Hendon missed out on the chance to guarantee their third place finish when Aldershot Town won 3-1 at Claremont Road on Thursday night. Sadly, the main talking point of the game turned out not to be the evening's entertainment, but the performance of referee Matthew Downey.

Both teams were much changed from 5 days earlier with, for Hendon, injuries and exhaustion forcing out Iain Duncan, Steve Butler and Dale Binns making way Rob Hollingdale, Ricardo Alves and Lee Endersby respectively, with Paul Towler dropping back into defence.

Aldershot made the perfect start, grabbing the lead in the 4th minute. Hendon failed to deal with an attack and when the ball was switched to right side, Nick RODDIS timed his run to beat the offside trap. He ran into the penalty area and thumped the ball past Gary McCann.

This stung Hendon into action and for the next 35 minutes, they dominated. In the 29th minute, Hollingdale, Endersby and Alves combined on the left side and the young Brazilian somehow fashioned a half-chance. He fired a rocket shell of a shot which was on it way into the roof of the net until Gareth Howells produced an outstanding save.

In the 31st minute, Paul Yates, Ricci Crace and Eugene Ofori tore a hole in the left side of the Aldershot defence. Ofori was faced by Howells 4 yards from goal, just outside the near post, so he drilled the ball across the face of the target as he could see Alves lurking. Alves ran in to meet the ball and thumped it into the net.

Unfortunately for the Greens - and to the Hendon fan's disbelief - assistant referee Mr Geary ruled that although Alves was 3 yards behind Ofori when the ball was struck he was in an offside position.

However, this was nothing compared to the incident 2 minutes later. Undaunted, Hendon continued to press and forced a corner on right wing. Endersby curled the ball, on the wind, towards the near post. Howells came for the ball, but over-committed and had to grab at the ball almost from behind him.

Howells dropped the ball onto the back of Crace's head and watched in horror as Crace and the ball ended up in the net. Although he knew nothing about it, Crace began to celebrate his 21st goal of the season. Except Mr Downey decided there was a foul on the goalkeeper. Hendon players and supporters alike were incensed.

Hendon's misery wasn't over. Within 5 minutes, Mr Downey had chickened out of a penalty award that was as easy, uncontroversial and indisputable as could be imagined. A cross from the right was flicked away from the goalmouth, but Towler got to the ball between the goal and penalty areas.

As he tried to control the ball, Stafford Browne barrelled into him, knocking him off his feet. Mr Downey was well placed to see the incident, because it was just 2 yards in front of him, but the referee did nothing, and Browne cleared the ball.

A minute later, an appalling error in Hendon's midfield gifted the ball to Jamie Taylor and his first-time pass released Browne, who had 30 yards of space to run into. As McCann came off his line, BROWNE finished clinically.

It was hard to know what Hendon boss Dave Anderson could have said to his team at half-time. They had conceded 2 sloppy goals, it should be said, but they had also dominated most of the period only to have 2 goals and a penalty disallowed. What must have been mentioned was the importance that no early goals were conceded.

Sadly for Hendon, that part of the equation was ignored as, in the 51st minute, James Burgess was penalised for a foul on Stuart Tanfield. The ball was curled beyond the far post to Steve PERKINS, who headed it over McCann and into the net.

Within a minute Hendon had got a goal back. Jon-Barrie Bates passed the ball forward and CRACE burst between Perkins and Anthony Charles to have a clear view of goal. He made no mistake and Hendon had a lifeline.

Unfortunately, although there were a couple of half-chances, the Alderhot defence stiffened enough to ensure that the unconvincing handling of Howells didn't lead to any more goals.

In the 61st minute, however, came an incident as unbelievable as it is rare. Mr Downey was alerted to an incident by assistant referee David Belbin who had noticed that a player was on the pitch without the officials' knowledge - a substitution was not noticed by any of the officials at half time. Luke Walker was the unfortunate player, who now picks up an FA administration charge, despite having waited on the touchline as the officials came out.

Shots manager Terry Brown admitted, "When you are top of the table, you get everything going your way, decisions, rebounds, etc. But when you are at the bottom, you get nothing, not even a bounce."