Exeter City 1 Chesterfield 6. 

Tuesday 28 October 2008.

The Moxey Report 

So on a bitterly cold night at the Park, City slump to their biggest home defeat in decades ending up on the wrong end of a 6-1 walloping by Chesterfield in front of an utterly disbelieving 5,093 shell shocked supporters. Given that, despite the usual pretty passing stuff we're now accustomed to, it took until midway through the first half for either side to register anything of note on goal, who could ever have seen the final outcome of what turned out to be a bizarre game to say the least? As it was, it was City who hashed their only chance of a turgid first half peppered with niggly fouls when Logan flicked a ball on into Stansfield's path between two dawdling defenders, who in turn saw fit to slice horribly wide in a fashion familiar to 25 handicap Sunday moming golfers the world over. For a further fifteen minutes precious little happened, other than the mercury getting dangerously close to minus figures, then with five minutes to go before the break, out of the blue Chesterfield were ahead when Jamie Winter collected a nothing ball 30 yards out and fizzed an unstoppable piledriver past Jonesdespairing dive and into the left side of the net to give the visitors an unlikely 1-0 lead. Three minutes later Tully tried to go one better with a screaming 40 yard drive that whizzed past the far post at light speed, then immediately from the restart Chesterfield had the ball up the other end where lacklustre -or rather non-existent defending allowed Alan Goodall to smash home at the near post from close range to put City 2-0 behind at the break. Manager Tisdale must have had some encouraging words to say at half time because City came storming out of the blocks from the restart and after some sustained pressure around the Chesterfield goal deservedly pulled one back. A mere four minutes had elapsed when the ball eventually found its way out to Stewart on the left edge of the area where he drilled the ball low across the face of the goal for Stansfield to stab home from close range to reduce arrears to 2-1. City had a glorious chance for an equaliser in the tenth minute when a superb Logan cross field ball was pinged back across the box by Stewart on the leftIt flew over Bertie's head but no one saw Tully steaming in behind to drive the ball goalwards only for it to be cleared for a corner at the near post. And that, I'm afraid, was as good as it got Despite the pretty triangles and ludicrous amounts of possession around the half way line, City failed to fashion a single effort of note after thatand were made to pay dearly for their impotence up front when Chesterfield mounted their first attack of the half and went 3-1 up in the 20th minute when a shot from the corner of the box was well parried by Jones but straight to Jack Lester who had the easiest of tasks of guiding the ball into the empty net. In the 25th minute City made a triple substitution of Sercombe, McAllister and Watson for LoganStansfield and Stewart but it made little difference as five minutes later Chesterfield scored their fourth. Seaborne played the most ridiculous of back passes to put Jones in all sorts of trouble as attackers closed in Lester stole the ball away as Seaborne tried to recover his mistake but it was too late as the Chesterfield player once again had the simple task of rolling the ball into an empty net for his second gift of the game. But City's generosity didn't stop thereSixty seconds later they were at it againthis time Tully dithering on the edge of the centre circle to be robbed by pint sized striker Jamie Ward who scampered towards goal and smashed home gleefully past Jones to make it 5-1. And still City weren't satisfied with the amount of times they shot themselves in the foot-well, both feet actually, and arms, legs and the rest of the body as with time fast running out Gill decided to pass straight to Darren Currie inside his own penalty area whereby the Chesterfield player made no mistake in swiftly despatching the chance to end the game with a 6-1 scoreline to the visitors. But what on earth were the players thinking tonight? Other than Chesterfield's opener, every single goal tonight was down to a City howler, and ones a ten year old would be embarrassed to commit. In the end it was almost laughable, and such was the disgust of the home faithful that barely half were left in the stadium when the final whistle went. Manager Tisdale said afterwards that he was proud of the way the players tried to play football until the bitter end - well unfortunately precious few who were there would list pride as high up on the emotions they were feeling on the way home. At times I think we try to play too much football - sometimes, when you're under pressure deep in your own half, it's not the most sensible thing to try and jink past an opponent or play a risky pass across the boxSometimes the best course of action is to lamp it over the roof of the standTrying to be clever sometimes has a way of coming back at you, so the players must learn that being agricultural isn't always a bad thing. St James Park last season was something of a fortress for us, yet this season we've played nine league and cup games at home and lost five with only two wins to our name. Not good enough I'm afraid, as it appears this season that our fortress has the drawbridge down, portcullis up, an inviting welcome mat laid out and a string of souvenir mementos for you to take home an keep to remind you of a good day out. Contrast that with our superb away record of played seven and won five- why can we do it away yet not at home? Who knows, but we have the perfect opportunity to find out very quickly indeed. We're at home again today, so let's put Tuesday's nightmare behind us and get behind the lads once againAt least that's one thing we got right, and as Paul Tisdale said during his post match interview, we don't become a bad team overnight, and prior to tonight we were unbeaten in eight. Let's see if we can make it one defeat in ten then.

BBC match summary and information 

Chesterfield stunned high-flying Exeter with a crushing win at St James Park. Jamie Winter fired into the top corner to put the visitors ahead and Alan Goodall's deflected shot made it 2-0. Exeter replied when Adam Stansfield met Marcus Stewart's cross but a mistake by home keeper Paul Jones let Jack Lester restore the Spireites's two-goal lead. Lester robbed Jones of the ball to add a fourth goal and more poor defending let Jamie Ward run through to score before Darren Currie rolled in a sixth.

Exeter: Jones, Tully, Seaborne, Taylor, Moxey, Logan (McAllister 72), Gill, Edwards, Cozic, Stewart (Sercombe 73), Stansfield (Watson 73). 

Subs Not Used: Marriott, Obersteller.

Goals: Stansfield 49.

Chesterfield: Carson, Gray, Page, Downes, Austin, Lowry, Kerry, Winter (Harsley 87), Goodall, Ward (Niven 84), Lester (Currie 81).
Subs Not Used: Picken, Teixeira.

Goals: Winter 38, Goodall 44, Lester 63, 76, Ward 78, Currie 88.

Attendance 5,093 with 151 away fans.

Referee Mike Russell (Hertfordshire).