Page 4 - Yate Town FC v Bideford 311020

A warm welcome to all of our supporters today and especially to the
players, management, directors and supporters from Bideford who have
made the lengthy journey from North Devon today. We hope you enjoy your
visit, and trust everyone has a safe trip home this evening.
Today we take a rest from Southern League action and focus on the FA
Trophy. For those that remember last season we were relatively successful
with some exciting and high scoring cup ties along the way. We began our
campaign on 29 October with a Tuesday evening game at home to
th
Tiverton (the original fixture was postponed on the preceding Saturday due
to torrential rain, the same day England beat the All Blacks in the Rugby
World Cup semi-final). The game was a close encounter finishing 3-3. The
replay took place on a very wet and windy Tuesday following a pitch
inspection. After FT the scores were level and in the dying minutes of extra
time Tivvy had the lead and looked to have pinched it until a late Guesty
pile driver levelled the scores to finish the game 3-3 once again. Penalties
followed and the Bluebells were faultless winning the tie with one spot kick
to spare. The reward was a home game hosting AFC Totton where once
again there was goals a plenty with Yate winning relatively comfortably 6-3.
From that game onwards things started to get more challenging and next
up was away to Braintree Town of the National League South. The match
did not start well and a very early misunderstanding between the defence
and GK gifted Braintree the lead within 5 minutes. Confidence in the squad
was high at the time and it was Louis Britton who levelled the scores after
winning a penalty, in the second half he netted his second with less than
ten minutes to go and the Bluebells were able to see out the remainder of
the match to enter the next round of the draw. This saw us head south to
face Eastleigh of the National League. Unfortunately we were simply
outclassed on this occasion and succumbed to a heavy defeat shipping 6
goals but at least getting one back in the 2 half, and so the cup run came
nd
to an end.
So to this year’s competition and hopefully similar success, however this
first tie will be a challenge. We last played Bideford in the 18/19 season, the
Bluebells secured the points in the home fixture with goals from Ross
Langworthy and Nick Peare. Despite the form book the Robins convincingly
secured the points in North Devon with a Billy Tucker hat trick. At this early
stage of the season the Robins sit in the bottom half of Division One South
yet to secure their first league win however this does not tell the full story.
Of the league games four have been drawn and the other lost only by one
goal. In the FA Cup they were only just beaten 2-0 by Tiverton and in the
last round of the Trophy they beat Slimbridge 3-2.
C’mon you Bluebells……….