… guess who forgot to pay their hosting fees? They have now been paid, but as a result, my website was down for the last two days. Did you miss anything? Unless you wanted to read stuff from the past 13 years, no. I haven’t blogged since New Year’s Day. Until now…
Since my injury, I am still using the crutch during my recovery. I have been attending Bath City home games without any difficulty, although have avoided travelling on the coach since September. Claire still goes to many of the away games. Today, Bath City were playing Oxford City. However, it was absolutely freezing everywhere. As sure as eggs are eggs, the game would be off. Did Oxford mention anything on their website or Twitter account? Did they hell. This meant Claire had to defrost her car, drive to her parents, pick them up, drive to Twerton Park, wait in the cold for the inevitable announcement that the game was off. It was. My wifey returned to me, under an hour after she left. Looking a tad pissed off and very cold indeed.
Sir David Attenborough confirms the Oxford City pitch is frozen and unplayable.
Remember when I got Grand Theft Auto 5? It was way back in 2013. I must have blogged about it. Anyway, I didn’t finish it, despite absolutely loving the series. The fact the PlayStation 3 was dying, resulting in the fan sounding like a jet engine kind of put me off playing the game. Over three years later, I am actually pleased that the PS3 did snuff it. I am finally an owner of a lush looking PlayStation 4, and guess what… GTA5 is on that too – and it looks even better than the PS3 version! I am therefore enjoying driving about Los Santos, stealing cars and killing people. It sounds atrocious, but it is the most fun since I inflicted life threatening, third degree burns on Dr Robotnik, on Sonic The Hedgehog.
Leeds are still doing worryingly well. Every time I think they’re going to slip up, they end up winning. The Mighty Whites are on Sky tonight (we’re always on Sky these days), against Barnsley. Kick off is in 11 minutes, so I had better wrap up this blog, find a few images to stick to it and upload the whole lot to WordPress.
After a very busy week at work, I was hoping for a restful Bank Holiday weekend. What I got was far from relaxing. I was out of the house every one of the three days. I’ve returned to work for a break!
Saturday was the quietest day. I went to Twerton Park, home of Bath City, where I will no doubt find myself standing in all manners of weathers and temperatures over the next eight months. City were playing East Thurrock United. If that name sounds familiar to you, it is because I have blogged about them before. They beat us 7-1 in the FA Cup. Things looked ominous. I needn’t had worried. A very early goal for City helped us win 2-1, albeit with a nervy final few minutes.
On Sunday we made our now annual trip to Longleat. We were stupid to do so. It was a Bank Holiday weekend, which meant two things – lots of people and lots of rain. We got both.
In between sessions of queueing in heavy rain, we did manage to ride the boat around the lake, where we saw sea lions and gorillas. Apparently hippos are in there somewhere too, but I didn’t see any. As well as the boat, we rode a double decker bus around the safari park. Many of the animals had shown more sense than us and taken shelter from the rain. The monkeys, however, were out in their numbers, and caused the highlight of the day for me, when they destroyed a roof rack of car, and attempted to eat a radio aerial on another.
We took a trip to the Dorset coast on Bank Holiday Monday, to watch Bath City play Poole Town. I didn’t get chance to see the donkeys on the beach, so had to settle for watching them on the football field instead. It was a game Bath really should have won, as they dominated and literally did everything but score a goal. I wasn’t at all surprised when Poole scored in the final minute, to claim an undeserved win. It was so inevitable, I wasn’t even disappointed.
Despite the warm weather, the coach trip home didn’t have the unbearable heat of the Margate journey, a few weeks earlier – this was mainly thanks to the driver turning on the air conditioning. It also took have as long to get back to Bath, which meant we were able to treat ourselves to a McDonalds on our return.
In the run up to the weekend, I was so excited about the start to the football season. By the end of the weekend, I couldn’t be any less enthusiastic.
Saturday I made the longest trip of the season (unless we draw Newcastle United in the FA Cup, or arrange a friendly against Grasshoppers of Zurich). My journey took me all the way to Margate in Kent.
I had a terrible day. I was stuck on a coach for almost 10 hours, in what felt like temperatures hotter than Africa. The air conditioning was clearly broken, or the coach driver too tight to turn it on. I was therefore sat in a surface, feeling sick, sweating and smelling, surrounded by loads of other sweaty, smelly people.
Margate is a shit hole. I’m not being a snob because I come from Bath, Margate is shit. Fact. I’ve been to a lot of really nice towns and cities, during my time as a Bath City fan, but I felt like Ross Kemp in one if his documentaries on Saturday.
Margate’s ground appeared to be half built. The changing rooms were porta cabins. The toilets (which were also porta cabins) had no soap (petty, but I like clean hands!).
It was nice to be out of the hot coach and watch the football in the sunshine. It was hot, but I certainly won’t complain about the heat, especially as in just a few months, I’ll be standing on a terrace, frozen to the bone.
A lot of the home fans took advantage of the hot weather – and the fact you could drink alcohol in the ground. A small minority fell victim of the “English bloke + hot weather + too much beer = twat” syndrome. I am usually for allowing supporters to drink at football matches – after all you can at rugby games – but louts like those at Margate ruin it for everyone.
The match itself didn’t do too much to cheer me up. Both sets of players huffed and puffed up and down the pitch. We didn’t play badly, but I don’t think we played great either. Both teams created chances, but it looked like it was going to be one of those 0-0 draws. That was until the 87th minute, when we were hit by a sucker punch. Margate scored. The 500-odd crowd erupted. Eugh.
I arrived back on the coach, knowing I had 5 hours ahead of me, to reflect on the defeat. You know when you open an oven and the heat hits you? That’s what the coach felt like. Eugh, eugh, eugh!
I eventually arrived back home, feeling fed up, sick and tired. My head was banging. I had never found my bed more welcoming.
I awoke refreshed and decided to put the disappointment of the previous day behind me. Leeds were on the telly at midday, against QPR. I was confident about the new season and pleased that Leeds had been chosen for TV. While Bath City took 87 minutes to shatter my season, Leeds only made me wait 3 minutes, before conceding a stupid goal.
Leeds lost 3-0 in the end. I took consolation from the fact that we may sign some more players as a result. Who am I kidding? We won’t sign anyone.
City on the other hand can brighten my spirits. They are at home to Weston Super Mare tonight. A win will put a smile on my face. A defeat and it’ll be more eugh, eugh, eugh.
If you had told me at the end of August that Bath City would be playing in a different division the following season, I wouldn’t have thought anything other than promotion to The Conference Premier (or whatever they call it these days). We had played six games and won the lot. We were world beaters and could take on anyone. Three months later, we were out of the cup, out of the trophy and only won one league match. We were heading for another division – except this was the one below us.
This season has been rubbish. In a way, it’s been worse than the year we were relegated the last time. At least then we were taking on teams who had a bit of quality about them – Luton, Wrexham and Fleetwood. This season we’ve been beaten by Harlow Town and Bognor Regis!
As well as losing a ton of games, we also lost the management team of Adie and Archie. Disliked by many, due to the poor form, their exit was inevitable. However, I saw the duo as friends – Adie even attended my wedding.
A new manager arrived, Gary Owers. While he’s not Adie or Arch, I do like Gary. He is a Geordie. A proper northerner, who loves his football. We stand behind the dugouts at Twerton Park, and you can see that Gary eats and breaths every moment.
Gary isn’t a miracle worker. He hasn’t turned us from relegation matter to champions elect. He has, however, steadied the ship. We slowly ground out results and got a few impressive wins – most notably against Weston Super Mare, which even went viral on the internet.
Last weekend was our penultimate game of the season – away to Hayes and Yeading. H&Y are fellow relegation rivals, so losing to them was not an option. The team that lost was unofficially down.
The first half was a nervy one. We battered the Hayes goal, but created nothing. It seemed inevitable that Hayes would run down the other end of the pitch and score a lucky goal.
Everything changed in the second half. We were awarded a penalty after the Hayes goalkeeper lost his mind, bringing down our striker, David Pratt in the penalty area. While I’m on the topic, Pratty was immense on Saturday. Truly superb. The best individual performance from a City player I have seen for a long time.
So, we were given a penalty, thanks to this mad goalkeeper (who wasn’t sent off – cheers, ref). This was scored. Unbelievable. I’ve seen more penalties missed this season than scored. Hayes then threw in the preverbal towel and gave us another penalty. We scored that too. I had to ask myself “Is this real?”
To make things even more bizarre, Nick McCootie came off the substitute bench, ran through the entire Hayes and Yeading defence and scored a third goal for us. He never does anything like that! Granted Hayes are absolute shit, but they made him look like Lionel Messi.
The victory over Hayes, coupled with a few results going our way, secured our survival in the division. This means we could well be playing Poole Town on Boxing Day, instead of Frome. Errrr, that doesn’t sound much different.
Saturday was a great away day – the best I have had in years. Our fans travelled in numbers, creating an excellent atmosphere. I like to think we were the 12th man and helped the City boys over the survival line.
We have the final game of the season this weekend. Margate are the opposition. We could send them down – the Leeds fan in me likes this idea… causing misery to rival football fans.
It’s fair to say that Bath City haven’t been having the greatest of seasons. Despite an excellent start in August, where they won six out of six games, things have been pretty rubbish since.
The management was changed a couple of months ago, but sadly the form didn’t and we kept losing. With the six summer wins a distant memory, relegation to the Southern League has become a real concern.
It is a cliché, but every game at this stage of the season is crucial. However, Bank Holiday Monday’s match against Weston Super Mare carried extra importance. Like ourselves, WSM are struggling, and losing to them would almost certainly condemn us to relegation.
The game wasn’t anything special. City had the share of possession and chances, but created very little. The game looked to be heading for a draw and a point neither side would find helpful.
Then, in the first minute of injury time, Weston somehow scored. That was it. Relegation. Frome Town on Boxing Day. Taunton next Easter. It was at this point, when like every other City fan, I was at my lowest point of the season, that things started to go crazy.
With just a few minutes at the most left, City won themselves a corner. Nothing really to get excited about, except as a result of the set piece, a Weston player lost his mind and cleared the ball off the line with his arm. A straight red card and penalty award followed. The spot kick was converted, which was a surprise in itself, as it feels like we’ve missed more than we have scored this season.
At this point, I was happy, but things were still bleak, as a draw would still leave us in deep doo-doo.
Weston, clearly rattled, following throwing away their lead due to a stupid mistake, gave the ball away, almost from the kick off, where young Tyler Harvey, on loan from Plymouth, and scorer of the penalty, beat his marker and scored from the halfway line.
Everything after that is a blur. All I remember is everyone going batshit crazy. It was the best end to a football match ever and the greatest Bath City goal I have ever seen.
The video containing the entire injury time madness is below (which has just made me wonder why I’ve written everything above, when I could have just embedded the clip). This is the video which broke the internet. It’s had tons of YouTube views, featured on the Match of the Day Facebook page, appeared on various foreign sports websites and made the local news.
In the words of Martin Tyler, “I swear you’ll never see anything like this ever again…”
About Me
So you stumbled across my blog. No doubt after searching for something bizarre on Google. Before you hit that 'Back Button', why not stay and have a read for a few minutes?
If you are after a website which gives advice on how to hack an iPhone X, download the latest Steven Seagal movie, or view nudy ladies, you've come to the wrong place and may now press 'Back'.
However, if you would like a lifestyle blog, written by a 30-something chap, living in Bath (England), feast your eyes on this.
You won't discover how to copy PlayStation 4 games. What you will find is a blog, covering life in the West Country, the highs and lows of supporting two unsuccessful football teams, while sharing a house with a wife and rabbit.
All written by a man, somewhere on the sanity-scale between normal and eccentric.
