Action between Exmouth reserves and Axmouth at the Southern Road ground on Saturday afternoon. Photo by Simon Horn. Ref exsp 5795-04-13SH To order your copy of this photograph go to www.exmouthjournal.co.uk and click on MyPhotos24.

St Martin’s 7, Budleigh Salterton Reserves 0

It was truly a very bad weekend for Budleigh Salterton Football Club what with the problems at the 1st team match and a serious lack of fighting spirit from the Reserve’s as they were thrashed at St Martins, writes SpursTom.

I have been reporting on the reserves now for almost a year, and in that time I have said nothing controversial, although maybe a little critical at times, but watching this latest match I got the impression that there were players who were not up to the challenge.

Changes were made to the starting line-up because of knocks obtained the previous week.

Although they started well going close in the opening minutes, it was apparent from St. Martins’ first attack down the Robins left, there was a feeling it was going to be an uncomfortable afternoon for the visitors.

Goal keeper Jordan Hockold was called upon several times and pulled off a couple of very good saves before he was finally beaten in the 19th minute.

Within six minutes it became 3–0, and just after the half hour mark it was 4-0. Sadly an all-round poor performance went from bad to worse as a fourth goal was soon shipped and the well below-par Robins conceded a fifth on the stroke of half time. Typical of the way things were going on the day, despite Hockhold doing well to get down and save an initial free-kick the rebound fell invitingly to the home player who made no mistake from close range. No, I am sorry to say, but it was all very disappointing and disheartening to see this Budleigh performance. Take nothing away from St Martins for they were on top of their game, and are clearly an accomplished outfit, but it was made much easier for them. The early second half exchanges saw Budleigh go close again before the home side again imposed their considerable selves on the contest. On 54 minutes they increased their advantage to 6-0. Having made a tactical substitution Budleigh began a spell of playing some good football, but failed to score in that period and was punished in the 65th minute, this was followed by their third substitution. Not too long afterwards they were reduced to 10 men when glovesman Hockhold was injured and James Nicholls took over between the sticks. Although he looked nervous at first he nevertheless surprised us with some smart saves, but was helpless in preventing the score going to 8–0. On a very frustrating afternoon, the performances of Carl Wilson and substitute Aiden Martin were amongst the few bright spots for the Robins.

One other disappointing matter to report is that, in general I have a lot of respect for the match officials, and although it made no difference to the outcome of this match, some of the decisions given in this game were somewhat baffling.