Hampton & Richmond Borough completed the double over St Albans City this season with what could be an important 4-0 win at The Beveree.

Both successes have seen The Beavers hit four; Saints going down to a 4-2 defeat at Clarence Park. Nicke Kabamba got things going here with goals either side of half-time before Tom Jelley and Brendan Kiernan completed the win.

Hampton may have led 1-0 at the break but Saints had the greater number of shots on goal.

Within 60 seconds, Junior Morias had forced a frantic clearance and Graeme Montgomery had fired inches wide.

When they did get efforts on target, they found home keeper Billy Bishop in fine form.

He beat out a Louie Theophanous cross-shot and the same to a well-struck Morias free-kick. The best stop saw him push a Montgomery snapshot behind for a corner. But despite this it was still an even half of football.

Kabamba’s goal was scrappy, poking it home from close range after James Russell had parried a deflected free-kick from the left wing.

But they could have gone in at the break with an even better lead.

Silky close control and footwork worthy of the Strictly Come Dancing final saw Kiernan wriggle into space inside the penalty area.

His curling shot evaded the fingertips of Russell but came back flush off the crossbar.

What St Albans needed was a lightning start to the second period. What they got was Kabamba’s second.

And it was one to forget for Russell.

Josh Hill had made a superb sliding block to deny Jamal Lowe and as the ball ran loose Russell seemed to have everything under control.

Except he inexplicably failed to gather the ball and Kabamba poked it home through a crowd of players.

That saw City throw Sam Merson and new signing Jamie Cureton into the fray and for a time they were on top.

But all of that passed when Hampton got a third.

A loose back pass by Tom Bender saw Kiernan get to the ball first and go round Russell.

Bender had recovered by this time but Kiernan’s goalbound shot hit the full-back’s arm and the referee had no hesitation in pointing to the spot and sending the Saints man off.

Jelley stepped up and although Russell made the initial save, he converted the rebound.

Kiernan grabbed the fourth against a by-now ragged City defence, slamming a low drive in from range.

And they could have had a fifth, but Nathan Collier’s shot came back off the woodwork.

For City manager Ian Allinson it was all about silly errors.

He said: “I felt the first three goals were all individual mistakes and then it’s 3-0 and we’re a man down.

“I felt we started really well and we talked about keeping in the game at half-time. But then we gave a sloppy second goal away. The substitutions gave us a bit of a lifeline.

“I know they hit the crossbar in the first half but we could have gone in 3-1 up with the chances we’ve had.

“We haven’t taken them and then we’ve created our own downfall with individual mistakes.”

St Albans City: Russell, Herd, Bender, Chappell, Martin (Merson 59), Hill, Johnson, Montgomery, Theophanous (Cureton 59), Morias (Lucien 66), Noble

Subs (not used): Allinson, Ball

Goals:

Hampton & Richmond Borough: Bishop, Jelley, Casey, Murphy, Gasson, Hicks, Kiernan (Elias Fernandes 87), Solomon, Kabamba, Lowe (Federico 85), Collier

Subs (not used): Brown Jolley, Kamara

Goals: Kabamba 29, 51, Jelley 75, Kiernan 80

HT: Hampton & Richmond Borough 1 St Albans City 0

Referee: Richard Hulme

Attendance: 701