dwater Town. It was a meaningless game in a meaningless competition, but it was precisely the absurdity of the match that appealed to me. Bath City are my team, and if they have to drag themselves down into the Mendips on a Tuesday evening to play a match they would rather not win, I want to be there to see it. I can't really explain it any more than that. Perhaps I am just stupid.Perhaps stupid, but not as stupid as I had been the previous year when City were drawn against Street (yes, there is a town in Somerset called 'Street'). That match had been my first ever proper (well, sort of) match as an 'away' fan and I set out with plenty of time so that I could arrive early and soak up the atmosphere (well, I had thought there would be atmosphere). I arrived in Street at a quarter to seven, but then spent the next two hours driving around the town looking for the ground. I called the club office several times, only to get directions that made me even more lost. Finally I got so desperate that I swallowed my male pride and asked a local for directions. Again, this just sent me around the same roads I had already explored recently. After a last desperate call to the club office I finally found it, or rather I realised I had been driving past it all along. The club, in its wisdom, had decided to position their entrance sign so as to be in total darkness after dusk. Because I ended up arriving just before halftime the man at the turnstile took pity on me and offered to let me pay only half price. I, rather churlishly, told him I would pay full price if they would use the extra money to buy a light bulb for the entrance.
Bridgwater, it turns out, is a half hour farther away from Bath than Street. I was worried about
having a similar experience. After bundling my colleagues out of our office a minute after closing time and gathering a sheaf of Google maps I had printed previously, I pointed the Nedvedmobile south and set off. I did drive past the Bridgwater ground on the first attempt, but eventually I got close. The fact that there was no visible entrance sign for the ground at night did not throw me this time. I tried every entrance in the vicinity of where the map said it should be. After a detour through a local college and a rugby ground I found the right place. I jumped out of my car and made it inside just before kickoff. Victory!Just after passing through the turnstile I had a chance to buy what turned out to be a very entertaining program. At forty-eight pages it was a much heftier volume than one would normally expect for a meaningless cup match. The inside was not just a series of adverts, either. There are five full pages on Bath City (including a match report from the Newport County match last Saturday) full accounts of Bridgwater's league and FA Cup progress so far, two collumns written by a local fan named 'Walter,' and several pages of archive material from previous meetings of the two clubs. Bridgwater's program is obviously a labour of love for some devoted fan. Ironically, the effort and devotion needed to produce it Tuesday night would far outweigh the effort and devotion of the two clubs to win the match it was covering.
There was one odd thing about the program, though, and that is the cover. There are two photographs. One is of Bridgwater's joint manager Leigh Robinson in a shirt and tie looking like he has just caught the smell of something rather unpleasant. He also appears to be holding an imaginary pint glass in one hand. The second picture is topped by the FA's Respect logo and shows a Bridgwater player screaming and falling to the ground. His expression is so over the top I assume this is an illustration of 'simulation.' The only thing I can think of that would connect the two pictures is that they could both be good examples of the art of miming. Perhaps Marcel Marceau has fans in Bridgwater.
The ground itself was neat, tidy, and well designed. It had all of the amenities one
would expect at a club in step four of the non-league pyramid, except everything looked newer and in better repair. The pitch looked well maintained and even. The floodlights pleasingly bright. It felt as if this was a houseproud (or rather, 'groundproud') club. I suspect they have ambitions for greater things than Division 1 South & West of the Zamaretto Southern League.The only odd thing about the ground was that it was part of a string of sporting facilities. One end of the ground bordered a rugby ground that appeared to have much larger stands. On the other end there were a series of five-a-side football pitches, including one that was in use. Only a wire fence separated the their match from ours, which gave the proceedings a slightly surreal atmosphere. Those ten players could have watched the match that I had paid £7 to see for free, but instead they chose to ignore it an concentrate on their own game. It felt strangely insulting.
There were plenty of paying Bridgwater fans who were very attentive to the match, however. Most fans sported team scarves or baseball caps. Like the program and the ground, they seemed a little bit too well put together for a meaningless match at this level.
The match kicked off quietly and I realised I felt a bit conflicted about what I was watching. Adie Britton had obviously decided to field as weak a team as possible, or rather, field what was as much of a reserve side as possible. Of the starting eleven only Matt Coupe, Kaid Mohamed, Mike Perrott, and Richard Evans could be described as established, healthy members of the first team. The keeper was someone named Dunn I had never heard of. A fellow City fan told me he is a keeper we play only when we want to lose. Mark Badman was playing his first game after an injury. The rest of the squad included teenagers Jamie Taylor, Raif Gwinett, and Ashley Caldwell. Callum Hart who had just joined the team made his first start in defence. All of these players, except Dunn, are expected to feature in City's future, but at this point it was the sort of team one would select for a friendly. Sensing what Coach Britton's priorities were I was only mildly disquieted when Bridgwater scored on a break towards the end of the first half. Dunn blocked a shot into the path of an oncoming Bridgwater player. The rest of the first half was largely forgetable.
At half-time a Bridgwater fan came over to the small cluster of City fans I was with . He asked if this was really City's first team. We said no. As if to illustrate the point City stalwarts Lewis Hogg and Sido Jombati began to kick the ball around the pitch. They moved with the relaxed style of substitutes not expecting to be used - something unthinkable in a league match. We asked the Bridgwater fan if they were playing their best team. He said that thier three best players were on the bench. 'I don't want us to win this,' he confessed. Suddenly being a goal down didn't seem bad at all.
The second half started much more brightly. City began to zip the ball around midfield and launching crosses into the Bridgwater penalty area. I began to reflexively hope for an equaliser, even though I knew a victory could lead to an away match on a cold November evening against Portishead or Minehead and a clogged fixture list. I decided it is almost impossible to watch your team and not will them to victory. A few mintues into the second half a ball from the five-a-side match flew onto the pitch. Fortunately it was while the players were lining up for a free kick. It was a quinessential non-league moment.
City continued to dominate play for most of the second half, but Mohamed was not able to penetrate the Bridgwater defence playing alone up front. Eventually City's inexperienced defense was caught out again and Bridgwater took a 2-0 lead.
Faced with a two goal deficit with only half an hour left to play Adie Britton made a decisive substitution. He took off Mohamed, City's only recognised striker on the pitch, and replaced him with holding mid-fielder Jim Rollo. It was exactly the right move to make to make sure City didn't score. It confirmed to me that a loss would be a welcome outcome. When the scoreline went to 3-0 a few minutes before full time I didn't even wince.
Bridgwater's fans cheered mightily when the referee's whistle blew. They gathered around the entrance of the pitch and raised a loud cheer when the Bridgwater players passed by. They did this knowing that further rounds in the Somerset Cup was just an unwanted millstone for their club, a millstone Bath City was now free of. I can not blame them, though. If City had won I would have done the same. You must show appreciation for your team when they win. As I walked to the car park in silence, though, I was glad that in this instance, I did not have to.
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