A season which promised so much but ultimately delivered so little ended in fitting fashion as St Albans City suffered a last-gasp defeat against Eastbourne Borough.

The agonising final day loss came after Christian Oxlade-Chamberlain, a 87th minute substitute, found the net in the third minute of added time to earn the hosts a 3-2 win.

The defeat was made all the more disheartening considering City had fought back from two goals down to restore parity with 14 minutes to play.

After a goalless first half, city went behind four minutes after the restart as Nathaniel Pinney raced clear and rounded James Russell to score.

Pinney doubled his and Eastbourne’s tally just after the hour with a well-taken finish to leave the Saints facing an uphill challenge to take anything from the game.

Ian Allinson’s side were in no mood to lay down and two goals in the space of two minutes turned the game on its head.

Firstly Sam Merson raced onto a through ball and fired a low shot under Jordan Holmes in the Borough goal.

The equaliser followed soon after when Shaun Lucien placed a free kick perfectly in the top corner from 20 yards.

City’s continued efforts to find a winner produced no reward as the visitors wasted a number of chances.

Their failure to convert was inevitably punished as Eastbourne went up the other end to snatch all three points at the last.

A deep corner was only partially cleared and Oxlade-Chamberlain, brother of Arsenal star Alex, drove into the box, cut onto his right foot and curled home.

Defeat sees City end the season 10th in the National League South table after a less than impressive second half to the campaign.

City’s profligacy in front of goal - they had a total of 16 shots - epitomised the struggles they have experienced in recent weeks as they failed to make the most of their dominance.

For Allinson, this failure to take chances, coupled with some porous defending has been the route of the Clarence Park club’s failure to trouble the top reaches of the table.

“I thought the second half was outstanding, one of the best in a long time. We created chance after chance but just couldn’t score,” Allinson explained.

“We played some unbelievable stuff to get back to 2-2 and really should have gone on to win the game. We had three or four chances and got hit by a sucker punch.

“Every time they put a ball over the back four we looked like we were going to concede a goal and the first two goals were poor.

“It is the story of the second half of the season. We haven’t defended well and have conceded too many goals.

“There are areas I have to look at now and we have to defend better.”

With the league now completed, City will look to build over the course of the off-season before returning to action in July.