Eastleigh (Home)

On a squally, windswept Saturday, Bath City welcomed (welcomed in the loosest sense) Eastleigh to Twerton. Due to a stag do, there were actually Eastleigh fans in attendance and given there usual home crowd of 300 that is a surprise!

Richard Hill the manager of Eastleigh had been shitstirring in the week, by claiming two City players had texted him during the week saying they were available for next season, but then in best ‘Arry Redknapp style he claimed it was “nothing to do with me I might add” clearly bullshitting comes naturally to managers based in Hampshire.

Eastleigh have been throwing some money around, and ridiculously contain Chris Zebroski in their ranks, who was playing 4^th tier football until earlier this season, and it reportedly on £1k a week with a £1k goal bonus, which cannot be sustainable for Eastleigh, and you wonder if a Weymouth/Kettering Town/Truro City situation is brewing.

Once again the stripes were to be indebted to Jason Mellor, with the keeper coming to the rescue of City on a good few occasions. One of the good news stories of the week is that Mellor has signed on for next season, which is brilliant news as he has grown in stature and ability on a game by game basis.

Noah Keats had a rasping drive from distance on 10 minutes that narrowly flew wide, but this was all City really created in the first half hour, with Eastleigh enjoying more of the possession and attacking threat, but when City’s next chance did arrive it again fell to Keats and Ross Flitney had to parry the ball around his post.

The pitch was looking fairly bad as the continued bad weather of the last few months wreaked havoc with the Twerton pitch, and I imagine the grounds man is praying for the season to end to allow the pitch some time to recover.

Nearing the end of the  half, Mellor bravely dived at the feet of an onrushing attacker, and if he’d mistimed it City were in all sorts of trouble, however, Jason clearly connected with the ball and the danger was snuffed out.

The half finished 0-0, and during the half time interval it was announced that Daz had raised over £2k for his charity, so a big thumbs up to everyone there.

A dangerous counterattack for Eastleigh, looked like leaving the stripes in all kinds of trouble, until Danny Ball pulled off a brilliant, sliding tackle, that while entirely fair was robust and committed, it actually accidently led to an injury for Michael Green who was substituted shortly after.

Ryan Charles came on for Chris Allen, and it was the substitute which set up the Romans opener. Charles took the ball down the right, and crossed into the area, and it struck either (depending on your view) the shoulder or the upper arm that was moved towards the ball, the referee shook his head vigorously, however, the linesman clearly thought it had struck the arm, as the flag was raised across his chest, and the penalty was given.

Eastleigh players disgracefully hurled a barrage of abuse at the linesman and the referee should really have booked a few of them, but the penalty stood, and Charlie Griffin stepped up and sent the keeper the wrong way with a confident penalty, scoring his 20^th goal of the season.

City were one up, but never truly deserved the lead, but looked like hanging on for the victory, despite some important saves by Mellor and some wasteful Eastleigh finishing, sadly it was not to be and in a ridiculous 6^th minute of injury time the ball was crossed into the box, it bounced around for a little bit before dropping to the feet of Adam Watkins who lashed the ball home, he and the rest of the Eastleigh team then proceeded to celebrate like they’d won the World Cup, including some over the top celebrations from the aforementioned odious Richard Hill.

However, the win would have been massively undeserved and the point now means the mighty stripes are mathematically safe and will be playing Conference South football next season. Up the City!

Chelmsford City Away

What with the season drawing to a close, and City looking comfortably secure in their midtable obscurity, the question has to be asked could anyone be arsed travelling across the country to Essex, to watch the stripes take on Chelmsford?

Surprisingly the answer was yes, as it’s a Saturday so what else will you do? It also gave me a convenient excuse to travel to London to see my mates who live there now. So I travelled over on the Friday, and spent an enjoyable evening in The Bricklayers Arms, Putney (a pub I cannot recommend highly enough) before getting up Saturday morning to head into the heart of Essex.

A quick tube to London Liverpool Street, a pasty, then onto the quick train to Chelmsford, before stepping into the sunshine just past 1pm, to see the living stereotypes of Essex girls, all fake tan, fake tits, fake eyelashes and bleached blonde hair, proving the point that stereotypes while not always true do have a grain of truth to them (currently as I am in the West Country I am drinking cider and eating cheddar…this may not be true)

 Chelmsford City, currently play at an athletics ground called Melbourne Stadium, that is on the outskirts of Chelmsford, we wandered there via a massive 1950’s suburban housing estate, that I am sure formed the basis of modern urban dystopian stories. The rabbit warren nature of the estate necessitated much use of smart phone map technology as we struggled to find our way there.

As an aside on Chelmsford City, they have a more unusual story on their foundation, while lots of clubs were formed as works teams, or church teams (Manchester City are one formed via that route) Chelmsford City though are the continuation of Chelmsford FC who were founded by the Chelmsford lawn tennis and croquet club in 1878, lawn tennis and croquet being posher than the usual miners/mill workers!

On finding the ground, we went to the nearest pub, which was the Red Beret, the pub was a modern, purpose built pub, and in actuality while not being the best it was much better than the exterior suggested, however, with no ale on tap I had my first pints of Guinness in many a year.

On exiting the pub, we walked the short distance to the ground, and paid the £11.50 entrance fee (why the 50p? every other club is round pounds) squeezed through the turnstile and was asked to vote for player of the year before he spotted my City pin badge.

The ground is as to be expected, pretty crap, but then athletic stadiums are made for athletics not football. There are a couple of temporary stands on the edge of pitch inside the running track, a seated stand down one side which is the running track distance away, then the main stand which has the sandpit as well, and is miles away from the pitch. The main problem with football in athletic grounds is the distance from the pitch, and the fact that they look so disjointed as nothing within the ground merges, so it doesn’t feel like a football ground.

Chelmsford do though, have an amazing little club shop that is in a shed! Literally, your off the shelf, B&Q standard shed, which now finds life selling claret shirts and scarves, however, given that Twerton Park doesn’t have a club shop, who am I to mock?

Sheddy club shop delight

Despite the dead rubber nature of the game, a surprisingly large number of City fans had made their way to Chelmsford, and watched the same side (minus the ill Preece with Allen taking his place) that started against Salisbury take the field.

City started quite well against a Chelmsford team who were massive fans of the long ball, and had a few good crossing opportunities, which were either marginally overhit or that Griffin headed over the bar when he did connect.

That said the Clarets were making the City defence deal with some pressure as well, and there were a few heart in mouth moments, with Mellor forced to pull off a couple of saves, one that only just went wide after his touch.

From a corner Griffin almost smuggled the ball home, this was despite the fact Stuart Searle was clearly fouling the Bath born forward by pulling his shirt and generally fouling the front man, this was seized upon as a sign the keeper didn’t like the pressure, and from subsequent corners Gethin Jones surrounded the keeper, and it was nice to see footballers thinking and taking advantage of a weakness in the opposition team.

Gethin almost scored soon after from an Aaron Brown free kick, and both the long serving centre back and fans could not work out how the ball had not gone in from his header.

Soon after the Chelmsford fans and players were even more perplexed as to how they had not taken the lead, when a cross from Cook was met powerfully at close range by Slabber, the ball cannoned against the crossbar, down onto what I can only assume was the line, before up into Mellor’s hands. A mightily close shave for City.

Look how far from the pitch the stand is

Neither side managed to score and the half time interval arrived with the score at 0-0.

The stripes broke the deadlock soon after half time with the easiest goal they have scored in years, Sekani Simpson took a quick throw down the line to Josh Low that took the whole Chelmsford defence by surprise, Low took two touches before floating over a delicious cross, which Griffin despite the close attention of two defenders expertly headed back across Searle into the net. One nil to the stripes and Chelmsford were furious with themselves.

Chelmsford then brought on a centre forward who was taller than Peter Crouch, and resorted even more to the long ball, but City were weathering the onslaught well, although did settle into their annoying habit of sitting back a touch too deep, inviting pressure on themselves.

Nevertheless, it was Bath City who came the closest to scoring again, Noah Keats, easily my pick for player of the season, burst forward showing the drive and tenacity that has been the hall mark of his game, he kept coming and defenders kept backing off him, until he was in the area, it seemed to open up for the shot, but for some reason he opted not to shoot and tried to play a square ball into substitute Marc Canham’s pass, the ball sadly was behind Canham and the chance was lost. It is an increasingly frustrating habit of some of City’s midfield to refuse the opportunity to have a shot when in the area, but it wasn’t to matter as the whistle was blown and City had beaten play off chasing Chelmsford and secured themselves (baring a whole host of unlikely results) Conference South football for next season.

The 6^th game unbeaten was celebrated in The Railway Tavern, a much better pub than The Red Beret, which had a good array of beers on, and some superb railway memorabilia on the walls that a certain missing stripe would have enjoyed. A surprisingly enjoyable away day was had, and if they don’t get promoted one I will probably do next season. UTC.

Easter Games (and a quick note on Basingstoke)

Basingstoke
The three home games in a Saturday-Tuesday-Saturday sequence, meant blogging fatigue, and after the highs of Chelmsford and Welling, the game against Basingstoke was predictable in that a draw was gained having played so well against the previous two high flying teams, Elliot Chamberlain scored City's goal and the 1-1 game had very little incident of note. Nevertheless, the 5 points from the 3 games was most unexpected and helped to allay the relegation fears.

Maidenhead United (A)
The Easter break, gives the joyous occasion of two games in three days (joyous for fans, not sure how the players feel) and the first game for the stripes was away at York Road, home of Maidenhead United. To get to Maidenhead should normally have been one of the easiest away journeys of the season, a direct train to Reading, then a quick change up to Maidenhead. Annoyingly, Reading railway station is being completely redeveloped over the bank holiday weekend, meaning that no trains were to run past Swindon. The fear of the rail replacement bus, meant that I ended up driving and conveying myself and three other stripes to Maidenhead.

We arrived in Maidenhead, and parked in a pay and display car park opposite the ground, and saw a derelict looking pub, "ah that's a shame" I thought as I mourned another closed pub, however, on closer inspection there was a old boy sitting on a table outside drinking a half of Guinness. Bloody hellfire, the pub was open, it was a state, the sign was battered, windows boarded up, and the name scribbled in different fonts over the door, how the place is still operating I have no idea, it was attached to a terrace of houses which were in the process of apparently being refurbished, but it is definitely the ropeyest entrance to a ground a have ever seen.

We ended up in the clubhouse (see other posts for my views on clubhouses!) and this one was the same as all the others. We overheard some ridiculous conversations, and Palmer's balding bonce was ridiculed, which amused everyone.

York Road is the oldest continually used football ground in England (see below) so I therefore expected it to be potentially like Twerton Park, a grand old ground built when people supported their local clubs rather than watching football in a pub, claiming to support a team based hundreds of miles away. Surprisingly, the ground is remarkably undeveloped, but it does have a charming air and some nice touches.

The crowd of 320 contained close to 100 stripes, and we were in fine voice all afternoon. The City team was the same that played Basingstoke, with Elliot Chamberlain making his last appearance before returning to Exeter City. The stripes started well, and Noah Keats' drive from distance had strangled cries as it came very close to opening the scoring.

Maidenhead then grew into the game, and if they could finish City may have been in trouble, as shot after shot flew miles over Mellor's goal. The bent metal of the advertising hoarding above the goal suggested that this maybe a problem they regularly encounter, but it did cause a few raised heartbeats as the chances kept coming.

Jason Mellor also saved City's rearguard, when he noticed early that Maidenhead's right winger had been released, and he powered from the goal and won a challenge clearing the ball into touch. I think it was at this point that we noticed the railway line running down the side of the pitch, and it was commented on that they used different FGW trains to the ones at home, so more teasing of our wannabe trainspotter ensued.

Mellor then started a move which should have led to City taking the lead, he threw out to Allen, who threaded a inch perfect pass into the path of Chamberlain, the forward struck his shot, which went past the keeper but rebounded back off the post, the pass alone deserved a goal as it was exquisite.

Maidenhead are rightly proud of their history

No goal appeared during the rest of the first half, and then ridiculously given it is Easter, as I wandered around the pitch at half time it started to snow. Snow, at the end of March, this winter is showing no signs of ending yet.

Flags were hung on the nice end covering, which provided good amplification of songs, and the second half began. Maidenhead forced Mellor to pull off a brilliant save with his legs early in the half, and the men in stripes were under a fair amount of pressure. Slightly against the run of play City broke, Josh Low ended up with the ball, and after a few feints he fired towards goal Billy Lumely got down to the ball, but only managed to push the ball out into the 6 yard box, Chamberlain following up slotted the ball home. 0-1 City, and that was how the game ended. Maidenhead should probably have scored a few in the game, but their awful finishing cost them, however, City did restrict them mainly to half chances and will feel the result was a result of their resolute defending.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Smaller than expected but not lacking in charm

Salisbury City (H)
Easter Monday saw the visit of Salisbury City to Twerton, with The Whites making the short trip from Wiltshire. Salisbury have dropped down to second in the league after looking like they were going to run away with it at one point.

Feeling slightly worse for wear after an unexpectedly heavy Easter Sunday session, I eschewed the usual prematch visit to the taverns of Twerton, and decided to just rock up in time for kick off, but completely cocked up my timings and would have been late if it wasn't for the fortuitous intervention of the family Gibbons, who were driving past a offered me a lift that was gratefully received.

Arriving at the ground, it was busier than it has been for a while, and that boded well for a decent sized crowd, and eventually 731 people braved the cold to catch the game.

Griffin came in for the now departed Chamberlain, and Gethin Jones started in a back 5, which saw Allen drop to the bench.  Will Puddy, ex of City, and massively annoying swine in the reverse fixture was in goal for Salisbury. City passed the ball around well, but time after time the linesmans flag went up to prevent a City opportunity, now one or two may well have been offside, but he flagged Low at one point when the tall wideman was played on by the right back by a good few yards. The back 5, was allowing Aaron Brown and Sekani Simpson ample opportunity to bomb forward from their wing back positions, and Simpson had a few dangerous runs.

Griffin was broke through trying to latch onto a bouncing pass, and for my money Puddy clearly used his hands a good yard outside of the area. But despite the appeals the referee ignored the infraction. This was part of a number of slightly bizarre calls by the match officials in the first period, although they seemed to calm down in the second.

Jason Mellor continued his transformation from young goalkeeper who we had hopes for, to integral, superb goalkeeper, and pulled off a couple of fantastic saves. Salisbury came into the game more in the second half, although there were two odd moments, a yellow smoke bomb/flare was thrown onto the pitch by the Salisbury fans, which led to an amazing comedy fall by a steward who ran onto the pitch to clear the item, then the Salisbury manager began a screaming match at whom I do not know, and was warned by the referee.

City then carved out two moments that could have won the game, for the first Low broke down the right, before passing to Burnell, Burnell floated the ball into the box, where Griffin met it with a powerful head, the ball beat Puddy, but hit the crossbar and rebounded harmlessly away from any City players. Shortly afterwards Josh Low was released again, and he appeared caught in two minds as the ball bobbled, and instead of a) shooting or b) passing to Griffin, he took a touch to many and Puddy dived at his feet and the chance went.

Morgan and Lennox came on at the 88 minute mark, leaving City with potentially the smallest frontline in non league, and something clearly pissed Morgan off as he stormed down the tunnel after the final whistle. Nil nil was the score, but the game was far more entertaining than the scoreline suggests and the result meant City have gone 5 games unbeaten.