FA Vase

Barnstaple Town 4

Ivybridge are facing two away trips in four days as they look to keep up their recent good form in the premier division writes Tim Leigh.

Firstly they face a tough trip to Cullomp­ton, who have lost just once in the league so far this season, tomorrow. The Rangers will be full of confidence having stroked four goals past Torpoint in their last league outing.

They follow this up with a Tuesday evening visit to the Cornish side well beaten by Rangers, Torpoint, who will themselves be keen to get back to winning ways.

Ivybridge are sitting pretty at fourth place in the league after a slowish start to the season, but they will play no further part in the FA Vase after going down 1-4 to higher-league Barnstaple Town last Saturday.

Played at Erme Val­ley, the match was al­ways likely to be too tough a test for an Ivy­bridge side missing se­ven players, but in the event the scoreline in no way reflected how close the game was.

Barnstaple were much the better side in the first half and were 2-0 up at the break, but the Bridgers responded superbly after the interval. They deservedly pulled a goal back through Luke Brown, but just as they were pushing for an equaliser Josh Fenwick saw red from the referee. Playing a man down for much of the fourth quarter killed off any hopes of a comeback and Barnstaple put the game to bed with another two goals.

Ivybridge Town’s general manager, Brian Howard, said: ‘I’m disappointed with the result. They were the best side first half, but second half we came right back at them, scored a great goal and were right there in it until the red card. Even then we could have equalised, Steve Sutton did brilliantly to beat about four of their defenders before his shot was saved. Whether we’d have been able to hold on with 10 men is another matter.’

Speaking about the red card decision, a baffled Howard said: ‘To me it was an innocuous challenge, I didn’t even think about a red card. Hand on heart they probably deserved to win, but if we’d stayed at 11 who knows?’

Ivybridge may have been disappointed but have still enjoyed their first foray into the FA Vase this year, with hopefully many more to come.