Hendon reached the FA Cup (with Budweiser) 1st round proper for the 21st time in the club's history after defeating Corby Town in the fourth round qualifying 2-1 at Steel Park. The only thing that took the gloss of an otherwise outstanding performance was the red card shown to Elliott Charles deep in stoppage time.

The reward for Hendon is a trip to Aldershot Town, struggling in the bottom two of League Two - only Barnet are below them. The match will be played on Saturday week, 3 November, kick-off 3.00 pm.

The Greens were able to name the same 11 that started the previous Saturday's Ryman League Premier Division victory over Leiston. Although the match winner from the third round qualifying, Isaiah Rankin, missed out on a place amongst the substitutes because of a training injury, the Greens were able to name both Elliott Brathwaite and Belal Aite-Ouakrim in the list of replacements.

For the first 35 minutes, Hendon were comprehensively outplayed and only some excellent work from Berkley Laurencin kept the score to 1-0 at that stage. The first attack came in the second minute when Tom McGowan went on a mazy run and his low cross was clipped over the crossbar by an unmarked Leon McKenzie.

Two minutes later, a speculative ball into the penalty area by Josh Moreman was tipped over the bar by Laurencin. From the corner, Stefan Galinski got his head to the ball, but was unable to direct on target.

Almost inevitably, Corby soon opened the scoring. In the eighth minute,McGowan got the better of Ryan Wharton and delivered a cross which was headed goalwards by Avelino Vieira. Laurencin did very well to parry the attempt, but the rebound fell to Moreman, who lashed the ball into the roof of the net.

In the 15th minute, the Steelmen nearly doubled their advantage when McKenzie drilled a shot towards the bottom corner. Kevin Maclaren bravely threw himself in front of the ball and blocked it away for a corner, from which Carl Perigianni saw his effort turned away.

Hendon suffered a big blow after 24 minutes when George McCluskey was forced off with an injury and Brathwaite came on. Having played just 90 minutes of first-team football in 14 months before a midweek 55 minutes against Boreham Wood and a complete game against Tilbury, it was a risk that the big centre-half might struggle to last more than an hour. Those fears proved to be completely unfounded as he and James Fisher formed an outstanding centre-back partnership.

The Greens finally got to see the ball near the Corby penalty area and, in the 26th minute, a fizzing shot from Dean Cracknell narrowly cleared the crossbar. Paul Walker, however, did appear to have the effort covered, had it been on target.

Nine minutes before half-time, Sam Ives saw an opening and fired in a shot which Laurencin turned over the bar at full stretch. At the time it was a great save; less than a minute later, it was even better.

Hendon were able to clear the corner and the ball was fed forward to Greg Ngoyi. Under pressure from Piergianni, who appeared to drag back the striker, Ngoyi was, nonetheless, able to keep his balance and shoot past Walker into the bottom corner.

As things turned out later, if Ngoyi had gone down in the challenge, there is every chance that Piergianni's afternoon would have ended there and then, with Hendon receiving a penalty.

Having been on the wrong end of a 5-0 first-half drubbing in their last home match, the concession of even one goal was a crippling blow to Corby's confidence and psyche. In truth, in the remaining 53 minutes, they never played with the same air of control and quickly became erratic in passing and shooting.

Three minutes before the interval a free-kick taken by Michael Murray was met by Casey Maclaren, but his header went straight into the midriff of the well-positioned Walker. Then, as the half came to an end, McKenzie had the ball in the Hendon net, but the assistant referee had already raised his flag for offside and the goal was chalked off.

To describe the second half as a bit of a non-event would be unkind to Hendon, but in terms of clear-cut chances at either end and other incidents of note, there were very few. The Greens, with Cracknell, Murray and the two Maclarens in control, bossed the midfield, Scott Cousins and Wharton denied space down the flanks and Fisher and Brathwaite were far too good for McKenzie, Ives, Vieira and Nathaniel Wedderburn.

Ngoyi and Charles, however, were dealt with far less confidently by Galinski and Piergianni and the home fans in the 692 crowd were distinctly edgy whenever Hendon launched a raid.

It took until the 63rd minute for Hendon to force a corner and they made it pay spectacularly well. Cousins played the ball in and Murray carefully placed it just inside the near post. Walker, trying to see the ball through a crowd of players was nowhere the effort and he looked angrily at his captain, Jason Crowe, who had left his position guarding the upright as soon as the ball played to Murray.

With 27 minutes to retrieve the situation, the expectation was that Corby would throw caution to the wind. They didn't.

Ngoyi was replaced by Carl McCluskey – a slightly defensive move, but one entirely understandable in the circumstances. As one Greg went off, another came on, this one being Kaziboni, who replaced McKenzie for the Steelmen.

On only one occasion, did Corby look very dangerous and that was with 12 minutes remaining. A ball played into the penalty area was seized on by Moreman, whose effort was blocked at the near post. The rebound went to Ives, who headed over the bar.

With seven minutes to go, Briand was replaced by Paul Malone - a strange move by manager Chris Plummer, replacing a defender with a defender late in a Cup tie in which his team was trailing. Two minutes later, Murray was replaced by Aite-Ouakrim.

As the 90 minutes expired, the fourth official raised the board with four minutes, but it may as well have been 40 for the home team, because they certainly didn't look like scoring. Conceding, however, was another matter and Cracknell, Aite-Ouakrim and Charles all came very close to creating an opening, only for a desperate intervention from a white-shirted defender to end the danger.

With a minute of the added time to go, Charles was penalised inside the Corby penalty area and was slow to move away. Piergianni reacted with great aggression, launching himself at the striker.

Both players grabbed each other swinging away, whilst still holding the opposing shirt. This quickly inflamed matters but most of those intervening were in peace-keeping mode.

After a quick discussion with the closest assistant both Charles and Piergianni were shown red cards by the referee. Given the fact that the game had been played in a good spirit and both teams had shown excellent discipline in the previous 93 minutes, yellow cards might have been a better, if slightly lenient, sanction on both players. That said, showing red cards to both was definitely not the wrong decision.

"There were fantastic performances throughout the team," said manager Gary McCann. "I am so proud of every one of them. They all did their jobs magnificently.

"Getting in at half-time all-square was a real achievement, because we were outplayed in the first 35 minutes.

"We knew they were a bit fragile if things weren't going their way. It was a bit like the way we were a few years ago when we dominated without scoring and fell away after conceding.

"In the second half we were outstanding. Elliott Brathwaite was a rock and so was James Fisher; he is sheer class."