Off the back of three vital points last week, Hertford travelled to St Albans, known as Verulamium in its Roman Empire heyday, until it was renamed after Britain’s first Christian martyr. The afternoon began with jeopardy as captain Jonny Goodson, in an effort to pay tribute to this spirit of martyrdom, conducted the pre-match warm-up in the middle of a busy access road.

On the pitch, relieved to have survived their brush with death (unlike St. Alban; RIP), Hertford began brightly. The home team enjoyed the majority of possession but were unable to make significant inroads against Hertford’s solid defensive structure, whilst it was the visitors who looked the more dangerous when turning over the ball and counterattacking at pace.

One such foray into the St Albans D yielded Hertford’s first short corner of the day and gilt-edged opportunity, but the ever-musical Pete Sharman was unable to control his rhythm and was penalised for a double movement on the injection. Whilst the Hertford forwards remained static, transfixed by Sharman’s snake hips, St Albans moved rapidly to capitalise on their numerical overload and took the lead with a sharp reverse stick deflection past Arran Matthews in the Hertford goal.

As half time approached, few further scoring opportunities emerged in a tight affair until two home players impeded Jamie O’Sullivan in a tackle so brutal it called to mind the beheading of St. Alban according to Nick Downer, former St Albans player, current St Albans fan and, based on age, feasible eyewitness of the execution all those years ago. Expecting the umpire’s whistle, but instead only hearing the jingling of his thirty pieces of Roman silver as he waved play on, this unpunished obstruction allowed St Albans to find a forward in the D, who slotted home for a 2-0 half-time lead. Post hoc ergo propter hoc.

In a second half most noteworthy for Oli de Roeck’s defending becoming increasingly erratic and unsafe to the point it would have made a Roman executioner blush, Hertford keeper Matthews became a mere spectator to the circus (bread sadly not provided) as the away side pressed high up the pitch chasing a route back into the game. Adam Price repeatedly drove at the home defence but was unable to carpe diem (perhaps thoughts had already drifted to his impending bacchanalia in Londinium that night), whilst Kitt Skillett fired a drag flick barely an uncia wide of the post, but the St Albans city walls would not yield.

Hertford’s thoughts turn to hosting Chelmsford next week and, before that, their Wednesday night training session/historical discussion.

Hertford; A. Matthews; I. Dunnett, J. O'Sullivan, O deRoeck, J. Goodson; K. Skillett, P. Sharman; A. Price, J. Rollins, R. Holman; N. Downer. Subs: O. Gill, J. Willey, J. Ker, A. Akers