Hendon slipped quietly out of the Isthmian League Cup on Monday night, going down to Harrow Borough at Vale Farm. The match was a low0key affair treated as such by both teams, but there were extenuating circumstances.

This game came just two days after each had enjoyed massive e.on-sponsored FA Cup victories, it was also five days before the teams meet again in the FA Trophy, and it was less than a fortnight before the teams face season-defining FA Cup 4th qualifying round ties.

They were the reasons that both teams made wholesale changes to their line-ups from their previous fixtures. Harrow, in fact, had only one starter returning, while Hendon gave starts to James Reading, Matt O'Brien (his first for almost two months), Daniel Wishart, Aaron Morgan and Mariusz Serwin and rested Berkley Laurencin, Belal Aite-Ouakrim, Casey Maclaren, Lubo Guentchev and James Parker (though all but the last-named were on the subs bench).

Harrow had a distinct advantage over Hendon in that their second string play in the Capital League and, because of that, they know each other better in terms of playing style and as a unit than the mix-and-match side put out by the Greens. And Borough thoroughly deserved their victory in this encounter.

In the ninth minute, Kenta Nakashima had a great chance to give Harrow the lead. He was clean through on goal, with only James Reading to beat, but the goalkeeper did well to spread himself and take the ball of the Japanese midfielder's toe.

Reading was very fortunate, 10 minutes later, to stay on the pitch when he brought down Kurt Morlese as the striker attempted to go round him. It was clearly a foul, but a covering Hendon defender had got back just enough to sew the seeds of doubt into the referee's mind as to whether it was a clear goalscoring chance.

As Harrow fans bayed for a red card, the referee used the reasonable doubt argument and produced only a yellow. Troy Hewitt took the penalty kick and had no trouble in opening the scoring.

Hendon were level in the 28th minute. A shot from Lee O'Leary, from the edge of the penalty area, was superbly saved by Jamie Adim, at the expense of a corner.

The ball was curled in and Adim jumped for the ball with Craig Vargas, but couldn't hold onto it under pressure. As the ball bounced on the ground, Serwin pounced and struck the ball past a defender on the goalline to score his second goal for the club.

Harrow stepped up the pressure in the second half and missed a couple of golden opportunities to retake the lead, Morlese somehow firing wide of the target when it seemed easier to score.

Eddie Munnelly limped off after 60 minutes and Dave Reading replaced him for his Hendon debut, giving the Greens identical twins on the pitch for the first time since James and Mark Burgess played together five seasons ago.

Two minutes later, Harrow made their first change, bringing on Dewayne Clarke at the expense of Morlese and it took the striker less than four minutes to change the game. The every dangerous Nakashima did well down the right wing and when his ball came into the penalty area Clarke wasted no time in despatching it past James Reading.

That proved to be the match-winner, but Harrow really should have extended their advantage on a number of occasions. Borough sent on Warren Whiteley and Clayton Dixon for Hewitt and Evandro Delgado, respectively, in the final 20 minutes, while Hendon made only one more change, Guentchev coming on for O'Leary.

Hendon did have one final good chance to get an equaliser, in the 87th minute. It fell to Serwin, but he was denied by another excellent save from Adim. Two other half-chances came the Greens' way, but the luck of the bounce went Harrow's way and defenders were able to clear the danger before a Hendon player could reach the ball.

"I am never happy to lose a match," said Hendon manager Gary McCann, "but tonight we were beaten by a better team.

"We have had two really tough games in the past six days and I had to rest some of the team. Harrow's squad is much larger than ours and because they play in the Capital League it helped them to be more cohesive as a unit."