8:46am Monday 24th March 2008
THURROCK travel to Berkshire this afternoon to face a Maidenhead side reeling from a 3-0 defeat against a Cambridge City side that closed to within a point of Thurrock following the win.
Thurrock's Achilles heel in an otherwise impressive 2008 has been matches against clubs in the Blue Square South relegation battle, and so it proved again on Saturday at Ship Lane against St Albans as they drew 1-1.
The third-from-bottom visitors led for much of the match through Paul Hakin's goal after seven minutes and it was not until the last minute that Fola Orilonishe equalised to deny Saints all three points and the chance to get out of the relegated bottom three positions.
In September Fleet demolished Saints 5-0 on their own patch, but the Hertfordshire side gained some revenge by knocking them out of the Setanta Shield in December.
Since then Thurrock have enjoyed a fine sequence of results that took them to the fringe of the promotion play-off race and though that dream has faded, this was match that manager Hakan Hayretin will have expected to have won, despite an improved run of form by the visitors.
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