Eynesbury Rovers suffered their heaviest home league defeat since August 29, 1998 when losing 8-1 to Coventry Sphinx in UCL Premier South on Saturday.

And their 9-0 defeat some 24 years ago came against their next home opponents in Cogenhoe United.

Rovers struggled to deal with the power, pace and organisation of a very good Sphinx side and lost key defender and club captain Jonny Butler after just 19 minutes and Josh Page through injury just before half time.

They trailed by four goals by then, having fallen behind on seven minutes when Callum Stewart and Leo Stone combined on the left side of the penalty area and a cross to the back post found Jordan Haywood to tuck home from close range.

The second Sphinx goal came in a similar fashion on 29 minutes, with Stone at the back post to finish, and after a Sphinx free-kick 10 minutes later Matt Shipman and Louis Guest kept the ball alive inside the Rovers box and Stone scored his second.

Stewart scored four minutes later, finishing from a Shipman nod down, and completed his hat-trick with two more goals just three minutes apart before the hour to make it 6-0.

Rovers never gave up or let their heads drop and pulled a goal back from a corner midway through the second half when the ball bobbled around inside the six-yard box and somehow crossed the line with the final touch possibly coming from a Coventry player.

The goalscoring wasn’t over for Coventry, though, and in the 75th minute a low cross by Lewis Noon was unfortunately diverted past his own goalkeeper by Reece King.

Substitute Mason Plats concluded the rout in the 78th minute on an afternoon that Eynesbury will want to put quickly behind them as they host Cogenhoe on Tuesday (7.45pm).