NEWTON Abbot Spurs survived a late scare to hold onto a memorable three points in the South West Peninsula League yesterday.

Second-placed Bridport FC were the visitors at The Rec, sitting five points ahead of Spurs prior to kick-off and yet to lose a game.

Connor Marshall’s men changed all of that though, thanks to a performance that “Shows everyone that we are here, we’re still around and we’re always pushing forward.”

After 20 or so minutes of the two high-flying sides feeling each other out, Spurs took the lead courtesy of their talismanic forward Toby Pullman.

Pullman was afforded far too much space on the edge of the area and so he accepted the invitation, the shot from range deflecting over a helpless Jordan Scadding for 1-0.

The striker was involved again and as he got ahead of his defender, he was surely fouled in the penalty area, but the referee disagreed to the chagrin of the home side.

It was then the turn of Bridport to threaten, Kane Gregory making a superb, acrobatic save to deny the side from Dorset. The resulting corner saw them go even closer, a powerful header bouncing off of the underside of the bar and down on the line before it was cleared away.

Pullman continued to be involved in everything, still suffering from the earlier challenge in the area and now receiving a punch to the head from Scadding.

He couldn’t be deterred though and he was the scorer of Spurs’ second. Even Pullman himself thought he was offside but he carried on anyway, lifting the ball over the oncoming ‘keeper and wheeling away in celebration with the linesman’s flag staying down.

Spurs were in command for the first 45 minutes and at the break, Marshall’s message was: “2-0 isn’t a safety blanket and you’ve got to go and get the next one.”

That is exactly what his team did, Owen Green rounding off a sharp team move. Chris Harvey broke down the right flank and passed to Pullman who picked out Green on the edge of the area- the winger curled home for a deserved three-goal lead and was joined by his teammates in the corner to really soak up the moment.

From this point onwards, frustrations rose for Bridport with some silly tackles coming in and, on the flipside, Spurs applied plenty of gamesmanship.

Pullman was unable to complete his hat-trick after squandering a one-on-one opportunity and both managers made use of their benches, with differing impacts.

In the final knockings, Bridport came up with not one but two goals, poking home from a pair of corners despite the best efforts of Gregory in the Spurs net.

With the hosts slightly rattled at 3-2, Brad Crocombe’s clearance up the field from kick-off was charged down and his tackle that came in afterwards wasn’t pretty at all. At a higher level, it could well have been a red card but he escaped with a yellow.

An equaliser alluded Bridport with Spurs surviving this late scare to collect a massive three points, sending a message to the rest of the league in the process.

It was a “dramatic” conclusion in Newton Abbot, Marshall holding up his hands and saying: “I think a bit of it is my fault, for making the substitutions. The lads were hurting and I thought fresh legs would help so that’s a bit of experience for me there, maybe I shouldn’t have made those changes.”

He was “extremely proud” of his squad all the same though, commenting that they “Absolutely dominated Bridport, I can’t put it any more bluntly than that, we were all over them and deserved the win today.”

Having lost both home and away to local (and title) rivals Bovey Tracey AFC, Marshall mused that “This is the type of game that you have to turn up in and prove that you are one of the big boys. Bridport are a great club, they’ve got fantastic players.

Now we’ve just got to make sure that we can do it again, do it against your Cullomptons and your Boveys, and if we don’t then we’ll get punished.”

His final message is that “We’ve got things to work on but that was our best performance up until the final few minutes, we were absolutely phenomenal.”

This notable win closes the gap between Spurs (27pts) and Bridport (29) to two points for the time being whilst Bovey are out in front on 34, their win over Ilfracombe Town an 11th of the campaign.

Spurs have no game scheduled for Saturday, November 1 and so return to action on Saturday 8, hosting fourth-placed Cullompton Rangers at The Rec.