A gloomy Ian Allinson said St Albans City were extremely fortunate not to be on the wrong end of a huge score after their play-off hopes were exploded by National League South champions Torquay United.
“It ended up 4-0 but it could quite easily have been 10-0,” said the City boss as the non-contest at Clarence Park brought the curtain down on another season.
“And without Dean Snedker in goal it might have been. He has made three or four unbelievable saves, including the penalty.”
Saints knew that a win over the Gulls, and a defeat for Billericay at home to Bath, would place them into the post-season programme.
Ten seconds after kick-off though Torquay were in front, they almost made it two 50 seconds later, hitting the crossbar, and then did double their advantage as the clock reached eight minutes.
Such was their dominance that the game was over before it had really started.
“We were passive from the first whistle and we didn’t look like we were up for a cup final, and it was a cup final,” said Allinson.
“I know we were waiting on other results but if we’d won, we would have been in the play-offs and we haven’t been good enough.
“We haven’t been good enough to put in a performance that would be good enough to beat the champions and we haven’t been good enough to stay in the game and give us a chance with 20 minutes.”
A big crowd had packed the Park in anticipation of glory, but half of the near 2,000 crowd were left with nothing to move them, a fact that the boss was disappointed in.
He said: “We’ve had a couple of little chances. If we could have got back to 2-1 we could have really had a go at them.
“We were going towards our crowd and we could have given them something to shout about.
“But we never gave them anything all day.
“When you go back to the East Thurrock game for example, we gave them something to get behind and lift us but not today.
“We needed a spark and we never had it.
“But let’s not take anything away from Torquay, they were superb.
“We have to wipe ourselves down and start planning and preparing for next season.”
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