Hendon were given an object lesson in clinical football by Blue Square South full-timers Woking in a one-sided FA Cup fourth qualifying round tie at Vale Farm on Saturday. The final score of 5-0 reflected the one-sided nature of a contest that was effectively over in the second minute.

Some Greens fans were unhappy that the team started with Peter Dean as the lone striker and other forwards, Wayne O'Sullivan, Glenn Garner and Yacine Hamada on the bench. Manager Gary McCann admitted he had gambled on keeping the game close until the final half-hour at which time he was going to unleash the trio on a tiring defence.

He had also been forced into other changes, with Wes Daly and Scott Cousins cup-tied, so Danny Dyer and Kevin Maclaren returned, as did James Reading, at Berkley Laurencin's expense in goal. Unfortunately for Hendon Jamie Busby was not fit enough even to make it onto the sub's bench.

Woking had been stung by a poor defeat in their previous game at Bromley and were determined to put on a show to prove to their manager Graham Baker that it had been an aberration. They took barely 100 seconds to do so.

A through ball forced Pat O'Donnell to turn as Giuseppe Sole sprinted at him. The forward was just too quick for the defender and as Reading came off his line to narrow the angle, Sole slipped the ball past him.

"That first goal absolutely killed us," admitted Mr McCann. "All our plans had been destroyed and we were forced to chase the game."

Buoyed by their advantage, Woking took complete control. Hendon battled hard and tried manfully to keep their passing game together, but they found that the Cardinals were one or two yards faster to the ball than them in every department. Forced to hurry, passes went astray and the defence was under constant pressure.

In the 21st minute O'Donnell brought down Delano Sam-Yorke as he ran towards the penalty area. From 25 yards out, Sole showed he had guile to go with speed and skill by bending the left-foot free-kick just inside Reading's far post. It was an exquisite strike.

It took 36 minutes for Hendon to have even the slimmest of openings. It came also from a free-kick, Jon Boardman upending James Bent just outside the Cardinals' penalty area. Ross Worner set up his defensive wall just well enough so that Dean's quickly taken effort missed the far post by inches. Had the ball been inches inside the near post, Worner would have been as helpless as Reading been a few minutes earlier.

Hendon's last vestige of hope disappeared just as the fourth official signified there would be a minimum of one extra minute at the end of the first half. Dave Diedhiou was bundled off the ball by the effervescent Arter and as Hendon had been attacking the covering defence was out of position and Arter was left with acres of space in front of him. His shot beat Reading and Woking's lead as the players trooped off at half-time was three clear goals.

Forced into desperation changes at the interval, Garner and O'Sullivan were introduced at the expense of Bent and Lewis Ochoa. McCann admitted the neither player's sacrifice was because of their poor performance, merely the team needed to score quickly to get back into the game.

Woking also made a change, replacing Boardman, who had picked up a head injury in the first half, with Joe McNerney.

Less than three minutes after the restart, Woking extended their advantage. James Parker, who endured a torrid afternoon, couldn't react to another darting run from Arter, who played a one-two with Nicky Nicolau, and gave Reading little chance to stop the shot which followed.

A minute later, Parker picked up a yellow card for persistent misconduct, having made four or five separate fouls during the game.

Almost immediately, Hendon's difficult day got worse because, less than five minutes after coming on as a substitute, Garner broke down with a hamstring injury after he stretched for a ball. Clearly in discomfort he tried to continue, but against an uncompromising defence, he struggled and was replaced on the hour mark by Hamada.

Woking looked likely to score almost every time they attacked the Hendon defence and the panicking back-line was constantly over-stretched. Sam-Yorke didn't score in the game, but he was denied by excellent Reading saves on three occasions.

In the 70th minute, Sam-Yorke induced Parker into a little tug of his shirt inside the penalty area. The referee had no hesitation in either pointing to the penalty spot or ending Parker's involvement in the match with a second yellow and thus a red card.

Sole, like Arter, was on a hat-trick, and he took responsibility with the spot-kick. Reading was not close to the shot, but for almost the first time all afternoon, luck went Hendon's way as the ball cannoned off the foot of the left upright and was gratefully hacked clear.

Almost immediately, Sole was replaced by Luke Medley. The last substitution of the match followed a minute later, with former Wingate & Finchley star Sam Sloma taking over from Aswad Thomas.

Hendon fans had been chanting "we're going to win 5-4," proof of blind faith if nothing else. But the Greens did get a chance to net a consolation with nine minutes to go. O’Sullivan wriggled clear of the otherwise excellent Tom Hutchinson and had only Worner to beat.

The goalkeeper went to ground and O'Sullivan tried to go around him but lost his balance trying to hurdle over the prone goalkeeper's extended and raised arm. There was no contact, but Worner's action was enough to cause O'Sullivan to go down.

The referee confirmed after the game that from his angle it looked as though contact had been made so he awarded the penalty. Worner was shown a yellow card, which was the right decision as O'Sullivan was not certain to have been able to control the ball and knock it into the net from what would have been quite an acute angle.

Once the furore had died down, O'Sullivan's first run to take the penalty was halted by the ball being blown off the penalty spot. His second attempt should have been retaken as the wind again moved the ball an instant before the midfielder struck it.

O'Sullivan certainly didn’t have time to pull out of his kick, and the referee could not have stopped the action in the moment between the wind doing its worst and the ball being struck.

With six minutes to go, Ricketts drilled a 20-yard shot just over the crossbar, set up by Arter. It delayed the inevitable for only a minute as Medley found Arter, who drilled a right foot shot just inside Reading's near post.

This defeat equals the worst ever FA Cup reverse for the club since World War 2. Five years ago Stevenage Borough also won 5-0 and the Greens embarrassingly had three men dismissed, whereas this was a gulf in class and merely very disappointing.

"We'd worked on a game plan, keeping the game tight and really going for it in the last half hour," McCann said, "but we conceded inside two minutes and everything changed.

"We were given an absolute lesson. Their clinical efficiency was far too much for us and their superiority shone through all over the pitch. They were too strong for us and never gave us a chance.

"Things didn't go for us, especially when Glenn got injured so soon after coming on. But our commitment was evident and we never stopped trying to play football. We needed to be at our very best to have had a chance, but it wasn't to be."