Christmas Disappointments

As we all know, the main excitement of the festive season is not the celebration nor the presents, but is the festive football games.

City were scheduled to play on 22nd (Havant and Waterlooville, away), 26th (WsM, home) and 29th (Dorchester Town, home).

So come the 22nd December, and despite a 30th birthday party the night before (not mine I hasten to add!!) at 9:25 six stripes met and boarded the train to Havant, precisely 2 minutes later we received the call informing us that the game was off due to the rain. We broke the news to the 3 additional stripes who boarded the train at Bradford on Avon, the decision was made to disembark at Salisbury, and a jolly boys outing commenced, where many great pints of Hop Back breweries beers were sunk, including a trip to the iconic Wyndham Arms, where Hop Back was founded, so the cancelled Saturday was salvaged and a good time was had by all.

Come Boxing Day and the biblical rain continued to sweep the southwest, luckily Twerton Park's slope and normally good drainage continued, and the game was played. The visit of Weston Super Mare, and their 7 fans is definitely a come down from the Conference National days.

As we arrived at the ground the weather was atrocious, and you could tell how much water the pitch was containing. The weather definitely played a part in a game that had moments of quality (most of it supplied by Charlie Griffin) and moments of farce. The stripes battled manfully in the conditions, which worsened at one point, and a lot of us expected the game to be abandoned, but the referee allowed the game to continue.

Weston super Mare scored just after the half hour, with the use of a hand (I think it was Kane Ingram who handled it home, but am not 100% certain) Shortly afterwards Griffin was fed, the keeper saved, but Griffin slipped and slid across the wet turf and slammed into the concrete wall that surrounds the pitch at Twerton Park. Griffin seemed momentarily unconscious, and there was genuine concern for the burly centre forward, thankfully he picked himself off of the floor after some treatment.

Moments before half time a ball was whipped into the WsM box, and Griffin challenged for it, the keeper spilled the ball and in his desperation to retrieve it, he hauled Charlie down, or at least that is what the referee must have seen as the penalty was awarded, personally it seemed a bit soft. Griffin stepped up and fired the ball home. 1-1 at HT.

Half time seemed to be taking an age, and then there was an announcement over the tannoy that the linesman had injured himself, and that they were after a replacement from the stands, a fully qualified City fan was found, and thanks to him we were able to continue the game.

For the first 20 minutes of the second half, the stripes battered WsM and should have scored, but a combination of keeper, weather, unlucky breaks and poor finishing cost City, as WsM scored after the dominant period to make it 1-2. City seemed to run out of ideas, and strength as the pitch rapidly began to resemble No Man's Land from the First World War (in terms of mud obviously...) Sean Canham was brought on, and it has since turned out that the lanky frontman is moving to Australia soon. The game ended, and ridiculously and shamefully people booed a team that had done it's best in testing conditions.

Then came what should have been the best game of the Christmas spell, Dorchester Town at home, however, as I walked into town, Victoria Park was basically underwater and news of a pitch inspection at 10:30 caused my heart to drop, as expected the game was postponed.

Therefore out of 3 games, two which we would have expected the stripes to win, we have had two postponed and one lost! Not what City wanted, with the weather set to continue, I can't see the game against WsM on New Years Day going as well, so we will be having a lot more Tuesday night games soon!