Hendon and Tooting & Mitcham United played out a goalless draw in the Ryman League Premier Division at Vale Farm on Tuesday night, but the match was anything but a scoreless bore. From a Hendon point of view, the abject performance of Saturday at Cray Wanderers was well and truly banished to far recesses of the memory and only the lack of a home goal stopped it being an excellent evening.

There were, perhaps surprisingly, no changes to the starting 11 from the team which had under-performed so badly at Hayes Lane three days earlier, but the words from the dressing room was that this was a last-chance saloon situation. And, to be fair to them, the players responded in a most positive manner.

Tooting, riding high in the table and coming off the back of a good win at Aveley at the weekend, took the game to Hendon in the opening few minutes, but James Parker marshalled the defence very well and he, Bradley Thomas, Craig Vargas and James Burgess, augmented by the deep-playing James Bent, kept the Terrors at bay. When Tooting did craft an opening, they found James Reading in determined mood so they had no way through.

The first real incident of note was a most unsavoury one. About to defend a free-kick from just outside the visitors' penalty area, a short left hook from Tooting skipper and centre-back Joe Vines caught Thomas squarely on the head, and knocked the big defender to the ground. Vines was very careful to make sure his action went unseen by the three officials, otherwise his evening would have been done after just 13 minutes.

After 26 minutes, Bradley Woods-Garness worked himself an excellent opening and he tried to lift the ball over the former Hendon stopper Dave King. Unfortunately for the on-loan striker, the 6ft 5in goalkeeper reached up and caught the attempted lob.

Nine minutes later, Woods-Garness found himself with another chance. This time he did beat King, but could not get the ball on target. A minute later, following a Hendon corner, Tooting broke rapidly and Reading made a fine save from Simon Parker.

This was certainly not Tooting's first chance because a 30-yard drive from Colin Hartburn had already flown inches wide of Reading's goal. In the 41st minute, an enormous goalmouth scramble nearly resulted in Tooting taking the lead, but a green-shirted player did just enough to clear the danger.

As the temperature dipped, players began to slip, though the pitch did not seem as hard and unyielding as it had in Hendon's previous home match against Harrow Borough. Nonetheless, the conditions may have caused the number of goalscoring opportunities to rise as the match progressed.

King again thwarted Woods-Garness in the 57th minute while the dangerous Simon Parker was denied by an excellent save from Reading. Both teams tried to attack on the counter, but the final ball, or the control of it, was not quite good enough to unlock the opposing defences.

Hendon were distinctly unfortunate to receive no decision in the 60th minute when Peter Dean linked up with Woods-Garness and went down under a challenge from Tom Graves just inside the Tooting penalty area. If the defender had won the ball, then a corner should have been awarded; if his contact had been only with the Hendon man, it had to be penalty. The referee, who in fairness didn't have a great view of the incident, awarded a goal-kick.

Seven minutes later, Jamie Busby made a fine break out of midfield. He had a little trouble in getting the ball out from between his feet, but still was able to give Casey Maclaren the chance to shoot. Unfortunately, from a very good position, Maclaren failed to find the target.

Reading was again called into action when a quick Tooting break, instigated by Aaron Goode found Paul Vines, but he couldn't break the deadlock. The Terrors then made two substitutions, removing Parker and Goode and replacing them with Sam Clayton and Jason Henry, respectively. At the same time as Goode went off, Hendon replaced their No. 8, Scott Cousins, with Wayne O'Sullivan, who made his 100th appearance for the Greens. A couple of quarter-chances came his way, but he couldn't celebrate his century with a goal.

The lack of a good final ball continued to frustrate both teams' attackers and the game seemed to be heading for a merited draw. But, in the second minute of added time, the Hendon defence nodded off. A ball from the left wing floated across the penalty area and was met by an unmarked Tooting player, about ten yards from goal.

His looping header had the Terrors' bench off their feet, ready to celebrate what would certainly have been the match-winner. Instead, the ball looped just over the angle of post and crossbar and the disappointment of all those in black and white stripes was clear for all to see.

"After the Cray game, I was much more interested in the performance tonight," said Hendon manager Gary McCann, "and I was very pleased with the response to Saturday. We were everything tonight that we weren't on Saturday. Every player did what I wanted them to do.

"We could have won the game tonight, but we could have lost it just as easily. I suppose I am as pleased not to lose as I am disappointed not to win and frustrated to have got only a draw. I suppose it proves that a draw was the right result.

"If the referee had seen Joe Vines' punch on Brad Thomas, I am sure the match would have had a different outcome. But he was very careful to make sure that none of the officials saw him do it. Brad has a lovely lump on his head tonight."