EXETER CITY IN 
1928-29 
Few Thrills in Disappointing Campaign 
BUILDING ANOTHER TEAM

Season 1928-29 from the Exeter City point of view has been one long drawn out disappointment, a disappointment all the more acute because in the previous campaign the Grecians achieved the biggest run of success in the history of the club, both in the playing and the financial sense, and because, as well, this is the year in which Exeter City should have been celebrating its major ity as a professional organisation. Nor was the bitterness of the disappointment tempered by the realisation which came to many people right at the very outset. In short, the realisation that the club was in for a difficult time. The practice games were not impressive, and not till their sixth game of the season did the City manage to record a Football League victory. Then, in mid-September, they beat Northampton (of all people!) by two clear goals at St James's Park.

EXETER CITY AN ERRATIC SIDE.

The season right through has been like that! The form of the team throughout has been amazingly erratic. Twice the Grecians have piled up a score of half a-dozen goals, and in another match they netted five times, whilst their Cup performance against Leeds United at St James's Park stands out as the most pleasant memory of the campaign. Yet even that recollection has its unhappy side, for weak play in one department cost the City an otherwise hard earned and richly merited success. On an average the Grecians have won less than one match in four, and with the solitary exception of Ashington they have the poorest home record in the whole of the Football League. Seven victories in twenty-one games is the return from St James's Park, while another half-dozen of the matches there have ended with honours even.  Sometimes the team has failed in attack, sometimes in defence; generally the half backs have been below standard; yet the Exeter intermediates have shown form which compared favourably with that of other clubs which have managed to struggle clear of the relegation positions.

FACTORS WHICH HAVE COUNTED.

The City have been hit, often, by injuries to players during the progress of a game. This happened at Brentford in the very first match; it had a big effect on the game at Walsall when the Grecians met with their biggest defeat, and it operated heavily against the club in the last home match of the season, when Crystal Palace turned defeat into victory in the space of sixty seconds. Most serious of all, perhaps, was the severe illness which laid on one side Sam Mason, the big Scottish half-back, during the four middle months of the season. Another factor which has had quite as damaging an effect on the City's League position is the fact that several of the players who were engaged in the close season have had a comparatively poor campaign, failing absolutely, over long periods, to reproduce the skill and high enthusiasm which was such a helpful and happy factor last season during the long and smooth run of success which was registered by the club in Cup and League. It may be that Exeter City tempted Fate when they delayed till April of last year the engagement of a successor to Mr Fred Mavin, the manager who had left Exeter for Crystal Palace four and a half months before. It may be that Mr Dave Wilson under-estimated the standard of football in the Southern Section. It may be that he had not sufficient time in which to make himself thoroughly acquainted with the merits and capabilities of the men on the club's books and also to make his plans for this season's team. Certain it is that the players, and especially the forwards, while giving a great deal of promise in and out, individually, have often found it difficult and even impossible to blend. Now and again they jumped into match winning form of a quality very surprising after many poor days, but if memory can be trusted the first such occasion was the Boxing Day match against Bournemouth at St James's Park, and half a season is a long time to wait.

COMINGS AND GOINGS.

Nor has the defence been up to reasonable expectations during the major part of the season, although in this connection should be excluded one player who has hardly put a foot wrong through the ardours of the campaign, - Charlie - Miller. Unsettling features at the commencement of the season were the departures of Taylor and Kirk. Early in the season the Directors secured from Sunderland the transfer of a star left-wing player, William Death, to strengthen the attack; in the middle of the season Leslie Dennington was secured from Reading, for assistance in the half-back line, while at the end of January there came the engagement of William Hick, the centre-forward from Bristol City, and three weeks later the resignation of Mr Dave Wilson of the managership. Looking back over the events of the campaign nothing is easier than to recall match after match in which the City, by want of a little more steadiness here, or of determination or thoughtfulness there, fell just short of success, and if specific instances are required, there were the home matches with Torquay United and Bristol Rovers.

THE APPOINTMENT OF McDEVITT.

There is no need to enter further into the sorry tale. Many factors are needed to secure a successful team. It is to be hoped that they will be found in the Southern Section team of the Exeter City club next season. On April 11th W. McDevitt, the City captain, who had been out of the game with a damaged thigh muscle since February 23rd, was appointed players' manager, a position which in some quarters has been confused with that of player-manager. In his new capacity, McDevitt has been asked to build up the Exeter City team for next season, and again, it seems the club have left it rather late. But the big Irishman is not only something of a genius on the field of play: he is a very knowledgable man in the great world of Soccer, and he is optimistic regarding his chances of success.

And in brighter vein, also, three pleasing features in the campaign now closing are
(1) the distinction gained by Pym and
Blackmore in the Cup Final at Wembley;
(2) the big recognition which has now been won by the seventeen-years-old genius, Clifford Bastin, and
(3) the news of the selection of Jack Radford, the Devon County, Exeter and Ladysmith Road Schoolboy captain and centre half to play for England against Scotland on the famous Glasgow Rangers' ground, Ibrox Park, later in the month.

A very happy band of excursionists made the journey from Exeter to London for the Cup Final at Wembley, and although such a long trip has its disadvantages they were more than compensated for what they saw. Dick Pym, who made a speedy recovery from various injuries to be fit for the great day, was one of the Bolton heroes (as he was in 1923 and again in 1926) especially in the first half when Portsmouth were doing some very dangerous pressing, and Harold Blackmore put the issue beyond doubt when he crashed the ball past Gilfillan to net Bolton's second goal five minutes from the finish with one of those dazzling left-footers that are his hall-mark. The "Pompey" goalkeeper never saw the ball until he turned round to pick it out of his net. One of the visiting Exonians upon his return remarked that "It will probably be a long time before one again gets the chance of seeing two ex-Grecians in the Cup Final."

UP THE LADYBIRDS!
Bastin, himself an ex-Schoolboy International of "Ladybird" renown, won high praise in the London Press by his brilliant play during the match between the City and Crystal Palace at St James's Park. "A natural footballer, who has the ability to build up attacks by sound constructive and thoughtful play, and who can dribble "on a sixpence," and who can shoot with astonishing force, and one whose clever moves were "bewildering" to the opposition is how Bastin has been described by one prominent critic, who took the view that with their inside left fit throughout Exeter City must surely have won the match. So the young Bastin, who rendered great service to the Devon County team in the Southern Counties' Amateur Championship games of this season, and who then became a professional, is forcing his way into the limelight by dint of his outstanding ability, amounting almost to genius, as an inside-forward, just as Blackmore has done by his phenomenal shooting powers from the centre-forward position.

And now Jack Radford. There are seven thousand elementary schools from which England selects her Schoolboy Internationals. It is a big thing indeed for a boy to win his way into the side. It is an even greater thing when that boy, as Radford is and as Bastin was before him, is located on the very fringe of the game, geographically speaking. That Radford will have a successful match in Scotland is the wish of all the Soccer minded public of East Devon.

Western League and Southern League

GOALSCORERS

24 Wade,
22 Streets,
12 Doncaster,
7   Bastin and Smith,
5   Cameron and Gumm,
4   Death and Hick,
2   Houghton, Hutchings, Taylor, and Turl,
1   Bluck, Dennington, Mason, Pollard, Brown (Torquay own goal), Geddes (Bristol City own goal), Rotherham (Bristol Rovers own goal).