MALVERN Town manager Joe Rawle has described Saturday’s 8-0 drubbing at Leamington as a nightmare from start to finish.

The New Windmill side needed victory against the already relegated outfit to clinch the British Gas Business Division One Midlands title.

“The plan was to try and frustrate them and keep it 0-0 as long as possible,” Rawle said.

“But that lasted all of three minutes — it was a nightmare.

“It was like we laid down for them.”

Mark Bellingham headed the first of his three goals in the third minute when he rose to connect with a corner. The Brakes doubled their lead eight minutes later through Guy Sanders before former Worcester City midfielder Jai Stanley added a third on 24 minutes.

Bellingham netted his second and Leamington’s fourth two minutes later before former Cheltenham Town striker Luke Corbett sent the Brakes in at half-time 5-0 up.

Former Shrewsbury Town hitman Chris Murphy played through fellow substitute Josh Blake to make it 6-0 in the 77th-minute.

James Husband added to Malvern’s misery with goal number seven, while Bellingham, the division’s top scorer, netted his third of the match, his 42nd goal of the campaign and the Brakes’ eighth five minutes from time.

“They totally out-classed us,” admitted Rawle.

“We always knew that this game could be a disaster and that is how it turned out to be.

“We had several players missing and that has been the story of our season.

“But given the amount of money that we pay our players then you can’t expect too much.”

The manager added: “To be honest it could have been a lot worse, but when a team is 5-0 up then they tend to take their foot off the gas.

“That is what Leamington did. They started to take extra touches where they normally wouldn’t.”

Malvern’s misery was compounded with Nick Clayton picking up a knee injury, meaning he’ll miss the final league game of the season at home to Bury Town.

“Nick is the only player to come out of the Leamington match with any credit,” Rawle said.

“He carried on even though he was injured.

“I’ll be glad when the season finishes tomorrow, it has been extremely tough — harder than I ever thought that it would be.

“We have got one league match and cup semi-final left and then maybe I can relax.”