WHILE Hereford FC were battering AFC Totton at Edgar Street on Saturday, a much smaller city club a mile and a half away were just trying to not concede 10 or more goals for the sixth time this season.

Hereford City Reserves – whose club logo is in homage to the former Hereford United – have lost every match in their debut campaign in Division two of the Herefordshire FA County League, conceding 112 goals along their way including two 20-0 spankings.

They even have a points total of minus three due to failing to fulfil a fixture and have only scored five times in their 11 games. But player Russell Francis, who helped set up Hereford City with Chris Marshall 10 years ago, says the team will not be pulling out of the league.

"It's never nice losing 10 or 15-0 every week, but we are just trying to build on that," said Francis.

"It was 10-0 on Saturday, but two weeks before that it was 2-1 so you can tell it is getting there and some more lads are turning up for training.

"The first season is always the hardest, it's just a matter of ploughing on and keeping the spirit high.

"It's about getting the lads training and listening and understanding each other.

"Myself and Chris Marshall have been at the club for 10 years now and last year we decided there were quite a few lads training, some who haven't really played football before.

"We thought it was a good chance to get a reserve side in and build a new team up.

"Most of the lads are 17 and 18 and a lot of them probably haven't played football since school.

"Everyone just wants to play football, turn up, give it a go and get to know each other."

Player-manager Matt Williams, who has the task of picking the ball out of the net every week, says the team have more committed players now and it will only be a matter of time before their fortunes turn around.

"I think we turned up to Shobdon with nine players and two of them walked off," he said.

"We're trying and we have thought about pulling out, but we've got good players.

"It's a matter of time before it clicks together – if we had scored in the first half on Saturday, it would have been a completely different game."

Hereford City Reserves' latest defeat was a 10-0 hammering against Weston at their Grandstand Park home.

However, the home side gave a good account of themselves in the opening 15 minutes and had chances to score through Matt Lamb.

But as soon as Weston opened the scoring through Justin Halfpenny in the 18th minute, Hereford City Reserves were always up against it.

The Weston striker – who netted six goals against the same opponents the previous week in an 8-1 win – added a second goal six minutes before half time before the floodgates really opened after the break.

Halfpenny added two further goals, with Ben Timmins (2), Jack Wright (2), Chris Davies and James Reid also on target.

"We had a good formation, but as soon as the goals went in people were out of positions," added Williams.

"All their heads dropped in the end so there's not a lot you can do about it.

"They are fourth in the league and we're bottom, so 9-0 is actually a good score considering four weeks ago we were losing 15, 16, 17-0.

"There are still a lot of lads who were here then, but others have dropped out.

"But we're surprised we're still getting good young players coming through."

Hereford City Reserves' next match is at Bartestree Reserves this Saturday.