City were forced to settle for a share of the spoils with Farnborough after Jonny Suttle’s late strike cancelled out Jaze Kabia’s first half opener. 

Suttle, on loan from Premier League side AFC Bournemouth, fired home Richard Chin’s slide rule ball as the visitors, who topped the table in October, arrested a run of four consecutive defeats. 

For City, they extended their unbeaten run to three matches and have now only tasted defeat once in eleven games at the TCS since September. 

Home boss John Askey made just one change to the side that comfortably lowered the colours of Hampton & Richmond on the road last time out. In attack, Tyler Harvey came back into the starting line-up for the first time since January 18, replacing Luke Jephcott who notched on his second City debut against the Beavers. 

In windy midweek Cornish conditions, City started where they had left off on the banks of the Thames and after just three minutes, captain Connor Riley-Lowe was felled in the box after a Christian Oxlade-Chamberlain long throw had caused its usual penalty box havoc. 

But the first chance of note at either end of the pitch went the way of Farnborough as Joe Haigh’s sighter from distance stung the palms of home custodian Dan Lavercombe. 

Almost immediately, City came within a whisker of breaking the deadlock when Oxlade-Chamberlain broke over halfway and fed Kabia who, from a tight angle, fired across goal and narrowly off target. 

Kabia was proving a real thorn in Farnborough’s side during the opening stanza and when Yassine En-Neyah broke up play and midfield and fed the Irishman, he once again shot wide of the target. 

The game then became a scrappy cat and mouse affair with neither side able to gain the upper hand although after 31 minutes, City nearly took the lead in fortunate circumstances. Dan Rooney’s cross from the right was cleared by the Farnborough defence straight onto the head of Harvey, with the ball falling into away incumbent Jack Turner’s arms. 

Anywhere else in the goal and City would have been ahead and after Tom Harrison’s snap shot from an Oxlade-Chamberlain throw was held by Turner, the hosts eventually broke the deadlock four minutes before half-time. 

The goal owed much to Kabia’s persistence as after running onto Harvey’s flick just inside the Farnborough half, he outmuscled and outpaced two would-be defenders to cooly slot past Turner for his 13th of the season.

And the dose was almost repeated shortly after but this time, Farnborough managed to snuff out the danger and the lead remained at just 1-0. 

After the turnaround, Farnborough made a defensive change with Ipswich loanee Daniel O’Connor replacing Jack Bateson and after two Oxlade-Chamberlain crosses resulted in half chances for Riley-Lowe and Kabia, the visitors gradually came back into proceedings. 

A hotly contested free-kick award 25-yards out saw a rare sight of Lavercombe’s goal for the visitors and City’s stopper did well to palm Olly Pendlebury’s effort away for a corner. 

As the second stanza wore on, City were thwarted in their efforts to grab a second with two half chances for Billy Palfrey the closest they came. 

Farnborough, meanwhile, looked like they would be content with only shipping once after their poor recent run of form, this match a damage limitation exercise. 

But Suttle had other ideas and in a rare foray forward, City couldn’t smuggle the ball away and the Cherries youngster fired past Lavercombe. 

And almost straight from the restart, Haigh broke free in the box and with the goal at his mercy, fired over when presented with the chance to complete a hugely unlikely turnaround. 

Despite scoring seven injury-time goals already this season, there was to be no episode of the late late show for City as Farnborough repelled any late attacks that would have surely resulted in the winning goal. 

Match Facts

City: Lavercombe, Oxlade-Chamberlain. Dean, Harrison, Bell, En-Neyah, Rooney (Johnson-Fisher, 88), Palfrey (Jephcott, 86), Riley-Lowe. Kabia, Harvey. Subs not used: Law, Neal, Bates. 

Farnborough: Turner, Chin, Haigh, Holmes, Pendlebury (Acey, 75), Suttle, Beeden, Bradshaw (Matthews-Lewis, 75), Young, Hart, Bateson (O’Connor, 45). Sub not used: D’Auria-Henry.

Referee: Tom Ellsmore

Attendance: 1178