MALMESBURY Victoria started the new Hellenic League season in stunning fashion on Saturday with an astonishing 13-0 win at home to New College Swindon in Division One West.

Shane Bumphrey made an early claim to win this season's golden boot with a five-goal haul at the Flying Monk Ground.

Matthew Jenkins helped himself to a hat-trick, while Sam Parker also struck twice.

The Vics' haul was completed by singles from Josh Hughes, Jamie Packer and Kyle Witt.

Elsewhere, Royal Wootton Bassett Town manager Sam Collier was left disappointed with his side’s performance against Holmer Green, despite coming from 3-1 down to snatch a late draw in their Premier Division opener.

Debutant Callum Parsons had put the visitors ahead early before Holmer Green stormed back to lead 2-1 at the break.

The home side then went further ahead 10 minutes after half-time before Parsons netted his second with 10 minutes remaining.

And with just seconds remaining in normal time, Brad Pagliaroli slammed home the equaliser to get Collier’s men out of jail.

The Bassett boss felt his side were not helped by the underwhelming pitch conditions in Buckinghamshire, but said his side had no excuses for not beating a team that Collier feels will struggle this season.

He said: “Performance-wise, I’m extremely disappointed based on the pre-season we’ve had.

“I’ve explained to the players that pre-season counts for nothing and neither do performances.

“We didn’t get out of the traps very well on what was quite a poor pitch.

“The grass was very, very long, so it affected the way we wanted to play, but our defending was very poor for 65 minutes and we found ourselves 3-1 down against a side that I think will go down.

“Overall, the result is a positive in the end, but I’m disappointed in the performance.”

Collier and assistant Matt Bulman brought in 11 new players over the course of the off-season and the Bassett manager admits the group will inevitably take time to fire on all cylinders.

He said: “I think it’s important to remember that we’ve got a new group of lads, so it will take them a while to jell together because six or seven of them had never met each other before until about three weeks ago.

“So that was a pleasing sign – that after they’d been read the riot act at half time, they dug deep and ground out a point.”

  • PEWSEY Vale endured a tough start on their return to life as a Sydenhams League club with a 5-1 defeat away at Alton in Saturday's Division One season opener.