Eccleshall lost their fourth league game of the season as they fell to a 3-1 defeat to Vauxhall Motors who moved up to 4th in the table whilst Eccleshall dropped a place to 12th.
The home side had much the better of the first half and could have been four up at half time, the fact that it was only two was the only positive that Eccleshall could take from a poor first half showing.
Vauxhall took the lead on twelve minutes, a ball down the right being squared into the area for the unmarked Exell to slot home and when Callum Thomas misjudged his sliding tackle on the half hour, Cross doubled the lead from the penalty spot.
Liam Baker-Haynes, who had felt ill during the first half was replaced by Conor Gittins five minutes before the break and Thomas was replaced by Izaac Walsh at half time as Callum Feeney moved back to partner Harvey Collins.

HT. Vauxhall Motors 2 Eccleshall FC 0

Within two minutes of the restart, Eccleshall were back in the game, Shay Finney converting the penalty after Collins had been fouled from a Finney corner.
Just before the hour mark Eccleshall were reduced to ten men as skipper Harvey Collins was dismissed for what the referee adjudged to be a dangerous challenge, to be fair to the home dugout they disagreed with the decision, in fact the man that matters most was the only one in the ground that considered the challenge ( where Collins did take the ball first ) to be a straight red. From the free kick, Edwards got his effort over the wall and beat keeper Owen Wyatt from twenty yards.
Louis Downs replaced goal scorer Finney as manager Nick Farrington went to three at the back, with Gittins and Lewis Dunn joining Feeney, who had taken over the armband.
To Eccleshall’s credit they never gave up, but the home side were just to strong on the day and were deserving of the three points.

FT. Vauxhall Motors 3 Eccleshall FC 1

Eccleshall - Wyatt, Baker-haynes ( Gittins ), Dunn, Thomas ( Walsh I ), Collins (c), Feeney, Wakefield, Finney ( Downs ), Carr, Needham, Ahmadi. SUBS not used - Lewis, Bennion

Skipper Collins will now serve a three-game ban and in more bad news Louis Downs, who had missed Tuesday’s win at St Martins with an ankle problem did further damage in making a last-ditch tackle. Downs, last season’s top scorer is likely to out for around six weeks with a badly bruised ankle.

Next game - Saturday 15th September 2018
V Alsager Town at home 3pm ko.