Somerset County League Division One West

Staplegrove 5, Burnham United 0

BURNHAM United suffered a heavy defeat at high-flying Staplegrove on Saturday, with the promotion favourites proving too strong for Luke Hussey’s side.

Both teams came out of the blocks at brake neck speed with the ball pinging around the pitch and whilst Burnham looked like a very good outfit, keeping good possession, the quick challenging and closing down of the Grove players restricted them to having that possession in the back two thirds of the pitch.

It took 35 minutes for the deadlock to be broken when Sam Mockridge’s throw in was headed on by Luke DeSave for Nick Crowford to slide home for the Grove.

It only took another three minutes for Grove to double their lead, Luke DeSave’s determination to win a lost cause near the by-line resulted in Grove winning a corner.

Alex Izzard’s super cross was met with force by midfielder Gary Sealey to head past the keeper.

Four minutes into the second-half, Sam Mockridge put forward a hopeful ball into the six-yard box which looked certain to be gathered by the keeper, but again DeSave got a touch to make it 3-0.

Both Nicky Ford and Alexis Piper came off the bench to get their Grove debuts - and it didn’t take Alexis long to make his mark, when he got on the end of a quickly taken DeSave free kick to make it 4-0.

With the final whistle approaching, Adam White put a long ball through for Piper to score his second and Grove’s fifth.