FC CLACTON manager Tom Austin felt his side played better than the score suggested in Saturday's defeat at Histon.

The Seasiders had been hoping to cause an upset against the Thurlow Nunn League leaders.

However, the Cambridgeshire side had won six out of six at home and stretched that run to seven with a 3-0 victory.

Austin felt the score painted an unfair picture, though.

“It was a disappointing result but certainly not a bad performance," said the Clacton boss.

“It wasn’t a 3-0 game.

“Histon are a very good side and they’ll walk away with the division.

“They’re very physical. They play to their strengths and they’ve got players who were with them in the Conference.

“Six or seven of them are over 6ft.

“Although they play some tidy football in the final third, they take long throws and hook the ball forward at every opportunity.

“That style gets results and gets you out of this league.

“They dominated the first half but we played the better football at the start of the second half.

“It was unfortunate that they hit us on the counter-attack and got their second goal.

“But we certainly didn’t disgrace ourselves.

“Histon deserved to win but our performance in the second half merited a goal at least.

“They said we were the best footballing side they’d played this season.

“And even the guy who was observing the officials was complimentary about how we played."

Clacton had been due to host White Ensign in the League Challenge Cup on Tuesday.

However, the match was postponed because of a waterlogged pitch, meaning Jake Plane, who had been due to serve the final fixture of a three-match suspension, now misses Saturday's home date against Newmarket Town (kick-off 3pm).

“It would have been good to get his ban out of the way," added Austin, who will also be without the injured Lee Clowsley and unavailable duo Jordan Brazitis and Joe Fowler.

“Now he’s going to miss this weekend and that means his first game back will be our Vase tie.

“That’s a shame as it’s a big game to come back for, after the best part of a month without football.

“We're looking forward to the weekend, though, and it would be nice to get a bit of revenge against Newmarket.

"Having been 3-2 up in the away game, we ended up losing 4-3.

“They scored two late goals and their winner came deep in stoppage time.

“It was a horrible way to lose and a bitter pill to swallow, so it would be nice to get our own back on Saturday.”