Hendon suffered their first defeat in six matches against Gravesend & Northfleet when a suicidal opening half-hour ruined their chances of victory.

Warren Kelly returned to the line-up in place of Curtis Warmington, who moved the subs' bench alongside the returning Davis Haule and Monday's match-winner Nathan Edwards. Dale Binns also came into the side at the expense of Marvyn Watson.

The dusty surface of the Stonebridge Road pitch was turned into more of skidpan by a heavy downpour just before kick-off. The ball flew off the ground, aided by the blustery wind, and it played it into the hands of Gravesend whose tactics are to get the ball forward quickly.

The tactics were shown to good effect in the 8th minute. Hendon won a corner but when Corey Campbell headed the ball out of defence, Gary Fitzgerald should have been able either to pass it back to Freddie Hyatt out wide or into the 'Fleet penalty area.

He did neither and the ball was knocked to Jimmy Jackson. Jackson looked up and sent the ball downfield for the sprinting Che Stadhart. Kelly came across to deal with the danger and Iga came off his line with the same idea. They looked at each other and stopped. STADHART lobbed the ball into the unguarded net.

Two minutes later. Fitzgerald was adjudged to have handled the ball and, in danger, launched the ball into the stand 60 yards away. Referee Mr P Durston (Essex) will rarely hand out a less contentious yellow card.

The Hendon captain and referee had not finished with their discussions and 15 minutes later, Fitzgerald again lost his cool, and Mr Durston had no hesitation in showing another yellow and the red card.

With 10 men, a goal down and 65 or so minutes to go, things looked bleak for the Greens. But a funny thing happened. The 10 men stiffened their resolve, ran like demons and, for most of the game, Gravesend's man advantage was almost forgotten.

That being said, Gravesend still created a hatful of great chances that they failed to take. Stadhart should have taken the match ball home with him but he somehow managed to miss open goals from less than 10 yards three times.

Hendon had 5 chances of note, 3 of which fell to Jon Daly. In the 32nd minute, he headed a Hyatt corner against the outside of a post. The effort appeared to be covered by former Wealdstone goalkeeper Darren Bonfield, but he was nonetheless surprised to hear the ball clang against the metalwork.

In the 47th minute, from a free-kick, Daly timed his run perfectly to beat the offside trap. The wind added pace to Hyatt's kick and Daly could not position himself to divert the ball past Bonfield. Instead it bounced off his head in a gentle loop to the grateful 'keeper.

Dominic Gentle again worked like a Trojan with little fortune. He did have one header from a Binns cross, but Craig Wilkins did enough to put him off.

It was by no means one way traffic and Iga produced a couple of superb stops as well as watching Stadhart waste harder opportunities than the goal he scored.

In the 84th minute, Hendon's best chance fell to Daly when Gentle headed down a Hyatt free-kick. The hard-working midfielder had no time to control the ball, but a striker's instinctive touch would probably have brought a goal.

The Gravesend defence held out under much pressure in the final 5 minutes and if their clearances had more than a stroke of luck about them, they always had a numerical advantage in the last third of the pitch.

"We made it hard for ourselves," said disappointed manager Frank Murphy. "I was very disappointed with Gary, but after we went down to 10 men, we played much better."