LONG-TIME leaders Lye Town lost their unbeaten tag with a surprise 2-0 defeat at Malvern Town this week.

It brings to an end their proud 26 match unbeaten run but still leaves the Stourbridge Road side 10 points clear on top of the West Midlands League.

Despite dominating the game, Malvern made the most of their chances with James Lush netting twice to seal a famous win.

Joint Lye boss Martin Thomas admitted: “The monkey’s off our back now and we have to go again.

“We hit the Malvern woodwork and we had goals disallowed. Some of the decisions made were, quite frankly, embarrassing and both the referee and linesman apologised to us afterwards.

“It was just one of those games where you felt, no matter what, we just weren’t going to score and I don’t think we would have scored if we’d been playing now!

“We’ve only lost two games all year. I would have taken that at the start of the year and I would take it again.

“Malvern were very complimentary, which was nice and we tried to be gracious in defeat, which is how it should be”.

Lye were unable to bring in a replacement goalkeeper for the injured Jake James, so Ben Jevons stepped into the breach again.

Thomas claimed: “Jevo’s very good in goal, but he’s not a regular goalkeeper. We did try to bring in a goalkeeper, but the fact it was Christmas week proved very difficult”.

He revealed James could be out for a further two or three weeks as a result of the gashed knee he sustained against Shawbury United and the joint-boss confirmed: “We are looking to try and bring someone in short term. We’ve had several names thrown at us and there’s a seven days in. We hope to have someone on board for Saturday’s game at home to Wellington Amateurs”.