Hendon’s interest in the Isthmian League Cup again ended at the first hurdle, this time a disappointing 2–0 defeat at the hands of Harrow Borough at Wembley FC on Wednesday. Played on an almost white, frozen pitch, there was little in the 90 minutes to warm the fans.

Marc Leach and Harry Hunt were both rested, with Danny Dyer and Sam Byfield making their first starts for a long while in a reshuffled line-up. Casey Maclaren was also on the bench after missing more than two months with back trouble, as was Jamie Busby, who had been suffering from Achilles trouble.

However poorly Hendon played, they would probably still have won had Toby Jinadu’s last-man foul on the escaping Lubomir Guentchev seen the Borough defender recieve a red card. With no defender close to the young Bulgarian, only Gary Ross stood between Guentchev and an open goal, it was a little surprising that the referee deemed the chance not to be a goalscoring opportunity. However, Jindu escaped with a yellow card.

Easily Borough’s most accomplished defender thereafter, Jinadu’s last-ditch tackles on Brian Haule and Shulton before half-time arguably kept the away side in the tie and Hendon might have been able to exploit against an undermanned Harrow team, for whom ex-Green Danny Murphy was making his debut, having signed that morning.

After 17 minutes, Miles Jones had a great chance to give Harrow the lead following a good save from William Viner. Admittedly from a narrow angle, he had most of the goal to aim at, but fired into the side-netting.

Five minutes before half-time, Shulton twisted around Jamie Lawrence and was turning towards goal when the former Premiership player pulled him down. It was a clear penalty and, in the eyes of some in the ground, another goalscoring opportunity, though there was some doubt over this foul. Given the earlier decision that Jindu hadn't been guilty of this offence, the referee was undoubtedly correct in just issuing a booking to Lawrence.

Haule stepped up and struck the penalty low, but not powerfully enough to beat Ross’s dive. The goalkeeper, guessing correctly, pushed the ball away for a corner, while Haule – desperately out of form and confidence – looked shattered.

For the start of the second half, Harrow introduced Gary Noel at the expense of Jones, who had suffered a painful encounter with an advertising hoarding behind the goal. Signed from Dulwich on Monday, Noel had already given Hendon problems, turning an initial tie with Dulwich in the South Londoner's favour with an excellent performance and popping up to score in the replay to leave the Greens with a difficult final half hour to negotiate.

In the 50th minute, a mishit clearance from Viner fell to Dewayne Clarke, whose effort was blocked. Noel then had an almost open goal to aim at, but Viner recovered well and the chance was missed.

It was a warning the Hendon defence failed to heed and, eight minutes later, more miscommunication allowed NOEL another chance. This time, he made no mistake to give Borough the lead.

With 20 minutes to go, Busby and Hunt were brought on at the expense of Shulton and Haule, respectively, and they livened things up, though with only one recognized striker, the Greens didn’t look particularly threatening.

Maclaren was brought on with 10 minutes to go, taking over the armband from the departing James Burgess and he nearly made it a dream return when presented with an 84th-minute chance. If he had been playing regularly, then Maclaren would surely have done better than lifting the ball just over the crossbar.

It proved to be a crucial miss because, barely two minutes later, with Hendon over-committed to attack, Harrow got around the back of the Greens rearguard and Robin Shroot set up Noel for his second goal.

In the final few minutes, Hendon did have a couple of half-chances, but the Harrow defence – having leaked seven goal to the Greens a few weeks ago – were determined to keep a clean sheet this time.

(Report by David Ballheimer, not to be reproduced without author's prior permission)