St Albans City Match Preview

City play their third away match of February this Saturday when they travel to Hertfordshire to take on St Albans City.

While the league table suggests that it may not be quite as tough a fixture as those most recently at Maidstone and Dartford, The Saints showed in their 2-0 win at Twerton back in October that they can be tricky opponents.

Their derby victory at Hemel Hempstead on Tuesday lifted them back up to seventh position with Shaun Jeffers, the League’s top scorer, bagging two more goals to take his total for the season to 22.

This followed last Saturday’s draw at Dulwich and manager Ian Allinson will now hope that his team can gain some consistency at Clarence Park where only six of its thirteen fixtures have been won and has meant that they have spent most of the season only on the fringes of the play off places.

Perhaps a distraction was created by their fine FA Cup run back in the Autumn when they won through four rounds before finally falling to this season’s giant killers, Boreham Wood.

This will be City’s tenth visit to Clarence Park since the first in 2008 and they have a fine record there with six wins, including four in the last five fixtures. The most recent was in October 2019 when a Tom Smith goal secured a 1-0 win.

The ground, which has a preservation order and is pleasantly located alongside the adjoining park and cricket ground, has a lot of character with almost as much terracing as at Twerton.

Tickets can be bought in advance from the St Albans website. They will also be available on the day from the turnstiles but they accept card payments only, not cash.

The city itself has many attractions, especially the abbey and Roman remains of Verulamium.

But it would be fair to say that football supporters have more interest in the many outstanding pubs on offer, notably The Mermaid, only ten minutes walk from Clarence Park and a great favourite of City supporters for its atmosphere and excellent range of beer and food.

There can be few more pleasant build ups to a City match than a visit to The Mermaid followed by a walk through Clarence Park to the ground!

Unfortunately there has been insufficient interest for a Supporters Club coach to run. For those wishing to drive, the 125 mile trip from Bath will take around three hours.

The train journey from Bath Spa will take around 2.5 hours involving changes at Paddington and St Pancras and a ten minute walk to the ground from St Albans City station.