The final game of the season was a
particularly weird day, but given the vast fluctuations in mood of
this season, perhaps it was a fitting end.
A group of City boys convened in The Old
Crown, Twerton, for “The Bath City boys
big bake off”…now let that sink in. This is a group of lads, all under the
age of 30, who are meeting in a pub, before a football game to compare each
others baking efforts! It is definitely out of the ordinary for my match day,
and I assume most other peoples!
On arriving, I was expecting a myriad of
horrific cakes, soggy uncooked middles through to blackened smoking squares where
a cake may once have been. So, imagine my surprise when despite my misgivings I
arrived to see tables laden with superb looking cakes of all sizes, there was
Palmers white chocolate and orange cupcakes, Reedy’s lemon drizzle cake
(complete with toasted almonds spelling out CITY), Beavin’s fudge
brownies/cakes (honestly not sure what they were but they were lush!) and a
host of other amazing creations (special mention for the sugar paper Bath City
badges!) so after gorging myself on cakes, the beer wasn’t going down quite so
easily!
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| The baked produce created by surprisingly skilled stripes! |
After offering cakes to the pub, and
packing away we headed for Twerton Park, which was bathed in glorious sunshine,
but in fitting with what has been a foul season for weather it was still
surprisingly cold.
The stripes were welcoming division form
team Sutton United to TP, who were on an eight game winning streak. Despite
that it was City who had the ball in the net first, when a crap clearance from
the keeper was closed down by Allen, the ball rolled to Charlie Griffin who
finished, but was flagged offside.
Both Sutton and City exchanged blows for
the next part of the game, with City having two shots which went over, and being
indebted to Mellor for a cracking save. It was to be in vain though, when on 33
minutes a close range effort was scrambled home, Mellor managed to get a hand
to it, but it was not enough to stop the ball creeping over the line.
From a Josh Low ball, Griffin tucked the
ball home well, but was erroneously flagged offside, the big forward then
almost scored from a corner, but it was Sutton who finished the strongest
coming close on numerous occasions.
The second half I am not going to discuss
in much detail, but in short City were overwhelmed by Sutton. They scored on
the 52nd minute, then a Dan Ball back pass was underhit and Mellor
rushing from his line dragged down the onrushing attacker, nailed on penalty
and we assumed a straight red, Mellor was reprieved but the penalty was lashed
home.
Another goal was scored by Sutton to make
it 0-4, but in truth it barely mattered. The only other real thing of note was
Chris Allen went down in some discomfort, but it has since come out that it was
only a dead leg and not a more serious injury.
The fans continued to sing, and actually
despite the loss it was an ok day. We clapped the players off at the end and
got the obligatory sideways thumbs up (if that’s even possible!) from Jim
Rollo.
Then the joy of non league strikes again,
after the players had left we went on the pitch for a kick about with a ball
“liberated” from Sutton United, an enjoyable time was spent frolicking on the
Twerton Park pitch, before City fan (and head of stewards) Shane told us to “Piss
off, as I want a beer but can’t leave till you do” so we left, and had our last
look at Twerton Park for the 2012/13 season.
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| Messing around on the pitch after the game |
The season has been very mixed, some
amazing performances and results, and some awful games and a dangerous flirt
with relegation, while the less said about performance in the cups the better.
Nevertheless, there are some positives in the strength of some of the younger
players performances and optimism, as always in football, that next year could
be better. Up the City!
P.s. coming soon(ish, e.g. when I can be
arsed to write it) the Second Annual DUYC Awards!
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