Tag: Drake FC

liverton united reserves 2024

Champions Increase Pressure on Top Two with 4-0 Victory

EYES ON THE PRIZES: The Division Four race for silverware is hotting up with Liverton United Reserves beating leaders Drake FC in their quest for a league and cup double. Photo contributed by SDFL

With almost a full program of fixtures for the first time in many weeks, the Torbay Clearance Services South Devon Football League returned to the business part of the season where teams that have worked hard since last August make their moves for silverware or the points that are needed to keep the status they currently hold.

Before I get on to the results I do have some sympathy for Premier Division Morley Rangers who have somehow managed to hold on to the runners-up spot despite suffering their sixth weather-related postponement in the last seven weeks; in fact, if they had played every week, they would have finished their season last weekend; hopefully they will play some games in April.

In the Torbay Clearance Services Premier League, Kingsteignton Athletic had a massive 4-nil victory at Buckfastleigh Rangers and are now just 2 points behind Morley Rangers in third with a game in hand. Tom Reeves and Luke Manuell were on target for the Rams. The other two games played in the Premier Division were in the Belli League Cup where Newton Abbot ’66 progressed to the semi-final with a 4 – 2 win at East Allington United; Aiden Corcoran and Daniel Joyce scored for the South Hams outfit, but ’66, who are also in the quarter-finals of the Herald Cup, continued their good cup form with goals from Tom Lowe, Joe Clarke Farley, Jacon Cockram and Carl Foskett. Brixham AFC Reserves also bowed out of the league cup at the hands of Elburton Villa Resurves; the 6 – 1 scoreline did not do justice to the hard-working youngsters at Brixham who now have 6 league games left and are 8 points from safety; they will be hoping for a spring revival in their remaining games.

Division One has proved to be as exciting and competitive as everybody thought at the start of the season, and there are still 5 teams in the mix and no runaway leaders as some thought. Ivybridge Town Reserves have been knocked off top spot; a 3 – 2 defeat at Buckland Athletic Reserves has let Paignton Saints move into pole position albeit on goal difference. The Ivies scored through Daniel Hodgson and Matt Hill, but they were sent packing back down the A38 empty-handed following strikes from Lee Grimshaw, Gordon Stevenson and Luca Staniforth. Paignton Saints, who are enjoying life in the South Devon League following a spell in the football pyramid, had a comfortable 5 – 1 home win against local rivals Paignton Villa at Coach Road. Also in the same situation, Newton Abbot Spurs Reserves seem to be enjoying their football again and are still in the mix; just 9 points off the top with 3 games in hand, they ran out 7 – 1 victors over bottom club Buckfastleigh Rangers Reserves, and Brixham Town, who may be outsiders but are level on points with Spurs, had a great 3 – 2 win against a strong Watcombe Wanderers team.

The big game at the bottom of the table went the way of Upton Athletic; they beat Harbertonford by a single goal on the slope at Steps Cross and have moved 3 points clear of the drop zone.

In Division Two of the Torbay Clearance Services League, pre-season favourites Paignton Saints Reserves slipped up away at Barton Athletic losing by 3 goals to 2; they are now 7 points off the lead with only 2 games in hand; the only other game in this division was at Ipplepen Athletic Reserves who moved up 4 places with a 4-nil win over bottom club Brixham Town Seconds.

In Division Three, Stoke Gabriel TP cemented a mid table position with a 2 – 1 win over Newton Abbot ’66 Seconds at Osborne Park; Adam Blackburn and Garry Drew got on the scoresheet for the visitors and with some games in hand, ’66 still have some work to do. The league cup for this division saw favourites Ashburton lose the A38 derby game by 1 goal to nil to South Brent who are 7 places below them in the league; it took an extra time strike from Jono Ellis to put Brent into the semi-final. Joining them will be Watcombe Wanderers Seconds who were taken all the way by Teign Village but ran out 2 – 1 victors in the end; goals from Simon Ross and Mike Fieldhouse were just enough for the Greens.

The Division Four title race was blown wide open by an experienced Liverton United Reserves team who travelled to league leaders Drake FC, and it was the visitors who took the lead 2 minutes before the break when Aaron Underhill broke free and slotted the ball past the advancing ‘keeper. Prior to that, the home team simply did not take their chances and when in the second half Liverton were awarded a free-kick some 30 yards from goal and the speculative cross took a deflection…you know where it ended up. The visitors sat back and soaked up the pressure and again Drake spurned their chances; they did get a consolation goal 3 minutes from the end but the visitors took the points back to Halford. This division also has 5 teams in with a shout for honours: Liverton are now 1 point behind Drake with a game in hand; Kingsteignton Athletic Reserves are fourth, 8 points behind with 3 games in hand and Elburton Villa Thirds are 10 points behind with 5 games in hand. Outsiders Chudleigh Athletic Seconds remain in third place but only have 3 games in total to play.

Games to catch on 6th April (or earlier if you need a football fix as teams start playing midweek to catch up on their postponed games): South Brent still have 13 games to play in Division Three; they sit third from bottom but are in fact promotion candidates with games in hand; they play Teign Village who are 1 place below them and need the points to stay up KO is 6.15pm on Wednesday.

drake fc 2024
TAKE TWO: Division Four leaders Drake FC will once again welcome Liverton Reserves to Millbay Park as they battle for a place in the Les Bishop Cup final.

WBB will attempt for the sixth time to host Morley Rangers in the Belli Cup, and Beesands Rovers will be looking to get their season back on track at home to Kingsteignton Athletic. Totnes and Dartington host Newton Abbot Spurs in a Division One game at Dartington Hall and in Division Two, Newton Abbot Spurs Thirds host Paignton Saints Reserves who are both chasing a promotion place. There are a couple of promotion clashes in Division Three: Liverton United host runaway leaders Watcombe Wanderers Reserves and South Brent play Ashburton in an A38 derby game. In the Division Four league cup, Drake FC will lock horns with Liverton United reserves for the second time in two weeks, and there is a wooden spoon fixture at White Rock where Paignton Villa Thirds welcome South Brent Reserves, and may the best team on the day win. Just also a reminder that the first South Devon League cup final kicks off on Friday 12th April at Buckfastleigh when Paignton Saints Reserves face Watcombe Wanderers Reserves in the Fred Hewings Cup which is the knockout competition for reserve teams; kick off is 7pm and it should be a cracker.

Drake Scuppered Near The Hoe

Holders Out: Buckfastleigh Rangers (green), pictured here in last season’s final, are out of the Belli Cup following a 2-1 loss at home to Waldon Athletic. ©Al Macphee/MiraclePR

In the game of the day between the top two teams in Division Four of the Torbay Clearance Services League, Chudleigh Athletic Seconds inflicted the first defeat of the season for Drake FC. In an end-to-end game that was a credit to the South Devon Football League, three goals from the visitors, courtesy of Ben Hamilton-Hill, Gavin Lake and Kai Stocker, secured the points to take back up the A38. The win keeps the Maroons well on course for promotion in second place behind Drake but with fewer games to play. Liverton, Kingsteignton, Elburton and Broadhempston can all catch the top two with their games in hand, and none of these teams played last weekend. The only other league game played in Division Four was at the bottom where South Brent Seconds and Barton Athletic Seconds shared the points in a 2 – 2 draw. Two of the delayed divisional cup first round games finally went ahead and resulted in safe passage to the next round for Elburton Villa Thirds, who who had a comfortable 8 – 1 home win against Babbacombe Corries Seconds, and Liverton United Seconds also took the brakes off, winning 5-nil versus Paignton Villa Thirds.

In Division Three, Liverton United moved into one of the automatic promotion places with a 5-nil win on the 3G at South Devon College against Paignton Saints Thirds. As a club, Liverton have certainly been on a rollercoaster of a journey from twice being crowned champions of the South West Pennisula League at Step 6 in the football pyramid to having just one team in the bottom division of the South Devon Football League, and whilst players will always come and go at a whim, or God forbid they have to sit on the bench, it is the people behind the scenes that pick up the pieces and keep football clubs afloat, and full credit to Sue and Chris Stephens, with Norman cutting the grass when he is able, is the main reason that clubs like Liverton United survive, and with both of their teams growing in confidence, the club is in a positive mode.

There was only one game that survived Fridays downpour in Division Two and that was at Whiterock where Paignton Villa Seconds surrendered to Bovey Tracey Seconds who, with a 5-nil win, remain in fifth place but are now only two points off the top with three games in hand. Lewis Perring and Mathew Churchill got two goals each, and Alistair Chuchuk got a single for the Moorlanders who are looking good for consecutive promotions.

In Divisions One’s only game, Upton Athletic rolled back the years in their relegation six-pointer versus Buckfastleigh Rangers Reserves; a 10 – 1 victory moves them out of the bottom two on goal difference. Sam Lamburn scored four, Jamie Lane hit a hat-trick and there were singles for Callum Dunn, Keiron Nixon and Shaun Johhansen.

Just two Premier games survived, one in the divisional cup and one in the league. Brixham AFC Seconds’ recent good run of form was halted at Loddiswell where Beesands Rovers managed to put a halt to their recent run of poor form and produced a 5 – 1 win that puts them in fifth place but leaves the Fishermen with some work to do. Aiden Bovey was on target for the visitors but strikes from Adam Winkworth, on three minutes, and 17 year-old Alex Smith put the Bees on track; Jack Eades and Louis Brace scored singles which secured the points for the the home team.

Jacob Knapman scores the winning goal for Waldon, from the penalty spot, in their 2-1 Belli Cup win. Photo contributed by SDFL.

The other game was a real heavyweight tussle between two of the Premier league’s more solid teams and the conditions certainly helped them live up to their reputation. Full credit goes to the groundsteam at Buckfastleigh for preparing the pitch to be playable, and full credit to the players for trying to play football in very heavy conditions, and they all had to work hard as the pitch did deteriorate as time went on. Louis Roberts scored in the first half for Waldon Athletic and Jacob Knapman scored the winning goal from the penalty spot following a clumsy challenge which probably was not helped by the sticky conditions to put Waldon into the next round of the George Belli Cup with a mouth-watering home game against Ilsington Villa on 16th March.

Games to catch on Saturday 9th March.

In the Torbay Clearance Services Herald Cup, it’s quarter-final stage and Elburton Villa Reserves (Premier) welcome Newton Spurs Reserves (Division One), Ilsington Villa (Premier) welcome Brixham Town (Division One) and hopefully the two delayed games featuring Newton ’66 (Premier) and South Brent (Division Three) and the all-Premier tie between WBB and Morley Rangers will finally get played. Elsewhere in the divisional cups, Ivybridge Reserves host Paignton Saints which should be a great game. There is another relegation six-pointer at Buckfastleigh where the Reserves host Harbertonford.

For all of this weeks games, click TCSSDFL Fixtures on the menu bar.