Drake’s unbeaten run ended by Chudleigh Maroons

In the game of the day between the top two teams in Division 4 of the Torbay Clearance Services League, Chudleigh Athletic 2nds inflicted the first defeat of the season for Drake FC.

In a superb game that was a credit to the South Devon Football League, three goals from Ben Hamilton-Hill, Gavin Lake and Kai Stocker secured the points to take back up the A38.

The 3-2 win keeps the Maroons 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.

The only other league game played in Division 4 was at the bottom, where South Brent 2nds and Barton Athletic 2nds shared the points in a 2-2 draw.

Two of the delayed Divisional Cup games finally went ahead and resulted in safe passage to the next round for Elburton Villa 3rds, who had a comfortable 8-1 home win against Babbacombe Corries 2nds, while Liverton United 2nds beat Paignton Villa 3rds 5-0.

In Division 3, Liverton United moved into one of the automatic promotion places with a 5-0 win at Paignton Saints 3rds. 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.

Full credit to Sue and Chris Stephens, with Norman cutting the grass, as they are the reason clubs like Liverton United survive.

In Division 2, Paignton Villa 2nds surrendered to Bovey Tracey 2nds, who with a 5-0 win remain in fifth 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 also notched.

In Divisions 1, Upton Athletic rolled back the years in their relegation six-pointer against 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.

Brixham AFC 2nds recent good run of form was halted at Loddiswell, where Beesands Rovers produced a 5-1 victory.

The other game was a real heavyweight tussle between two of the Premier League’s more solid teams in the cup. Full credit goes to the groundsteam at Buckfasteigh for preparing the pitch to be playable and to the players for trying to play football in very heavy conditions.

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 March 16.