BY SCOTT HATLEY

CHELMSFORD City were made to pay for missing two glorious chances in front of goal as they went down 4-2 against Wealdstone as Grosvenor Vale.

With the scores at 2-2 both Michael Cheek and Mark Hughes missed open goals which would have handed the Clarets all three points.

Instead late goals from Sean Cronin and Matt Ball ensured that the Stones secured a league double over Mark Hawkes’ side, leaving the City boss “disappointed, angry” and “frustrated”.

“Everyone who was at this game, if they think clearly, will know we should have won this game,” said a forlorn-looking Hawkes at full time. “But we haven’t and that’s hard to take.”

Following their defeat to Weston-Super-Mare the previous weekend, Hawkes made two changes to his side, with Yado Mambo and Christian Smith replacing Marvin Ekpiteta and Rohdell Gordon respectively.

But the changes had no immediate effect as Wealdstone took the lead after just 12 minutes when Michael Corcoran got on the end of a near post flick by Scott McGleish to smash home.

The early goal looked to have rattled the visitors, but after settling into the contest Chelmsford were given a chance to level from the spot when Jaanai Gordon was brought down in the area.

With this likely to be his last game of his loan spell from West Ham, Gordon took the spot-kick but saw his effort well saved by Jonathan North, only for Michael Cheek to follow up and convert the rebound.

Going into the second half both sides looked evenly matched with Smith coming closest to breaking the deadlock with his free kick that struck the top of the crossbar.

Minutes later though and City were in front after Cheek’s turn and shot in the area deflected up and into the path of Rob Girdlestone to score his first for the club and put the visitors in the lead.

It was a lead that was to last less than three minutes as a clipped ball into the area was flicked on by McGleish and converted by Elliot Godfrey who appeared to be in an offside position.

The Clarets’ protestations came to nothing, but they could blame no one else but themselves for what transpired afterwards as Cheek and Mark Hughes missed two glorious chances to put the game to bed.

Cheek was first to fluff his lines after latching onto a loose pass to be clean through on goal. The club’s top scorer with 21 goals rounded North but failed to hit the target.

Minutes later and a cross from Leon Redwood was fumbled by North, under pressure from Gordon, and landed perfectly at the feet of Hughes who himself shot high and wide to the frustration of the Clarets travelling fans behind the goal.

Both misses would prove to be costly as with two minutes of normal time remaining the hosts went in front again after Bradley Watkins lost control of the ball under pressure from two Wealdstone attackers, allowing Sean Cronin to lift the ball into an empty net.

And into injury time the points were secured when the Stones broke and Jefferson Louis teed the ball up for Matt Ball to fire into the bottom corner and inflict back to back defeats on the Clarets.

“There’s no consolation today in playing well and dominating the game and the second half for long periods and coming away losing the game,” said Hawkes.

“I don’t take heart in their manager coming up to me and saying that they (Wealdstone) didn’t deserve to win and you should have won.

“I take no pride in that at all because we should have won this game, but we continue to make the same mistakes and we continue to let teams off the hook.”

“There’s no disrespect to Wealdstone but we should have taken all three points today and we should come to places like this and take points, and if we don’t we won’t get what we want at the end of the season which is an outside chance of the playoffs.”

Chelmsford City: Bradley Watkins, Rob Girdlestone, Michael Toner, Mark Hughes (C), Harry Hickford, Yado Mambo, Lee Sawyer, Leon Redwood, Jaanai Gordon (Joe Ward 85’), Michael Cheek, Christian Smith Unused Subs: Nicky Nicolau, Rohdell Gordon, Mark Haines, Jake Gordon.