EXETER CITY CRASH: ROVERS' CLEAR-CUT VICTORY
Brilliant Play by Dix and Attwood

Wednesday, September 17th 1930.

EXETER CITY 0
BRISTOL ROVERS 3  (Dix 2 Hamilton) .
Half-time 0-2.

Exeter City: Davies; Gray and Miller;
Clarke, Inglis, and Barber; Purcell, Houghton, Parsons, Halliday, and Doncaster.

Bristol Rovers: Berry; Price and Dennis; Findlay, Dinsdale, and Hamilton; Forbes, Ball, Attwood, Dix, and Young.

There could be no question about Bristol Rovers' superiority on Wednesday evening at St James's Park. Exeter were outplayed during the opening half hour. The Rovers had the Grecians beaten for speed, position, quick use of the ball, and shooting. The great majority of the 3,000 spectators who stood in pouring rain and gloomy semi-darkness were surprised at the turn taken by the game, but they could not have been more astonished than the City players themselves at the great improvement in the Bristol team as compared with the form shown by them in the match at Stapleton Road just over a week ago. The Grecians have been marking time while the Rovers have been going ahead quite remarkably. Dix, who played an outstanding game, and who was by far the best player on the field, opened the scoring in ten minutes at the St James's Road end, Hamilton followed with another goal in twenty-three minutes, and the second half was precisely ten minutes old when Dix scored again.

Exeter Goalkeeper at Fault.

Davies had little chance with the first shot which counted, but he was badly at fault with the other two scoring efforts. Hamilton's shot from 30 yards' range was a powerful one. The greasy ball slipped from Davies's hands into the net. When Dix got his second, and the Rovers' third, goal with a looping, deceptive shot, Davies seemed to be taken completely by surprise. He made no move till the ball was in the net. At the same time the Rovers played so well as to be good value for a clear-cut victory. They were vastly superior to Exeter in attack, and their full-backs impressed with their strong tackling and decisive use of the ball. Through long clearance kicks they kept the ball well up amongst their forwards, who were strongly supported by a keen half-back line in which Dinsdale was another of the game's big successes. Miller and Gray did well up to a point, but there were times when three or four passes seemed necessary before the ball was cleared. This is not good football when a game is going the wrong way. It means that the half-backs have got to be in close attendance to cover possible mistakes, and Clarke, Inglis, and Barber as a consequence had not the same freedom of action as Dinsdale and his colleagues of the Bristol line.

Fatal Hesitation.

The Exeter forwards in this match were very disappointing. They seemed unable to screw up their courage to try the effect of a shot from outside the penalty area, and when they did manage to get closer they either showed such a degree of fatal hesitation as to prove their undoing or shot so finely towards imaginary point just inside the framework of the goal as to cut their efforts too fine and miss the target altogether. an This happened not once, but many times, and perhaps the marksmen deserve some sympathy for the ill-luck they experienced. But in this match, as in others, some of the City forwards persisted with the methods which have proved wrong time after time. Houghton, who is undeniably clever, made the mistake of attempting too much on his own, and delaying his pass so long that he was often robbed in possession. The one bright feature of the home forward line was the improvement of Doncaster.

The Progress of Dix.

Dix was the best forward on the field, with Attwood a good second. The progress of Ronald Dix has in fact followed very similar lines to that of Cliff Bastin. Dix, who is five months younger than Bastin, is a local product, like Bastin an inside-left and a Schoolboy International. He possess the "Bastin technique" of close dribbling allied to a deceptive body swerve and accurate distribution of the ball, and the same sort of hefty left-foot shot. Again like Bastin, he "stands out" immediately on the football field by virtue of his having the same coloured fair hair. Dix entered big football about the same time at Bastin, but unlike the Exeter youth he has so far remained with his local club. However, if he continues to give displays like the one he gave at Exeter on Wednesday evening it will not be long before he is tempted away by one or other of the big clubs of the First Division. In Wednesday's match he was a genius.

Unique Record Broken by Bristol Rovers.

Beating Exeter City as stated at St James's Park, Bristol Rovers broke a record which has stood ever since the Grecians entered first-class football in 1908. In eighteen previous visits in search of League points the Rovers had drawn on eight occasions and been beaten in each of the ten other matches. They had never won here except when they came to contest a Cup replay in the season of 1921-22, when they scored twice without reply.