Redditch United 7, Bideford 2

Another game and another goal-fest for free-scoring Redditch.

With a nine-goal midweek cup thumping of Bishops Cleeve sandwiched between back-to-back seven-goal romps in the league, Liam McDonald’s side has now chalked up 23 goals in three games.

And yet, for the majority of the game, this was a below-par United display against a Bideford side struggling at the wrong end of the Southern League Premier table.

All square at the break, it took the introduction of lively substitute Jamie Spencer to unsettle the visitors and force open the floodgates.

His half-hour cameo was rewarded with a brace of goals with striker Jermaine Hylton also bagging a double.

It was Hylton who scored Redditch’s opener midway through the first half, an excellent solo effort that saw him outmuscle visiting defender Ben Gerry before rounding the keeper.

This cancelled out a fifth minute penalty from Bideford captain Kevin Squire, awarded following Calum Flanagan’s handball.

Simeon Maye gave the Reds a 44th minute lead only for Craig Veal to level in first half injury time to round-off a scrappy opening period.

Matters didn’t improve much after the break although Hylton went close twice in as many minutes around the hour mark.

Ashley Sammons fired home from 25 yards, the ball flying in off the post past a motionless Bideford keeper on 71 minutes, with Spencer netting his first moments later with a sublime chip over Grant Fisher in the visitors’ goal.

When supersub Spencer struck his second on 77 minutes United were home and dry, the margin of victory the only matter for debate.

Fisher saved well from Sammons and Hylton was denied by a despairing block from Gerry before the rampant Reds wrapped things up late on – Hylton running on to a Sammons pass to fire home his second before Levi Oshungbure headed in the seventh in injury time.

Reds: Hornby 6, Jones 7, Flanagan 6, Spink 7 (Loveridge 75), Mutton 6, Scarr 7, Carline 6, Maye 6 (Oshungbure 75), HYLTON 8, Sammons 7, Katsoloudi 6 (Spencer 64, 7). Subs (not used): Cullinane-Liburd, Catlow