Page 3 - Keynsham Town FC v Helston Athletic 171222

Good afternoon and a very warm welcome to Helston
Athletic for this Toolstation Western League Premier
Division clash. Our committee would also like to welcome
today’s match officials, referee Luke Iles and his 2
assistants, Dave Jones & Ian Purchase.
After the disappointing performance in our last home
game against Shepton Mallet 3 weeks ago, the lads
produced an excellent display a fortnight ago as we
trekked off to deepest, darkest Cornwall to face
Mousehole. After last season’s fiasco with this fixture,
which I’m sure you all recall, it was a relief to get this
game out of the way!

An early goal from top scorer Owen Brain got us off to a great start, but the hosts
equalised before halftime. Two quick goals after the break put them 3-1 up, but
Tyler Linton pulled one back with a few minutes remaining. Sadly we couldn’t grab
an equaliser, but all credit to the lads for pushing a team all the way that has only
lost one League game so far this season.

Obviously it was a massive disappointment to lose 2 games to the freezing weather
this week. Last Saturday morning, I was with the match referee as he inspected
our 3G pitch at 9:00 am. The main problem we faced was that the 10 yards of the
pitch closest to the car park gets no sunshine at this time of year, so it would have
been unlikely that that part would have thawed (and remained thawed) once the
game had started. We must also bear in mind that we are in a division that
frequently requires travel of 3 or 4 hours each way, so added into the mix was the
fact that there was severe weather in South Devon last Saturday. It would have
been unethical to expect Saltash to travel the 260 mile round trip in conditions
when the Highways Agency was advising essential road travel only.

This is our last game before Christmas, so on behalf of all our hard-
working committee members, we hope that you have a wonderful
Christmas break!

Our next game is on Boxing Day away to Ashton & Backwell United (1:00 pm kick-
off), and we are not in action back here at Crown Fields until Torpoint Athletic visit
us on Saturday 14 January (15:00 kick-off).
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Thank you as always for your valued support. Up the Ks!!

Jules French (Club Secretary)