WORCESTER City's ability to go from the sublime to the ridiculous very quickly has been one of the features of their season.

Just two days after a superb display to beat Crawley 4-0 in the first leg of the Dr Martens Cup final, they turned in a performance that was the complete opposite as a tired-looking side crashed 2-1 at home to lowly Fisher Athletic in the Dr Martens League Premier Division.

To make matters worse, most of City's rivals for third place in the table lost as well, meaning it was a missed opportunity to open up what could have been a decisive gap.

It was Worcester's sixth home league defeat of the season in their final game at St George's Lane this campaign, and with only eight wins, that is the main reason why they have not mounted a title challenge.

Fisher thus became only the second team to complete a league 'double' over John Barton's men this season, although results elsewhere meant they were still sentenced to relegation.

Barton attributed the defeat to his side's hectic run of games recently. "It was like the Weymouth game a few weeks ago -- it was one game too far for us.

"You could tell after 10 minutes what sort of performance we were going to get. We looked tired and short, and the rest of the game confirmed that.

"We had some chances that we didn't take, but overall if we had said beforehand that we could have won three out of the last four games, we would have settled for that, but to win all four was a tall order.

"These little blips we have had keep telling you that we are not really good enough to challenge the Margates and the Burtons. Their slip-ups are far less frequent than ours, and there lies the difference."

Teenage winger Jamie Hyde, who was presented with the young player of the year award before the game, added: "They just wanted it more and showed more determination.

"It was disappointing as we wanted to give the fans a good send-off because it was the last home game.

"We didn't get going at all. We couldn't finish one of our good chances -- perhaps some of the lads had the Crawley game in mind."

The exertions of the Crawley game seemed to leave City with little fight for a mundane league encounter, and battling Fisher took full advantage to deservedly take the points back to London.

Worcester had a couple of warning shots even before the visitors grabbed a 16th minute lead, when a through ball caught the defence napping and on-loan Millwall striker Tommy Tyne lobbed skilfully over advancing City goalkeeper Danny McDonnell.

But an equaliser 10 minutes before the break looked to have settled Worcester down.

Mark Shepherd set up strike partner Mark Owen to squeeze a low shot just inside the right-hand post for his 31st goal of the season.

However, it didn't shake them into life and City were grateful to McDonnell for two excellent saves either side of the break to deny striker Wayne Grant -- who was lucky to be on the pitch after an apparent elbow on Shepherd went unpunished -- and Ray Powell.

Worcester had the chances to regain the lead but didn't take them with Owen again failing to put away opportunities he should have done better with, seeing one effort tipped over by visiting goalkeeper Maurice Munden and volleying another good chance wide after a good cross from Hyde.

That proved costly as Fisher attacked straight from the restart and recalled defender Mark Tucker sliced an attempted pass across the face of his own area straight into the path of Tyne, who gratefully slotted his second goal past McDonnell.