Sidmouth Town are on the road tomorrow (Saturday) with a South West Peninsula League Eastern Division engagement at Teignmouth.

Last Saturday, Town suffered a hugely disappointing defeat at Alphington where, in their first outing for four weeks, the Vikings were beaten 2-0.

With one of the joint managers – Kevin Tooze – away for the day, it was left to Danny Burwood to oversee the action in Exeter.

Tooze says: “Danny said that the first-half show from us was decent and we did spurn two or three gilt-edged chances, going into the break at 0-0, but the less said about the second half the better; apparently, we were dire – and that’s being kind in terms of describing the performance!”

The trip to Teignmouth will be a first for Tooze who says: “In all my footballing years I have never been down there [Teignmouth], but I have no doubt it’ll be a tough afternoon for us and we will certainly need to be a lot better than we were from minutes 46 to 90 at Alphington last Saturday!”

Town will be forced to ring the changes in South Devon for both Clay brothers – Danny and Ben – and Russ Coomb are unavailable.

Tooze says: “It’s less than ideal that we travel without three big players, but, as I always say, one player’s absence is a case of opportunity knocking for someone else to seize the shirt and make a claim for a regular starting berth.”

Earlier this week, Honiton Town boss Kev Blackwell and his assistant Nick Ogden stood down from their roles at Mountbatten Park and, whilst the Honiton boss would not admit it publicly, one thing that had been ‘running him down’ this season has been what he sees as a ‘lack of commitment’ from the playing side.

Tooze has great sympathy for the former Honiton Town boss, of whom he says: “I have enormous respect for both Kev [Blackwell] and Nick [Ogden] – they are two honest and very genuine football lads who I know worked diligently and passionately on behalf of their club – and don’t doubt that if a lack of commitment from players was part of the problem then it is something I am very aware of here.

“The game has changed to such a degree and there certainly does not seem to be the same level of individual commitment as we gave in our playing days.”

He continued: “We are no strangers at Manstone Lane to such issues.

“Take this past week. On Wednesday, a couple lads worked for much of the day to set up training lights at the club and we put on the social media chat app that training for the 1st and 2nd teams would be from 6.30pm on Wednesday night, and how many turned up…. six!

“That, remember, is from two teams! It hardly inspires enthusiasm from a coaching perspective. Don’t get me wrong, I have high praise for the six but, come on, surely there’s more of a desire than that amongst the players – or maybe there isn’t?”

? More football inside on pages 46 and 47.