Sidmouth Town silenced their doubters by beating reigning Premier league champions St Martin’s 4-1 away.

After a blinding start to the season, results have steadied a little over the stop-start winter period but they slammed back into form with this performance.

Manager Paul Ashford has never been one to get carried away with league aspirations and exorbitant claims but he expects the football performance to speak for the club on the pitch.

Goals were scored by Andrew Thomson, Mark Badcock and Dave Rowe. It wasn’t all easy going though and keeper Luke Ashford had to be at the peak of his form to deny St Martin’s who blasted the Sidmouth goal in the first 20 minutes. And Mark Badcock marked ex-Exeter City player Jamie Mudge out of the match.

There is no doubt this performance stakes Sidmouth’s claim for a foothold in the Peninsula League East.

They have a superb testing ground for that standard this Saturday when they take on unbeaten-this-season Staverton and Landscove at home in the Devon Premier Cup area quarter finals.

It’s a big game (2pm kickoff), possibly the biggest in the club’s history, and the Vikings are look ing forward to it. Get down to Manstone Lane on Saturday and support your boys!

Sidmouth Reserves were back in action, at long last, as they took on The Royal Marines at home last Saturday.

The Vikings started slowly, which was hardly surprising considering the last time they played was November 27!

They slowly, but surely, got into their rhythm and, with Nick Trenchard and Jack Lewis working hard up front, the Vikings started to dominate play.

Rory Weal had a good chance to put Sidmouth in front, but could not find the target with his powerful drive, and the teams went in at half time all square at 0-0.

After the break, Sidmouth started to get the ball wide. This soon paid dividends when Tom Chaplin hit a great ball down the right channel, which Nick Trenchard raced on to.

Managing to keep the ball in play, he took one touch and hit a perfect far post cross, which Jack Lewis met with his head to give the goalkeeper no chance.

The goal buoyed the Vikings and the two wide men, Ian Mortimore and Nathan Brace, started to cause all sorts of problems,

Sidmouth went two up when Mortimore put in a perfect low cross which was met on the edge of the six yard box by Brace who steered the ball inside the far post.

With Chaplin, Griffiths, Nicolle and Sellick looking solid at the back and the central midfield pairing of Weal and Johnson chasing everything there was no way back for the Royal Marines and the Vikings deservedly picked up all three points.

Man of the Match: Charlie Nicolle

Sidmouth Town V The Royal Marines: Robbie Powell, Brett Sellick, Charlie Nicolle, Anthony Griffiths, Tom Chaplin, Huw Johnson, Rory Weal, Ian Mortimore, Jack Lewis, Nick Trenchard, Nathan Brace Subs: Simon Hudson, Jules Hudson, Alex Martin.