Second half blitz stuns Bexhill

United were on course for a second successive stalemate at the start of their Sussex Division Two campaign until disaster struck 14 minutes from time.

"On about 70 minutes," said Bexhill joint manager Bill Trivett, "I was thinking both of these sides could stay out there until whenever and they wouldn't score. It had 0-0 written all over it, but there's a little bit of a lack of communication at the moment when we're defending. Two of the goals we're going to blame ourselves for because we didn't deal with things defensively.

"We changed the system around a little bit. We played 4-5-1 on Saturday, but we isolated (lone striker) Dave Carey far too much and we never looked like scoring. We were trying to play from defence rather than playing through the midfield and we were just giving him too much to do."

Bexhill were stunned by two goals in a minute from Demartino and Lambkin while Billy Trickett was preparing to come on to partner Carey in a 4-4-2 shape.

A third from Howard soon followed and all Bexhill could content themselves with was a disallowed goal for offside and a Carey lob that failed to find the target.

United brought in Andy Matthews for Trickett and Alex Page for the injured Sam Thompson from the side that started the 1-1 draw at Steyning Town the previous week, but never quite found the right formula at one of the finest grounds in the Sussex County League.