Barham blasts shambolic Sidley

LIAM Barham slammed his team after Sidley United's miserable away form continued on Wednesday night with a 5-2 defeat at Eastbourne Town.

The Blues had looked like they might get something out of this Sussex Division One contest after taking a 2-1 lead on 24 minutes, but a hugely disappointing display means they have yet to pick up a point on their travels this season.

A nervy defence capitulated at will and Town were in front by half time and went on to run Sidley ragged in the second period.

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"We were a disgrace," said Barham. "What disappointed me most was we had worked so hard defensively all season and on the whole looked pretty solid, and then last night we made one little change at the back, which was enforced, and we've gone back to square one. It was a shambles."

Barham wasn't immune from criticism as the player-manager described his own performance "as bad as anyone".

United took the lead on eight minutes when Dominic Clarke was fouled inside the area and Peter Baker rolled home the spot-kick.

Town levelled two minutes later, Gary Brockwell heading home Mark Goodwin's centre, only to hobble out of the game soon after.

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Sidley regained the lead midway through the first half as Dan Woods wriggled through two half-hearted challenges and fired in a shot which took a heavy deflection off Town full-back Luke Denton.

The home side restored parity just after the half hour in controversial circumstances, when a free-kick '“ which a fuming Sidley felt was taken from the wrong place '“ was headed across goal and Kevin Rose seemed to get the last touch past Greg Thurstans.

And just before the break Town edged in front as the Sidley defence failed to cut out Goodwin's low cross and impressive substitute Danny Andrews scored at the far post.

It was largely one-way traffic early in the second half, Thurstans denying Steve Dallaway and Goodwin to keep Sidley in the hunt.

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Baker did spurn a gilt-edged chance to level when he lobbed over with goalkeeper Paul Stark to beat, and that was as good as it got for United, whose tired and disorganised defence was breached twice more in the last 10 minutes.

Goodwin made sure of the points with a fine individual effort, cleverly turning Chris Steward before stroking the ball into the far corner from an acute angle, and Andrews wrapped up the scoring with a header after Thurstans had spilled a high ball.