Saturday, August 23rd 1947.

WALSALL 4,Massart 3, Lishman

EXETER CITY 0

Half-time Walsall 1 City 0.

League 3rd Division South.
Attendance 15,096.
Walsall:- Lewis; Methley, Skidmore; Walters, Foulkes, Newman; Maund, Walsh, Massart, Lishman, Wilshaw
Referee: Mr B.M.Griffiths, of Newport
Exeter City: Hoyle; Thompson, Blood; Cutting, Bartholomew, Walker; Hutchings, Evans, Ebdon, Wright, Regan..

This was a bad start to the season, but there was a partial excuse for the setback. Vanquished Exeter City were reduced to ten effect ives for more than half the game. Blood, victim of a knee injury, was a limping passenger for five minutes before the interval. He returned for the second half, hobbled along the left wing for at while, collapsed, and then went off for the rest of the match.
Exeter, losing by a goal to nil when their ranks were depleted, had been in the game with a fighting chance, but Blood's injury left a gap and caused several positional changes which threw the structure of the team out of gear. The feature of the match was of course the scoring of a "hat-trick" by the Walsall centre-forward, yet the losers had the best player on the field in Thompson, who made up his mind to get the ball, and nine times out of ten he did.

SOUTHERN LEAGUE.
City Reserves 3 Lovell's Athletic 1
at St James's Park.
Team:- Singleton; Johnstone, Rowe; Gibson, Davey, Coles; Dymond, Sutherland, Smart, Vaughan, W.Fallon..
Scorers: Smart 2, Fallon.