Page 4 - Yate Town FC v Walton Casuals 231021

Good afternoon and a very warm welcome to everyone, including the players, management,
directors, and supporters of Walton Casuals, who today make the journey from Surrey. We
hope you enjoy your visit here and wish you a safe trip home.
After coming within inches of booking their place in round 1 of this year’s FA Cup, Yate Town
were all set and ready to host National League side Dover Athletic on Tuesday in a Fourth
Qualifying Round replay.
The stage was set, local media were present, and a crowd of over 500 fans had gathered –
only for a floodlight failure to delay proceedings. The club worked tirelessly to fix the issue,
with the referee giving the club until 8.30pm for the fault to be rectified and be ready to play.
The deadline passed and the lights were completely out on the South West Interiors Stadium
as the efforts continued. At 8.34pm, the stadium was illuminated and ready to go. The
referee offered the teams the option of still playing, but Andy Hessenthaler’s side declined
to play and the match was unfortunately postponed.
I would like to take this opportunity to extend a massive thank you to everyone involved in
attempting to ensure the match went ahead as planned.
The result of the postponement is that the Kent outfit will travel to Yate again on Tuesday
26 October, and it will once again be a 7.45pm kick off. The attendance was incredible to
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see on Tuesday and we would love to see you all here again – please note that all tickets
purchased on the day will still be valid for the 26 .
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Turning our attention to today’s fixture, Walton Casuals come to Lodge Road in good form –
they are currently unbeaten in five matches in all competitions, and a recent 4-2 win over
Beaconsfield Town last weekend sees the Stags currently sitting in 8 position in the league,
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three points shy of the playoffs and four points ahead of Yate, albeit the Bluebells have
played two fewer league games. It was over two years ago when Walton last visited here,
and they travelled back to Surrey with all three points after winning 2-0 in September 2019.
Today’s encounter is the second of five consecutive home games. As aforementioned, the
rescheduled and highly anticipated FA Cup match against Dover will be Tuesday 26 (7.45
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KO) and we will follow this up with another cup tie, this time in the form of the FA Trophy.
Willand Rovers of the Southern League Division One South are the opponents for Yate’s FA
Trophy bow on Saturday 30 October (3pm KO). The final fixture of this run will see Steve
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Claridge’s Salisbury visit on Tuesday November 2 (7.45 KO).
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It is also worth noting that our league fixture against Tiverton Town, originally scheduled for
Wednesday November 10 , has now been moved to Wednesday December 1 . In its place,
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we will instead be hosting Cheltenham Town reserves in the county cup on Tuesday
November 9 .
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As ever, all of your support in every game is massively appreciated and we hope to see you
at all of these upcoming fixtures.
C’mon you Bluebells!
Regards,
Iain