Saturday, March 17th 1956.

SWORD HITS THREE IN CITY ROUT OF PALACE.

EXETER CITY 6 
(SWORD 3 IGGLEDEN 2 THOMAS)
CRYSTAL PALACE 1
(DEAKIN) 

at St James's Park, half-time 2-1.

EXETER CITY:-
Hunter; Doyle, Mitchell; John, Harvey, Porteous; K. Thomas, Iggleden, Sword, Willis, Buckle.

CRYSTAL PALACE:-
Potter; Edwards, Greenwood; Belcher, Saunders, Long; Berry, Cooper, Deakin, Pierce, Gunning.

Attendance 6,826,

This victory, Exeter's biggest of the season, was well deserved, even though Crystal Palace had Saunders a passenger for most of the game. Saunders was injured in the 18th minute and was off the field for the remainder of the first half. The Palace scored first, but once the City had equalised there was only one team in it. They played good football and shot hard and accurately at the slightest opportunity. The match was a personal triumph for Alan Sword, but the rest the of team deserves every praise for this great win.

The career of Alan Sword has turned full circle, a few months ago he wondered if he would ever make the grade and traded in his full time contract to take a part time job, he wasn't even sure of a regular place in the reserves. Now it would take a heavy blast of dynamite to shift Sword from his position as centre forward of Exeter City. For it was Sword who led the rout of Crystal Palace.

City tore into Palace, scored six goals, hit the woodwork four times and had countless near misses They played good football, moved into the wide open spaces, challenged for the ball and they had something rarely seen this season, a lust for goals. Iggledon who though sometimes slow, brought craft to the City Line, scored two, Thoma's making a fairly impressive home debut also found the net, but they were both overshadowed by Sword who hit a brilliant hat trick, Unluckiest man was certainly George Willis, Non stop grafting earned him nothing more than the sight of one header and one shot rebounding from the crossbar. The only poor aspect of City's performance was a bad game from Harvey, his slip allowed Deakin to put Palace into the lead, then he went on to make a series of mistakes,

Southern League 

Gravesend 0 Exeter City Reserves 3:

EXETER CITY RESERVES
Kelly; Walton, Foley; Davey, Parr, Murphy; Simpson, Worthington, Burke, Ellaway, P. Thomas,

"Hat-tricks" by Exeter players are in fashion just now it seems. All the goals in this match at Gravesend were netted by Ronnie Burke. Something else which is also fashionable, regrettably, is the failure of Exeter players to convert penalties. In this match Murphy in the fifth minute sent a penalty kick wide of the goal.

Wednesday March 21st 1956.

Southern League:

Exeter City Reserves 0 Kettering 1,

The friendly game between Exeter City and H,M,S,Eagle was postponed, it was due to kick off at 3 p.m. the reserves started at 7.30 p.m.

EXETER CITY RESERVES
Kelly; Walton, Foley; Davey, Parr, Murphy; Simpson, Worthington, Burke, Ellaway, P.Thomas,