Bath City vs Newport County Part 1 - The Calm Before the Draw!

Bath City drew 1-1 with Newport County on Saturday. Despite some flashes of brilliant play on both sides, it was a match best described as a stalemate. In fact, a lot more excitement for me took place off the pitch than on it.

Big Nedved Junior and I arrived very early at Twerton Park on Saturday morning. We were there to see Bath City manager Adie Britton. Adie had graciously agreed to an interview for this blog and had asked me to come at 11:30 so we could have an hour before the players arrived. I was both nervous and excited when we got to Twerton, but I was quickly put at ease. This was not really that surprising because Adie has always appeared warm and friendly. One thing that took me by surprise, however, was how intense and thoughtful he was when it came to the management of his team. I will be publishing the interview in the coming weeks (after an hour and fifteen minutes we still did not discuss everything Adie wants to talk about so we will pick up the rest later), but I came out of the interview very excited about the coming season. Even though City fans may not always understand all of his decisions, Adie Britton is convinced that the future is bright for Bath City FC. After talking to him I could not help but conclude he is right.

Just as the interview was wrapping up Big Nedved Junior held out Adie's Bath City trading card and a Sharpie pen for Adie to autograph it with. 'I'm going to sign it "Adrian,"' he explained. 'My Mother doesn't like "Adie."' This is now Big Nedved Juniors favourite football card, and trust me, he has a lot of football cards!

After the interview we left Twerton briefly and crossed the Lower Bristol Road to visit that pre-teen crack house that is McDonald's. I hate McDonald's, to be honest. I can't understand why British people embrace the worst parts of American life so passionately and ignore the good parts. Where are the Waffle Houses of Somerset? Big Nedved Junior likes it anyway. It was a fitting reward for being relatively well behaved during an hour-long interview. As a bonus, he got a plastic light sabre in his Happy Meal. It had only slightly less flavour than the chicken nuggets that went with it.

With over an hour left until kick-off, and a steady drizzling rain driving us indoors, we gave up on going for a walk and headed back to Twerton Park. Bath City were hosting a weekend long beer festival in the club bars (Charlie's and Randall's) and I wanted to see what the atmosphere was like. I did not expect to stay long, but as soon as Big Nedved Juniors saw the Bolton - Portsmouth match on the several big screen tellies he was hypnotised. We found some seats and I let him get his fix of Sky. We don't have it at home so he doesn't get to see live Premiership matches often (and I'm happy to keep it that way, frankly). I was surprised, though, by how much he knew about the players from these unfashionable clubs. His hours of managing his fantasy team and collecting Match Attax cards has given him an impressive knowledge of a lot of players I've never heard of. When Portsmouth got their second goal he said, confidently, 'That's Dindane. He's got an attack of 60 but his defence is only 14.' Unless you collect Match Attax, that might not mean much to you, but I could not help but feel an anorakish sense of pride.

Although the match between the two struggling Premiership sides was surprisingly entertaining, I was enjoying the atmosphere inside Charlie's even more. The place was packed. To be honest, the Newport County supporters outnumbered the Bath City ones two to one. They had come early on supporter's coaches and were enjoying the increased selection of adult beverages available. Considering the history of problems from Newport County visits stretching back to the 1980s, I was really pleased to see how peaceful and friendly everything was. I suppose I was wrong to suspect there might be any problems. The fact that hundreds of fans from each side were managing to get boozed up in cramped conditions without any problems certainly made the upcoming segregation of fans during the match seem rather silly. If we play Newport again next season (a big if looking at the current standings) hopefully we will try a match without it.

With some effort I tried to pry Big Nedved Junior away from the a giant telly screen at about 2:30. Time to get tea and doughnuts inside the ground and watch the teams warm up. Doughnuts, it turns out, trump television. That's one to remember for the future.