BRIDGWATER Town manager Richard Fey said ‘the club will always come first’ after a U-turn was made on the decision to scrap the reserve team at the end of the season.

Just three weeks ago, the club announced they would be axing both its Reserve team and Ladies team at the end of the current season, in a move described as ‘essential to the survival of the club.’

But following ‘discussions with local businesses, sponsors and a new proposal from the college’, the reserve team will now be retained, with the running of the under 18s side being taken over by Bridgwater College – and Fey now hopes everyone will get behind the club going forward.

He said: “There was a lot of bad publicity about the decision, but everyone wants the best interests on the club and decisions have been made and the club will always come first.

“Me and Luke (Buckingham, Reserve team manager) will make sure this works and it's good to have two good crowds the last two home games.

“Hopefully more support will come through the gates next season - especially the ones who commented a few weeks ago - and get behind the club.”

On Saturday’s result, Fey said a slow start cost his side as they went down 5-3 to Evesham – but the manager also believes the Robins had a goal wrongly disallowed.

“It was a game of two halves on Saturday - we started slowly and Evesham, who needed the win to finish runners up. came out the traps a lot better than us.

“Having said that we had a great goal judged to not have gone over the line when it quite clearly was a goal and they go down the other end and score.

“At half time we changed a few things around and scored three good goals - and Johnsy (Ben John) in goal was outstanding.

“So we finish the season on a bit of a high knowing we can compete with the top teams this season and this is something we need to produce regularly next season.

“At start of season I would have laughed if you said we would have only used 25 players this season and finish 12th - after last season’s 14th place, so it's progression again and now the club have sorted everything with the reserves, the club has a structure and there is a good feeling around the place.”