ON Friday night St George’s Lane staged a fireworks spectacular.

A little under 24 hours later, Worcester City and Welling United provided nothing of the sort.

The match was dull, lacked the sparkle befitting the time of year and was frankly a poor advert for Blue Square South football.

The first-half was dreadful and the second not much better from two struggling sides.

Of the few chances fashioned, Welling just about deserved to edge the encounter, which they did courtesy of skipper Jack Parkinson’s 55th minute goal.

City were a shadow of the team that has improved significantly on home soil in recent weeks and their attacking tempo, highlighted pre-match by manager Richard Dryden, was non-existent.

They could, however, have salvaged something from the wreckage had sub Matt Dinsmore not hit his 66th minute effort straight at keeper Charlie Mitten.

The performance was a far cry from what Dryden wanted from his players to start their 48-hour home double-header and perhaps the only redeeming feature is they have a game tomorrow night (Monday) to put things right.

At the moment though, following on from the drubbing at Eastleigh, Worcester are fast undoing all the good work they have done in the past month.

Dryden has praised the depth of his squad and opted to leave striker Marco Adaggio out of the 16 altogether.

No doubt Adaggio, last season’s top-scorer, will be expecting to be involved against Chelmsford this evening after watching Marc McGregor and Marvin Brown fail to muster a shot on target between them.

The former Weston-super-Mare team-mates, reunited at Worcester in the last fortnight, offered precious little and were both hauled off long before the end.

Shabir Khan returned at left-back following a bout of swine flu — a move which saw Wayne Daniel dropped to the bench, while Alfie Carter was a surprise starter on the left flank instead of Dinsmore.

There was nothing to raise the spirits of the crowd before the half-time break on a chilly afternoon.

Tony Finn showed occasional moments of menace on the left wing and managed two shots, one gathered comfortably by Ben Hinchliffe, the other only endangering the fans on the terraces.

Worcester failed to register a shot on target in the first 45 minutes and the closest they came saw skipper Tom Kemp blast over at the far post following Graham Ward’s corner.

Carter also drilled wide a minute before half-time, taking advantage of a fortuitous deflection off referee Ron Ganfield in the build-up.

McGregor was replaced by Gary Walker at the break and Wilding pushed up front alongside Brown in attempt to force the issue.

But it did not have the desired effect and Welling were ahead 10 minutes later.

City were guilty of ball-watching in the six-yard box and captain Parkinson made the most of his good fortune by turning the loose ball past Hinchliffe.

The Kent side should have doubled their lead seconds later but Lee Clarke fired straight at Hinchliffe following a quick break.

Dinsmore, on for Brown, had his side’s best chance to equalise soon after but, having been let in by a weak Graeme Andrews back-pass, saw Mitten save with his feet.

That should have been the spark to ignite a City comeback, something they have done so often at the Lane when chasing a game.

But instead there was nothing. They showed no urgency in trying to rescue a point with a barn-storming finish and almost seemed to accept their fate.

Wilding was denied by Mitten after working himself into a good position seven minutes from time but it was too little too late.