Hendon's involvement in cup football came to an end for the 2004-05 season with a 4-2 defeat at the hands of Fisher Athletic at their temporary Champion Hill, Dulwich, home on Monday night. The Greens now have 16 games in which to pull themselves out of the relegation mire into which they have slipped with a run of eight defeats in nine Ryman League Premier Division fixtures.

This defeat bore remarkable similarity to the FA Trophy exit against Slough Town 16 days earlier. A desperate first half performance, followed by an encouraging second 45 minutes, during which time there was real hope of obtaining a positive result.

However, there were a couple of positives to take from a game that was essentially decided after 40 minutes. The defence finally kept a clean sheet for 45 minutes and there was real spirit shown in the second half.

Bad traffic meant that Dave Sargent was too late to make the starting line-up and Dean Coppard, Richard McDonagh and John Frendo were also missing from the starting 11, only the latter being on the bench. Into the team came debutant James Parker, a teenager signed from Bishops Stortford, Ren´ Street, Anthony Clark and Danny Julienne.

Little of note happened in the opening quarter-hour, but Fisher did look distinctly the more dangerous. In the 18th minute, poor defending left Darren Bonfield hopelessly exposed and Charlie TAYLOR, who started the season with Hornchurch, opened the scoring. Mark Nicholls was cautioned for complaining about something in the build-up to the goal.

The news only got worse after half an hour, when Damian SCANNELL made it 2-0, finishing off an excellent move and, six minutes later, Steve WATTS added to Hendon's misery.

A minute after that, James Burgess and Scannell launched themselves, two-footed, at each other and somehow managed not to break any bones of their opponent. The pair then squared up to each other. Amazingly the referee, decided that the incident merited just a yellow card for each player and play was restarted with a drop-ball because Mr Crouch wasn't sure who had committed the first or worse offence.

Five minutes before half-time, the Hendon defence lost possession just outside their own penalty area and when the ball was passed to the left, TAYLOR was all alone to score his second goal of the evening.

The half-time team talk in the Hendon dressing room would not have been a happy one. Nicholls and Ross Pickett, who was struggling with a knock, were withdrawn and Sargent and Frendo, respectively, replaced them. The difference was immediate, although it must be said, Fisher were probably in coasting mode.

In the 48th minute, Frendo smashed a shot against a post with goalkeeper Andy Bell well beaten. The ball was knocked to the half-way line, but Hendon regained possession and a good pass from Clark released Eugene Ofori down the right. He did brilliantly to keep the ball in play and go around Steve Aris before delivering a deep cross. Bell couldn't get near the ball and CLARK finished off the move he had started with a comfortable cushioned header, just beating Frendo to the ball.

Six minutes later Hendon were genuinely back in the game. A Sargent free-kick was floated into the penalty area and it seemed as if Bell would claim it. However, a perfectly-timed leap from Jason O'CONNOR resulted in an excellent header that made it 4-2.

Fisher were distinctly rattled and introduced Lenny Piper at the expense of Scannell. The two Piper brothers, both of whom spent a number of years playing in the Nationwide Conference, made sure that there were no more alarms for a quarter-hour.

Joe Nartey replaced Parker as Hendon made one last desperate throw of the dice, and it nearly came up sevens. Nartey was put through and he saw Bell yards off his line and never likely to reach the ball first. The lob, however, was badly overstruck and never looked like going below crossbar height before reaching the goalline.

In the 82nd minute, a shot from Frendo was well parried by Bell, but the rebound fell to feet of Clark. His follow-up was well struck and pretty well placed, but somehow Bell was able to push it away too. Four minutes later, Frendo was denied by a probably even better double save by Bell. Then, as the game moved into stoppage time, Nartey just failed to make it 4-3.

"I don't know what to say," said manager Gary Farrell. "For the third straight game, we have only played for 45 minutes, but it wasn't the same half each time. If it was the same half each time, I would know what I had to work on. The first half performance was diabolical; we defended like girls. Then we did so much better in the second half and if it wasn't for their goalkeeper, we could have won 8-4 or 8-6"