Match Preview :: Wellington AFC V Bath City - Somerset Cup 2nd Round

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Wellington AFC V Bath City FC

Date: Wednesday 7th November 2012
Venue: The Playing Field (Wellington)
Competition: Somerset Premier Cup 2nd Round

My Matchday: 15

It's not often I get to go to a Wednesday night away fixture, as they generally don't come about much, but tonight it's my lucky night as I travel to Wellington (Somerset) to watch Bath City take on Wellington in the Somerset Premier Cup 2nd Round, a trophy which Bath have won on a total of 18 occasions, most recently being in 2008. The last 3 years Bath have crashed out at this stage due to the weakened teams played by previous manager Adie Britton, who saw it as a training session. It looks likely that this will be the way new manager Lee Howells approaches tonights game, but who knows. As ever my predicted line up is Below:

1. Jason Mellor
2. Luke Cummings
3. Will Hailston
4. Mark Preece
5. Jim Rollo
6. Marc Canham
7. Kerry Morgan
8. Brad Norris
9. Aaron Hopkinson
10. Charlie Griffin
11. Noah Keats. 

The above probably will be incorrect, and I'd imagine a host of Youth Team players will be fielded, but as I know little about them, the above is my guess.

I look forward to tonight's game, we've met Wellington on three occasions, scoring 14 goals and conceding none. We've beaten them all three times. Tonight I was be travelling on the small 19 seater Berkleys coach down to Wellington. My friend George will be along tonight to make it all the better. 

I am taking my camera with me so my next post will be photo filled! 

#follow @mannojunior #Re-Tweet #JobDone

Bath City 3-2 Farnborough - He Scores with his Hand!

 

 Date: Saturday 3^rd November 2012 (15:00)

Venue: MayDay Trust Park (Bath)

Full Time Score: Bath City 3-2 Farnborough

Competition: Blue Square South Fixture

Attendance: 605

My Matchday:  14

BCFC Scorers:  Charlie Griffin (17, 84), Sean Canham (92)

FBFC Scorers:  Reece Connolly (58), Dan Bennett (78)

On a cold November afternoon, action returned to Mayday Trust Park for possibly the last time for a month depending on the outcome of the FA Trophy tie next Saturday. I always love a home game. It means I can get up around 9am, watch ‘Fantasy Football Club’ until 10am, then put on ‘Soccer AM’ until 12noon. After this finished I made my way down to the ground via my grandparents house on the customary shop stop on route. I arrived at the ground at around 1.15pm and got my staff badge and set up to sell the matchday draw tickets until 2.45pm.

2.45 came pretty quickly and I made my way into the ground, returned the badge and tickets and move round to meet Andy who was on the popular side. Unusually the ground was suspectly quiet and it took a while to realise the PA system was down due to a blown fuse in the media box at the top of the main stand. This meant for no team news, music, other scores or confirmation on scorers for Farnborough, but I did find them out soon enough.

The line-up was fairly predictable for us this season and was as follows:

Glyn Garner (GK), Danny Ball, Aaron Brown, Harry Hooman, Gethin Jones ©, Joe Burnell, Josh Low, Noah Keats, Chris Allen, Sean Canham and Charlie Griffin.

City started the brighter of the two teams on the afternoon but didn’t look to threatening in front of goal. Something we really should have done in the game was test the Farnborough keeper who looked to be carrying and injury and fairly dis-interested in the game itself. It took 17 minutes in total for City to break the wall down as Charlie Griffin raced through on return from injury to slot the ball home into the corner of the net to give us a 1-0 lead. It remained this way for the rest of the half, with City domination possession and the game itself yet couldn’t find that way through to try and kill of the game. Half time came and it was 1-0 going into this.

Half time saw the customary switch of ends whilst Andy headed off down to the shops to buy himself some sweets. We met again at the Bath end behind the goal whilst trying to dodge the balls from the subs warming up at our end. Farnborough changed their keeper at half time, obviously due to the injury that had appeared to the original keeper. The new lad brought on looked much better and I was surprised they kept him on the bench.

I couldn’t keep up with the second half so I’ll let you read the BathCityFC Website report of the second half.

“

City were good value for their lead at this point but the visitors came back well and were unfortunate to go into the break still trailing. However, after 56 minutes Connolly was allowed too much space from a quickly taken short corner and he drove a low shot into the corner of the net. Both sides pressed to earn the win after this and it was Boro who looked to have grabbed it when Bennett's shot took a lucky deflection of Mark Preece to loop beyond a wrong-footed Glyn Garner with just 12 minutes left. City did not let their heads drop though and, after Canham had been pulled down right on the edge of the box, Griffin curled the ball home from 20 yards. Lifted by this City continued to push forward and two minutes into stoppage time a great cross by Kerry Morgan was headed in by Canham. There was still time for a Jones shot to canon against the angle of post and crossbar before dropping into Garner's grateful arms, and the visiting players were still claiming the ball had crossed the line when the final whistle went seconds later.”

It was a superb game on show today at Mayday Trust Park and one of the most enjoyable I’ve seen in a while. A late Sean Canham head/hand/anything he could get on it did it for us. It’s now for me to leave you from home reports until 1^st December as we now face a string of away trips that you can look forward to:

Wellington – Somerset Cup 2^nd Round (7^th November)

Leatherhead – FA Trophy 3^rd Qualifying Round (10^th November)

Sutton United – Blue Square South (17^th November)

@mannojunior – Catch you all soon!

Pictures Courtesy of Simon Howe (yuffie_city)

Eastleigh 3-1 Bath City - A coasting on the coast

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Date: Tuesday 30th October 2012 (19:45)
Venue: Silverlake Stadium
Full Time Score: Eastleigh 3-1 Bath City
Competition: Blue Square Bet South

Attendance: 525

My Matchday: 13


ETFC Scorers: Scannell (12), McAlllister (16), Reason (39)
BCFC Scorer: Allen (34)

It truly was a coasting on the coast at the Siverlake Stadium on Tuesday. First of all, sorry for the late post of this, I've been very busy sorting things out. Anyway, my day started with work, I had to go in from 7-12 and earned some nice money for the trip to Eastleigh in the evening. After getting home I sorted through what I needed to take, packed my bag and left the house at 3:40pm. I walked down to MayDay Trust Park via my grandparents and waited for the coach to arrive at 4:30pm. 28 people were on the coach in total, which is pretty good for a Tuesday night away game. We were down in Eastleigh by 6.30pm, which most of the time I would have been happy with but that time I wasn't. This was due to the ground that greeted us.

The Silverlake Stadium (Or Silvershite Stadium as I call it) is a small modern ground on the outskirts of Eastleigh. On the far side is a fairly smart looking stand holding maybe 200-300 people at the most. This is the best part of the ground. On the other side is flat ground with a small shed like roof over the top a bit far back from the railing meaning it's usually ineffective. At the end to the left of the Stand there is a small area of seating on the flat land, most probably for rating issues. It looks rather out of place and didn't help the ground out much, The other end is where the club house and tea hut is located. I didn't bother going in either so can't comment on what they were like. Overall the ground has nothing but flat land apart from the smart stand.

I entered the club shop after buying myself a portion of chips. They were quite nice actually, some of the best this year for me. The club shop is a tight spaced work container. It sells quite a lot of Eastleigh replica shirts which I don't think many take advantage of. What annoyed me most is that they don't label how much everything is so you have to ask. I looked through the programmes and found one I wanted but the selection wasn't great to be honest. This is where I met Russ, who I arranged to meet up with. 

After visiting the club shop there was not much to do really, so Russ and I walked around the ground taking in the basic-ness of the ground. We walked around and watched some warm-ups and  then took some pictures. It was then time for the game and Russ agreed to meet me behind the goal we were attacking. Adam Connolly was the newest casualty to our injury list. We were now without 4 crucial first team members in; Marc Canham, Charlie Griffin, Sekani Simpson and Adam Connolly. City lined up as follows:

1. Glyn Garner

2. Danny Ball

3. Aaron Brown

4. Harry Hooman

5. Gethin Jones

6. Joe Burnell

7. Josh Low

8. Jim Rollo

9. Chris Allen

10. Sean Canham

11. Noah Keats

12. Kerry Morgan

14. Luke Cummings

15. Aaron Hopkinson

16. Mark Preece

17. Jason Mellor

After hearing the line-up I knew we were in for a hard time. We were playing Jim Rollo in a central midfield role, which isn't his strongest position. To be honest by the end of the game I thought all the players looked like they had no clue where they were playing. I'll try and sum up the game in a short report but they aren't my strong point. 

Eastleigh started brightly and never looked like losing out at all. They were cutting the defense apart from both wings, especially the pacey number 7, Scannell. Scannell was first on the score sheet as the ball broke loose in the box after a small game of human pinball and Scannell lashed the ball past Glyn Garner, who to be fair had no chance of saving it, yet should of done better to gather it before Scannell got near the ball. Eastleigh were just toying with our defense and 4 minutes later McAllister was able to easily slot the ball past Glyn Garner after our defense had made a real hash of doing any defending. 

The first half was turning into a right nightmare and I was surprised we weren't further behind by 34 minutes but instead a Josh Low shot was parried by the Eastleigh keeper and Chris Allen did well to finish hitting it hard yet getting lift over the diving keeper. A glimmer of hope was all it was really as within 5 minutes our defense was separated like the parting of the red sea as our defense was all at sea! A good link up between Jai Reason and Scannell amounted in a simple opening to poke home from close range and we all knew that it was coming in the end. 

God it was only half time! To be fair nothing happened really in the second half, the best thing for us was when Kerry Morgan replaced Jim Rollo and added the extra attacking option and pace that Jim couldn't offer. Luke Cummings also came on for Josh Low, and he offered more attacking threat. I was quite distressed that these two weren't starting as I believe they are two of the best attacking players at the club and are sitting on the bench! We had a better second half but never got back into it and it ended 3-1. 

The game was made much better by talking to both Russ and Ashley either side which made for a more entertaining evening rather than the dire football on show. I then got back onto the supporters coach for the journey home, which was full of moaning and people thinking they're the next Jose Mourinho! I fell asleep for an hour and we were back home by 11:45pm and I was tucked up in bed by midnight!

• Journey to the ground: 6/10
• Build up to the game: 5/10
• Food and Drink available: 7/10
• Ground: 4/10
• Game Entertainment: 5/10

Total Rating: 27/50 (Average)

Thanks for reading! Please give it a tweet or a follow @mannojunior! and contact me if I'm in your area or you're in my area!

What to look forward to:

* Farborough (Home) - 03/11/2012 (Blue Square South)

* Wellington (Away) - 07/11/2012 (Somerset Cup)

* Leatherhead (Away) - 10/11/2012 (FA Trophy)

* Sutton (Away) - 17/11/2012 (Blue Square South)