped to three defeats in a row on Easter Monday after two second-half goals settled a match that manager Gary McCann described as “lacklustre, tired – just a rubbish game of football”.
Following a welcome improvement in form in February and March, recent results are likely to leave some City supporters feeling that a season which has already failed to deliver a promotion back to the National League South is now ending with a whimper.
Saints did at least put in a creditable performance in losing to Premier Division champions Folkestone in their first Easter fixture but didn’t come close to reaching that level in their second with Ruben Bartlett-Antwi opening the scoring for Wingate & Finchley on 52 minutes and Camilo Restrepo making it 2-0 on 81 minutes.
A clearly displeased McCann said: “I didn’t like a lot of our performance – we weren’t good enough in most areas of the pitch.
“To not work their goalkeeper at all is pretty embarrassing. I get where we find ourselves in the season, but we’ve got a duty to put in a better performance than we did today.”
With just three games of the present campaign left, it might be expected that players are motivated by the need to earn a new contract for next season, but McCann revealed:
“Everyone who’s vying for a contract has had minutes in recent games to show their worth – but I haven’t seen it.”
He continued: “We’ve signed six already and we will be looking to add more but the levels and standards I require for us to be in a top two or three position in a really tough division, which is getting more difficult year by year, means there’s got to be major improvement in the squad. Games like today tell me there’s work to be done.”
The Saints boss, who picked up the reins at the club after previous manager Ian Culverhouse quit earlier in the season, made it clear that “consistency is the key”. He said: “Too many times during the course of my tenure there have been indifferent performances and that’s not something I like to be associated with.”
He added: “After the promises I made post-match on Saturday, looking on today’s evidence, we need to be a lot better and that’s something we’ll be addressing over coming weeks.”
- The interview with Gary McCann can be seen in full on the St Albans City YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/@StAlbansCity
