Boss angry after 'spineless’ show

FA CUP FIRST QUALIFYING ROUND REPLAY Soham Town Rangers 1 Stowmarket Town 4 A FURIOUS Ian Benjamin declared this the most spineless performance I have ever seen in all my time in football after Rangers were dumped out of the FA Cup on Tuesday night. A

FA CUP FIRST QUALIFYING ROUND REPLAY

Soham Town Rangers 1 Stowmarket Town 4

A FURIOUS Ian Benjamin declared this "the most spineless performance I have ever seen in all my time in football" after Rangers were dumped out of the FA Cup on Tuesday night.

A lacklustre Soham side were short of passion and ideas and, after a deflected shot gave Stowmarket the lead after 15 minutes, they gifted two more goals to the Division 1 team.

The Stowmarket players fought for every ball and went in with a deserved 3-0 lead at half-time.

Little changed in the second-half, with the visitors looking the stronger of the two teams in every area. Andy Furnell pulled one back for Rangers on the 80th minute but slack defending gifted Stowmarket a fourth goal just two minutes later.

Benjamin said: "There is absolutely no excuse for our performance. I brought two players off at half-time and, if I could have, I would have taken off seven or eight.

"The FA Cup is extremely important for us, in terms of generating money and raising the profile of the club, but most of our players didn't seem to care. I was so angry on Tuesday night, I even thought about leaving the club. The least I expect of my players is 100 per cent effort, and I got nothing close to that. We are going to have to put in a much better performance against the champions on Saturday."

* Soham play Lowestoft at home on Saturday. Kick-off 3pm.