Billericay Town 6-0 Kingstonian

The last time Kingstonian lost a game by more than five goals was some 19 years ago, in the FA Cup. That 9-1 reverse at Peterborough was mitigated by goalkeeper Adrian Blake being knocked unconscious by a coin slung from the crowd, and, back in the days when the FA still took action over fan violence towards players, the game was ordered to be replayed.

For yesterday's 6-0 defeat at Billericay though, there no such mitigating circumstances, with Kingstonian thoroughly outplayed in every area of the pitch. Alan Dowson promised changes to a side that has emphatically failed to live up to expectations so far this season; whether they can be made as quickly and successfully as after 2009/10's disastrous start will be a big test of the manager.

Ks, once more fielding a wing-back formation, were under the cosh from the early stages, with Jay May firing over and Sam Berry wide of Rob Tolfrey's goal. The breakthrough came on 18 minutes when Billericay winger Junior Luke shrugged stand-in left Back Bashiru Alimi off the ball and crossed for Paul Semarkula to finish.

A deep cross six minutes later allowed the unmarked Rob Swaine to beat Tolfrey with a header as Ks quickly began to suffer. The hard-working but uncreative strike force of Allan Tait and Paul Olima never looked like troubling their opponents, but the bigger problems were behind them.

Ks' midfield trio never imposed themselves on the game, providing neither adequate defensive cover nor any attacking impetus, while the defence suffered from a lack of both pace and organisation. Even Tolfrey had a rare bad day at the office, allowing Swaine to head in Billericay's third when a doomed attempt to get to a cross left him in no-man's land.

A Simon Huckle header over the crossbar on 35 minutes was as close as Ks would come all game; they barely tested their former centre-back Adam Thompson, making his debut for the Blues, let alone goalkeeper Nicky Morgan.

Three half-time substitutions at least stopped the rot and allowed Ks more of the ball, although the possession never materialised into a threat on goal. In the final ten minutes though, the dispirited visitors collapsed, turning the result from a poor one into the sort of humiliation that will surely demand action from the manager.

May had a great chance but miscontrolled a long ball that would have put him through on goal, but he soon made amends. Courtney White played him in behind Ks' defence to beat Tolfrey with ease, before White broke through the Surrey men's lines himself to add a fifth. Harrison Chatting scored the sixth to complete the rout.

Dowson promised he would hit the telephone and make changes to the team, and could find no positives from the performance except for the workrate of Tait. Whether this manifests itself in a second Dowson Day or just some tweaks to a side that has Traynor, Baptiste, Bird and Page all to return remains to be seen; what is sure though it that no-one at the club, least of all the manager himself, will tolerate another performance as poor as this one.