Alan Devonshire said there were no excuses for his players’ failure to perform on the big occasion as Braintree Town lost to the Vanarama Conference Premier’s bottom side AFC Telford United.

The Iron looked a shadow of the side that eclipsed Torquay 5-1 in their previous outing and manager Devonshire said it was “a bad day at the office” as they were beaten 2-0 by the Bucks.

Braintree’s offer of free entry to the game meant there was a crowd of 2,115 in the Miles Smith Stadium for the contest and a national audience was also watching on as it was screened live on the BT Sport channel.

It was Telford who rose to the occasion best, but Devonshire said it was just an off day rather than his players being overawed.

He said: “We performed in front of nearly 7,000 at Bristol Rovers so it’s not because of the crowd.

“It’s nice to have them.

“The club decided to do what they did and I’m sure they weren’t happy about certain things but it’s a game of football and we had a bad day at the office.

“It wasn’t because of the occasion, we just had a bad day and that’s the bottom line.

“We were poor and I’ve got no excuses for them after this one.

“We had a good week after the Torquay game and I expected us to be on the front foot, but we never got going.

“The same players who won it for us at Torquay had an off-day.

“There are no complaints as it was just poor.”