Sidmouth Town went down 5-1 when they travelled to Newton Abbot Spurs for their latest South West Peninsula League Eastern Division outing.

The result leaves the sides at the opposite end of the table with Spurs top and the Vikings bottom, and the score line probably reflects those current positions.

However, the final score certainly does not reflect what happened in the contest over the 90 minutes of action!

Spurs mad ea flying start and took the lead in just the fourth minute when Rhys Moseley’s cross found the head of Matt Barkwell who nodded past Sidmouth goal keeper Josh Mclean.

Sidmouth had two very good chances to equalise, but alas, both Tyler Wellman and Ashley Small spurned excellent opportunities to restore parity and, on 26 minutes, Spurs lethal hitman Adam Dyson was denied by Mclean only for Barkwell to react the quickest to slot home the rebound following the initial clean save.

Despite trailing 2-0, the final 10 minutes of the half belonged to Sidmouth with Nathan Antat causing the home side all kinds of problems and it was Antat, who, in the 44th minute delivered a terrific free-kick that was met by Jake Allen who headed it off a defender and into the goal to send the Vikings into the break just a single goal behind at 2-1.

The second half began with Town the dominant force, but missed chances, good goalkeeping and solid defending, kept them at arms bay.

Given the effort that Town had put in for five sixths of the game, it was perhaps unsurprising that they began to ‘run out of steam’ late on and the home side, who field a potent strike force, took advantage scoring three further goals through Liam Jones, Moseley’s second and a third from Barkwell.

The home side agreed that they were very fortunate to have 11 players on the field at the end of the game following an ‘x-rated’ challenge on the hour mark that left Sidmouth’s teenage defender Ollie Binion with three inch stud marks down the side off his face! However, the ‘offence’ drew just a yellow card from the match official.

Sidmouth (from): Mclean, Antat, Booth, Clenahan, Binion, Rowe, Wellman, Davies, Holding (C), Allen, small. Used subs: B Miller, Colson and Johnson.

Star man – Nathan Antat