Having missed the home 3-1 win against Hornchurch, I was craving a stripey fix, so the Tuesday night game at Eastleigh seemed too good to miss. Having been moved to Yeovilton by work there is no chance I am catching the coach anymore, so was driving. Salisbury is enroute to Eastleigh (which is basically a glorified Southampton suburb, complete with Southampton airport) and it was there that I collected Palmer before continuing onto Eastleigh.
A certain City fan will tell you that The Cricketers Arms is one of the best pubs around and was highlighting it as a pub he was looking forward to, well why I do not know. It is ok, serves a few decent ales, but all in all is a posh Wetherspoon/Hungry Horse type of pub, and it does not hold a candle to The Bridge End Inn, King and Crown, or many of the brilliant pubs we have visited in the last few years.
In the pub, we met two other stripes, and were quickly joined by a third. One of the fans was trying to direct his father, brother and mate to the pub, with little success but amusing directions, we crammed into my car (it is a small car, 5 fully grown blokes in was a tad tight) and headed to the Silverlake Stadium, home to Eastleigh since 1957.
I had been to the ground in our promotion season, and since then they have added some extra roofing, but not the greatest roof as there are no terracing, so the roof is a good 8 yards away from the pitch! Weird, the only thing of note of the ground is a illuminated Spitfire a nod to the fact that the famous warplane was manufactured nearby.
Jim Rollo was playing in centre midfield due to an injury to Connolly, while Marc Canham is still out with his ankle injury sustained while coaching Bristol City youth, and again the injury list is building up. Eastleigh had the best of the opening and flew at City, the stripes could barely get out of their own half and within 16 minutes the stripes were two down. Garner pulled off a cracking double save to keep the score down, but City were being overrun.
However, against the run of play, in the 34th minute City managed to get a goal back, the ball was worked to Josh Low who strode forward and fired a shot in, the shot was fired straight at keeper Ross Flitney who spilled the ball into Chris Allen's pass, and the young midfielder fired home his 4th in 5 games, a good return and one of many reasons why City have signed him up on a long term deal.
The goal was to be a brief rally, as within 5 minutes Eastleigh had scored again. The goal came from some abysmal defending high up the pitch. City had a freekick which broke to the corner of the pitch, Aaron Brown and Allen (I think) were both there, but neither closed down the Eastleigh player, and within 20 seconds Eastleigh had scored from a breakaway goal. 3-1 at HT.
The second half was of dire quality, with minimal chances created, with Eastleigh content to sit back on their lead, while City played lots of sideways passes, but rarely burst forward with pace and conviction. City are not a bad team, but the similarity of our midfielders is definitely a problem. The game finished 3-1 with few clear cut chances. When you're best moment of the half is listening to Brian Yorke sing "Always look on the bright side of life" to himself you know it's been poor.
We headed home, with Palmer still waiting for his first league away win in 23 months, hopefully this run will finish soon.
