St Albans 6, Dereham Men's 1st XI 0

A depleted Dereham side suffered a heavy defeat at the hands of high-flying St Albans in the East Premier A Division on Saturday.

The result sees the Norfolk club drop to fifth in the table, while St Albans have moved to the top with a game in hand following Harleston Magpies' scoreless draw against third placed Bedford.

Dereham made the journey south with three key players absent due to injury and unavailability. Mark Braybrook and Mark Timm both missed the clash due to work commitments, while midfield playmaker Andy Lawrence continues to recover from knee ligament damage.

Despite fielding a weakened side against arguably the strongest team in the league, Dereham performed admirably in the first half and were unlucky to find themselves 2-0 down at the break. Both goals were of the highest quality, with a perfectly placed penalty corner flick and a superb counter attacking goal giving St Albans the edge in the contest.

Dereham's chances took a big blow towards the end of the first half when central defender Mark Hunter questioned a decision made by former national league umpire Tarsem Chagger and was sent to the sin-bin for ten minutes. Despite this, the visitors continued to fight hard and came close to reducing the deficit when a penalty corner strike from Mike Timm was deflected fractionally over the crossbar by man of the match Matt Stainthorpe.

However, the ten men of Dereham were eventually exposed by the impressive St Albans strikers who scored twice in as many minutes to extend their advantage to 4-0.

The final ten minutes of the match were packed full of incident with a disallowed goal, a yellow card and two superb strikes for the title favourites. A neat deflected goal from Dereham captain Rich Stainthorpe was correctly ruled out due to an infringement outside the circle before a show of dissent from right winger Mike Timm earned him a yellow card suspension. St Albans immediately ramped up the pressure on their numerically disadvantaged opponents and netted two more goals.

This weekend, Dereham will be boosted by the return of Mark Timm and Mark Braybrook when they face City of Peterborough II at Greenfields Road. The match begins at noon.

UEA 2, Dereham Ladies 2nd XI 0

After a fantastic start to the season Dereham suffered their first defeat at the hands of UEA II.

Just before the end of the first half, UEA won a short corner. Knowing the half-time whistle was about to blow, Dereham's defence ran out as hard as they could, but the UEA striker hit the ball hard into the back of the goal. It was Dereham's first conceded goal of the season.

A hard second half saw the Dereham defence under yet more pressure and a wayward shot from the edge of the circle managed to find the back of the goal.

n Two goals in each half gave Dereham men's third team a 4-0 win against Norwich City IV.

Andy Dear fired home from a short corner to give Dereham the lead and shortly afterwards Matthew Taylor slid the ball home for his first goal for the side. Will Dewing added a third early in the second half and James Nash finished the scoring when his speculative drive into the D was deflected by the Norwich goalkeeper into his own net.

n Dereham Ladies III won 2-0 at Norwich City III.

After 20 minutes Gemma Pointer netted following a reverse pass from Howes. Becca Smith-Ames added the second after a goalmouth melee following a short corner.

Player of the match Erren Ampleford produced another solid performance.

n Dereham's boys development side lost 2-1 at Harleston Magpies, with Harry scoring the only goal for the visitors.