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
4th 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 20th 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 6th 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!
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