Eastleigh (HOME)

Following the encouraging win over Bishop’s Stortford, the first time in 7 years City had won on the opening day, the stripes were to play high spending Eastleigh at Twerton Park. In what must be one of the weirder days in the history of Bath City, the day started for the club with a call from emergency services at 1:30am as someone had set a car alight just in front of the turnstiles.

The burnt out car could have had serious repercussions if it had been parked closer to the main stand, or if the wind had been blowing in a different direction and we could have been looking at a lost main stand a la the Bristol City fans burning it down when Rovers ground shared with us.

The second thing that was unusual in the day was the new kit causing further controversy. I personally do not like the kit, for my tastes the stripes are too narrow, and the all plain black clearly would look to similar to the referee, as many of us pointed out on forums and general chit chats. Bishop’s Stortford’s management team definitely thought so, and so did the referee on Tuesday! Therefore, City took to the field in last years kits, looking resplendent in proper stripes, and we now wonder if we’ve got a one game wonder kit on our hands.

To the game, Eastleigh after losing in the play off semi last year, have continued to invest heavily in their playing squad, no one I know is quite sure where the money is coming from as Eastleigh aren’t well supported, and we haven’t heard of a Dale Vince type pumping money in.

Of their summer acquisitions’ Stuart Fleetwood is the biggest name, having played in the league and dropping down from Luton Town to join Eastleigh. The stripes lined up with the same starting eleven as away at Stortford.

The game started with City attacking the Bristol End, but were quickly on the back foot, when a long ball bypassed the City defence, falling to Fleetwood who saw his shot pushed round the post by Mellor (thankfully recovered from his knee injury on Saturday) City then had a shot via Adlesbury, but the game developed into a midfield stalemate with no real threats on goal from either side. The nearest the first half came to a goal was when Mellor seemed to completely misjudge a shot from distance that cannoned back off the post, the teams entered half time still with the score at 0-0.

The second half continued in the same vein, with Eastleigh having the best of the game, but not really creating too much. Danny Ball was booked when he chased a ball and slid into keeper Ross Flitney, much to the keepers credit he bounced to his feet and pushed away the rest of his animalistic colleagues’ who were gunning for Ball and haranguing the referee Flitney’s intervention probably saved Ball from a completely unnecessary sending off, and for that we were all impressed by the rare show of sportsmanship.

On 68 minutes, the deadlock was broken; a cross from the right was met by Strevens, his poorly hit shot, struck Sekani Simpson and bobbled over the line via the post. Howells reacted instantly by bringing on Ross Stearn for Noah Keats, and the substitution almost instantly reaped dividends when Stearn went past two, before crashing his shot against angle of post and bar with Flitney beaten.

Eastleigh could have scored more, but the final action of the game involved Jason Mellor making it halfway up for a corner that was taken quicker than he could arrive in the box, it was cleared to the left wing area, where the big keeper was back peddling, he pinged a delightful cross field pass that picked Stearn out perfectly, the winger drove in a low cross that Flitney spilled, but managed to gather before the onrushing Roman’s could get there.

The game finished, with City losing, but given that Eastleigh are favourites to go up, the stripes could take some optimism from the game, and if they play like the did (but perhaps add more attacking impetus) then we are in for a good season.

P.S. On a side note, the bank holiday Monday game against Farnborough has been cancelled due to the never ending list of issues that basket case of a club is suffering from, so sadly the bank holiday weekend is down to one game on the Saturday, against Gosport Borough who eliminated City from the FA Cup last season.