Cranbrook suffered a single-goal defeat in their pre-season meeting with Silverton, who will start their Devon and Exeter League season in a couple of weeks playing in Division Six, one division below the one Cranbrook play in.

Cranbrook, who begin the Division Five campaign on Saturday week (August 25) at home to Upottery Reserves, were nowhere near full-strength for the game, their first warm-up contest of the season.

Manager Jon Martin said: “What was evident was that we missed a number of key players that were unavailable for the game.”

He continued: “That said, there should have been enough quality on the pitch to get us a positive result.

“I had none of my regular goalkeepers available and so youngster James Bloomfield took the gloves and he did really well.”

What made the performance of young Bloomfield all the more impressive was that he was carrying an injury!

Martin said: “I had two 16-year-olds involved and both saw action and both did well given it was their first experience of senior football.”

The pitch did not help in terms of free-flowing football as, with all the recent hot and dry weather, it was very hard underfoot.

Martin said: “The pitch was bobbly and tough on the feet in terms of there being no ‘give’, but we cannot use the surface as an excuse.

“It was the same for both teams and they [Silverton] played well and got to grips with the conditions better than us.”

Cranbrook are back in action this Friday (August 10) when they travel into Exeter to meet Alphington Reserves.

Martin says: “We will need to up our game for sure.”

In other news, the club are very grateful to another Cranbrook business, the Chip Shack, who have kindly agreed to sponsor the team polo shirts.

Team boss Martin says: “We are very grateful to all at the Chip Shack for this sponsorship. It is great that local business is getting behind us.

“Now the sponsorship is in place I shall be getting the polo shirts sorted and handed out, once I have settled on the season’s squad.”

The team’s shirt sponsor this season is once again Cranbrook resident Jon Tipper, through his company, JT Wealth Management.