It was literally a case of after the Lord Mayor’s Show for St Albans City as they picked up a 5-0 win over 10-man Hungerford Town.

Despite the score City laboured at times, and while that may seem like a strange choice of words, after the excitement of City’s FA Cup exit to Carlisle United last week this wasn’t a performance littered with the same attacking flair.

However, City fans won’t care as they consolidated second place in the Vanarama National League South.

Lee Chappell nodded them into a seventh minute lead but that failed to bring the avalanche of goals, or chances, some may have expected.

And they only came when a red card to Hungerford’s Scott Rees and a penalty from Junior Morias six minutes into the second half ended the game as a contest.

Louie Theophanous, Dipo Akinyemi and Shaun Lucien completed their afternoon’s work.

The opening goal will be a popular one among fans and those who like to bet long on the first goalscorer.

It will go down as Chappell’s first of the season, although talk at half-time questioned whether it was actually an own goal for Hungerford keeper George Legg.

The City skipper did seem to get there first but couldn’t get much power on the header and Legg still had time to scramble back in vain.

The rest of the half was as dull as the weather.

Theophanous fired a couple of shots over while Lucien danced in the box and poked one beyond Legg but not Matt Day on the line.

For Hungerford there was plenty of endeavour but most of the half-chances that came their way were down to unforced errors from the yellow shirts.

City started the second half a bit better but whether that extra impetus would have been enough was made immaterial by the red card.

Morias stuck away the penalty and then Theophanous made it three although he knew precious little about it.

Legg got to a through ball fractionally ahead of City’s top-scorer but his clearance bounced of him and rolled agonisingly into the net.

From there City went through the motions without ever hitting top gear.

The introduction of Akinyemi and Sam Merson did add a bit of zip to proceedings and the latter’s shot, which came off the post, was bundled into the net by the former for 4-0.

Lucien completed the scoring with the fifth seconds after being named man of the match.

City: Russell, Herd, Bender, Chappell, Hill, Martin, Lucien, Thomas (Ball 77) Theophanous (Akinyemi 78), Morias (Merson 80), Noble

Subs (not used): Swales, Casey

Goals: Chappell 7, Morias (pen) 51, Theophanous 63, Akinyemi 85, Lucien 89

Hungerford: Legg, S.Williams (Goodger 36), Tyler, Jones, Day, L.Williams (Bignall 78), Clark, Rees, Jarvis, Preen, Soares (O’Brien 63)

Subs (not used): Rusby, Boardman

Goals:

Sent-off: Rees 51

HT: St Albans City 1 Hungerford Town 0

Referee: Ian Fissenden

Attendance: 702