MALVERN Town remain bottom of British Gas Business Division One Midlands after a disappointing home defeat, but can thank keeper Craig Humphries for preventing a rout.

The Malvern stopper pulled off a string of superb saves to deny the visitors as the Cambridgeshire side produced an attacking onslaught at the Langland Stadium.

It was a controversial penalty decision which separated the two sides in the end, as Malvern left-back Nick Clayton was judged to have handled the ball in the 63rd minute.

Humphries nearly reached Paul Jones’ resulting spot-kick, but it went low and beat his dive.

Malvern’s consolation strike came with two minutes left from influencial captain Jamie Hyde. The midfielder’s driving run into the penalty area was rewarded after he was fed by sub Darren Critcher.

Soham stormed the Malvern penalty area in a free-flowing and entertaining first-half with numerous chances and were rewarded in the 11th minute when they took the lead through Aaron Turner.

Lee Mussell had Malvern’s best two chances of the first-half but he fired wide on both occasions after breaking the Soham offside trap.

Humphries saved Malvern from being at least 5-0 down at the interval with a series of impressive stops, including two brilliant point-blank saves.

The second period was more of the same as Humphries proved a stubborn last line of defence as Soham stormed the box.

Following the penalty blow, Andy Bullock fired into the side netting with an 84th-minute effort.