Worcester City knocked out of the league cup by Stourport Swifts

Swifts took the lead in the 26th minute through captain Martin Slevin’s deflected strike, before a quickfire double in three second-half minutes from Jack Bailey and Ben Tilbury decided the result.

Having already done the league double over City, Stourport condemned City to more misery in what is turning out to be a disastrous season for the team in blue and white.

Worcester have won just three games in all competitions in the 2022/23 campaign and are now out of all the cup competitions.

There was little hope going into the contest for City and caretaker boss Stewart Watkins, with only a smattering of senior players available amongst a largely unfamiliar squad.

Just as he did at the weekend, Watkins again introduced a number of players from the Reserves into the first team squad for the visit of a settled an in-form Swifts outfit.

The hosts began well enough but in a game of few chances, it would be the away side who took the lead as a free-kick into the box eventually fell to skipper Slevin, whose strike took a deflection and flew past Adam Harrison in the City goal.

Worcester failed to really test Josh Bishop in the game but defender Joe Hanson did have to make a last-ditch tackle on Elliot Hartley to prevent what would have been a certain goal.

Into the second-half, Stourport took a hold of the contest just before the hour as some sloppy defending from City enabled Baley to turn and shoot from inside the box to double the lead.

And then just three minutes later, Swifts had a third as a deflected strike on goal was helped on its way by former City man Tilbury.

All the effort and energy from Worcester was drained as the third went in and from then on it was a bit of a non-event.

Swifts could have had more but in the end they settled for three and took the chance to give a handful of youth team players a run out in what turned out to be a comfortable win.