After a 19 years wait, the Herts Senior Cup belongs to St Albans City again - and manager Jon Meakes wants to take that success into their final three league games.

City beat Berkhamsted 4-2 in the final at Top Field, home of Hitchin Town, having twice been pegged back.

Mitchell Weiss and a Romeo Akinola penalty gave them a 2-1 lead at the break and although Berko equalised early in the second half, a double from Callum Tripp handed them the title outright for the first time since a 2-1 win over Boreham Wood in 2005.

Herts Advertiser: St Albans City won 4-2 in the final against Berkhamsted. Picture: PETER SHORTSt Albans City won 4-2 in the final against Berkhamsted. Picture: PETER SHORT (Image: Peter Short)

"That's what it's about at the end of the day, winning trophies," said Meakes. 

"I said to the boys before the game, it's about looking at you CV when you finish your career and seeing if you have any trophies in the cabinet. 

"Today we got one.  

"Credit to Berko. They gave it a good go but we should have put it to bed a lot earlier than we did. 

"But we took control of it in the second half and once we got the fourth goal, we could have got five or six. 

"It’s very pleasing and obviously for the fans, that's what they want, it's been 19 years and it’s in our cabinet now for a year."

The victory could be just the tonic needed by Saints after their National League South play-off aspirations hit a reef, losing 1-0 at home to Chippenham Town on Saturday.

It leaves them 10th and five points behind Hampton & Richmond Borough with three games to go.

Meakes is not throwing in the towel just yet though.

He said: "There’ll be a few more twists but we've just got to take care of our business. 

"We have a tough game at home to Worthing [on Saturday] and they will want to win it because they want to try and get second or third position. 

"It will be an open game rather than the last few games we've played where the opposition have parked the bus and we haven't broken it down or taken the chances when we've had them. 

"I’m looking forward to it as are the boys, but it’s one game at a time and we've got to get those three points first."

And he says any post-mortem on a season which has seen Saints pick up one point from the last five, will only come after the final ball has been kicked.

"We'll analyse it when all three games are done but at the beginning of the season, we had to rebuild a team again after going as far as we did," said the boss.

"It was a slow start and then we had a very good September where we didn't concede a goal. 

"Then we picked up loads of injuries but we got through that and had a change of management but we got through that and it didn't make a difference. 

"The boys carried on and had great results against Maidstone and Weston and you think we're in there. 

"There's two games in there were we should have got six points and we would definitely have been in there. 

"The rub of the green is part and parcel of football but we have to take our chances and we've made too many mistakes. 

"We look back on the goals conceded and I want teams to score good goals, not just us giving it to them. 

"The boys know that we've got to be more ruthless in our defending. 

"If you keep clean sheets and create chances, you will win games.

"That’s probably where we're at the moment but we're still in with a chance."