TIVVY ARCHIVE

Biggleswade Town 4 - 0 Tiverton Town

There are two ways summarise Tivvy's most recent defeat of the season thus far. One: a bad day at the office; and two; it goes to show the craziness of this season's Southern League Premier Division. To try to prove my point about the latter I'm going to refer to the next supposed visitors to Ladysmead, Farnborough. Beaten at home by the then bottom of the table Gosport Borough in the previous week only to hand out five strokes of the cane to table topping Kings Lynn. No, I don`t get it either. Two goals in five first half minutes from the Waders' number nine Liam Brooks, who completed his hat-trick from the penalty spot just after the hour mark before giant centre half Gavin Hoyte, brother of former Arsenal player Justin, completed the rout soon after.

It could have all been so different though. As early as the fourth minute a long-range effort from Tom Gardner grazed the top of the crossbar after a corner was only partially cleared and Nick Hurst sent a rasping drive narrowly wide after he cut in off the left flank. But that was about as good as it got on a day to forget for more than just footballing reasons. The Waders' first meaningful forward forage on twelve started the ball rolling. Tyler Walker released Robbie Parker, who centred for Brooks to tap home from close range and the Parker/Brooks pairing combined again five minutes later to double the lead, Brooks beating Martin Rice at his near post with a powerful shot. The clearly un-fit Levi Landricombe, struggling with a back problem picked up in the previous victory over Kings Langley, went about reducing the deficit but was twice comfortably thwarted by the hosts' keeper Liam Gooch, who again did well to stop Tom Bath scoring, and when Bath thought he had reduced the arrears on the stroke of half time, tapping home Landricombe's cross, he was very questionably flagged offside.

Gooch, to be honest, could have spent large parts of the second half elsewhere such was the pattern of play and the home side's dominance. Morgan Penfold sent George Bailey clear, only to see his shot bounce back into play off the far post and in a rare forage forward for Tivvy, Hoyte bravely blocked as Landricombe shaped to shoot after brother Michael had sent him away. Callum Hall replaced Jamie Short just before the hour and his first real involvement was to hand the hosts a glorious chance for their third, catching Penfold from behind inside the area and Brooks duly obliged from the resulting penalty and completed his treble, despite Rice guessing correctly and getting hands on his effort. Hoyte then rubbed salt into wounds three minutes later, lobbing over defenders and goalkeeper from the edge the area after a Penfold free kick was only partially cleared.

The remaining twenty or so minutes passed by without any further incident and the hosts recorded their largest home win of the season to make a mockery of their league position before the match and also condemned Tivvy to their heaviest defeat of the season so far.

Tiverton Town: Martin Rice, Nick Hurst, Michael Landricombe, Jamie Price, Ben Mammola, Tom Gardner, Jamie Short (Callum Hall 58), Ollie Knowles, Tom Bath, Levi Landricombe (Owen Irish 67), Scott Rogers

Attendance: 115