Shirt Numbering 101

When I first started following Bath City I really struggled to figure out which player was which. This was not because I have some sort of problem recognising faces, but because I was confused by the numbering system on the players' shirts. To me there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to it. One player would wear number 10 in one match and be in a 11 the next. Also, the numbers players were listed under in the match program was wrong as often as it was right. In my first few matches watching City I could tell from listening to other supporters there was a really good player named 'Dutch,' but for the life of me I couldn't figure out who he was.

Eventually I figured it out. Bath City use the traditional squad numbering system that all English football clubs used up until the early 90s. All starting players are given a number from 1-11, and players on the bench go from 12 upwards. The numbering starts with 1 for the keeper (no matter which keeper is playing) and increases as you move up the pitch. Defenders tend to be numbered 2-5, midfielders 6-8, and forwards 9-11. Modern playing systems mean that the numbers don't always work out exactly, and 11 is often worn by a midfielder who plays a specialised role called a 'winger.' Richard Evans, the only true winger in the Bath City squad, always wears 11 when he plays. Recently he has not been making the starting lineup, so the number 11 has been moving around (and because no one can be sure who Adie Britton will choose to start in which position, the poor program editors can only take an educated guess who will be wearing what shirt when the game begins).

Now that I know who the players are I find this very useful. When Lewis Hogg comes out in a number 7 I know Adie Britton has decided he will play in mid-field. Against Totten, when he was acted as a striker, he wore 10. When Forest Green Rovers played City in the FA Cup I found their use of numbers in the 20s and 30s really annoying. How I am supposed to know what that player is meant to be doing?

Rovers' use of higher numbers appeared pretentious to me. That is something 'league' football clubs do. In 1993 the Football League moved to a system where each player has his own personal number that he wears in every match. The trend has become for players to have higher and higher numbers. It is has now even become routine to see Premiership players wearing numbers higher the number of high-performance sportscars they own.

While the change may have made it easier for the casual fan to know who's who, any change, regardless of how sensible, will be lamented in sports by nostalgics after a few years. I frequently read articles by journalists extolling the football of a simpler age, when no one got a yellow card unless he drew blood, and shirt numbers never went above 18. 'WHAT ABOUT NON-LEAGUE FOOTBALL!' I want to shout. Well, at least as far as the numbers go.

Football traditionalists may have a tough road ahead if a trend started by Football Federation Australia takes root. They recently experimented with each of their players, across all the various national teams, having a single registered number. This has caused the sort of inflation levels that would sink a small nation-state. Predictably, socceroo Dario Vidosic recently wore a shirt number '101' in an Asia Cup qualifying match. I don't really consider myself a traditionalist, but if I ever turned up at Twerton Park and saw Lewis Hogg in a 101 shirt I might turn around and go home.

American sports have their own traditions when it comes to numbers. In the 1920s the New YorkYankees began wearing shirt numbers to show their order in the batting lineup (and since then Babe Ruth's number 3 has been synonymous with homerun hitting). Because of this baseball uniforms traditionally have fairly low numbers. Boston Braves pitcher Bill Voiselle needed official permission from the National League to wear the number 96. It was granted, though, because the name of his home town was actually Ninety-Six, South Carolina. American Football numbers show the position of the player (roughly) in the same way Bath City shirts do: kickers and quarterbacks wear 1-19, backs wear 20-49, etc. Basketball players can have any number they like as long as each digit is 0-5. This is because when a referee signals who committed a foul he holds up his two hands to show the shirt number (a closed fist represents zero). Whenever Boston Celtics legend Robert Parish fouled the ref would hold up two fists.

Although the numbering tradition in the higher leagues in England has largely disappeared, it is not gone altogether. Liverpool's Steven Gerrard had to wear number 17 originally because his favourite number (8 - an appropriate number for an attacking midfielder) was then worn by Emile Hesky. When Hesky left in 2004, 8 became free. Gerrard has worn nothing else since.

Editor's Note so British People understand the title to this article: The number '101' is the traditional course number for an entry level course at American universities. 'English 101' would be a course for a first year English student. 'Philosophy 101' would be for a first year Philosophy student before he got so confused he had trouble functioning and switched to being an English student.

City Win Again, No Sweat!

City beat AFC Totton yesterday 3-2 in the FA Cup Fourth Qualifying Round. It was an exciting game with an exciting (£12,500) pot of prize money for the winner. There was lots of exciting play and definitely an exciting finish. For reasons of my own the second half and the hour following the match were especially exciting. Basically, the whole thing was like a giant shot of caffeine.

I arrived at the ground feeling jittery and full of contradictory thoughts. Bath City had needed the prize money from the Second and Third Qualifying Rounds in order to avoid cuts to the squad. Now that those cheques are safely pocketed I should have felt relaxed and cheerful, but I didn't. The Fourth Qualifying Round boasted almost double the prize money of the previous round, and it confered on the winner the chance to draw a League side in the next round. There is also a certain cache in being in the final thirty-two non-league clubs in the the competition. Just being in the draw for the First Round Proper is a real accomplishment. It is the sort of achievement that fans can point to with pride at the end of the season, regardless of what has happened in the league. Winning the Fourth Qualifying Round, therefore, had become supremely important. I told myself that if we could just win this round then I could relax. Yeah, right.

To ease the tension I went through my pre-match ritual: buy program that I will not read until I get home, buy a lottery ticket I will forget to take out of my pocket at half time, and buy a cup of tea that I will put down half-full and forget to finish. When I arrived at the popular side terrace there was also a lot of gossip to pick up on. City's first choice goalkeeper, Ryan Robinson, was going to make his debut appearance for City. It was great timing for him to recover from his injury because our third choice keeper was on holiday in America (our second choice keeper went to ground a long time ago after conceding four goals in a fifteen minute stretch of the season opener). There was also news of Totton's recent acquisition in the non-league transfer market. After a successful spell on loan, Totton had decided they liked the look of Nathan Jack enough to offer cross-town rivals Eastleigh a 'record transfer fee' (a record for Eastleigh, anyway) to make his stay permanent. I doubt the amounts involved were that earth-shattering, but it is just the sort of confident move that you don't want your opponents to make right before a crucial match.

So, apart from an unknown keeper who is far from match fit and the opposition team flashing lots of cash to strengthen its squad, everything was all right. Then I remembered that Totton were on a fourteen game unbeaten streak. No problem.

Once the game started it was evident to everyone in the ground why Totton were dominating the Zamaretto Division One South & West. They were fast and well organised on the break. Robinson was called into action after only four minutes to stop a decent shot. I tried not to admit it to myself, but City had drawn doormats for the previous two rounds. Now they were facing a team with some quality and ambition. Totton were different breed.

Totton's fans were a different breed, too. For the first time ever in my time at Twerton Park I saw away fans congregate around the goal their team was defending. It is traditional in non-league football for fans from either side to cheer their team from the goal it is attacking. Both sets of fans then switch sides at the interval, often engaging in a bit of good-natured banter along the way. Totton's supporters had established themselves in the Bristol end of the ground during the pre-game warm up, and like fans at a League match, they stayed there for the entire game. Perhaps this is a sign that, like the club they support, they too have ambitions for higher things.

Congregating around the goal your team is defending can be depressing, as the Totton faithful learned twenty-five minutes in. Totton's bright attacking form was not able to make up for what was clearly a shaky defence. After some of his trademark Brazilian-style footwork, Sekani Simpson delivered a looping cross parallel to the goal line that neatly met the outstretched foot of Richard Evans in front of the left-hand corner.

More misery was heaped on the Totton fans fifteen minutes later when Adam Connolly fancied a shot from twenty yards out and took the score to 2-0. This was a quality finish and it did Connolly's confidence a world of good. He spent the rest of the match terrifying the Totton defence from the same distance. I know I am not the only City fan who hopes this becomes a regular part of the team's arsenal.

Half-time came and I felt the warm, fuzzy glow that comes with your team is up by two goals to nil. Totton were a credit to step four of the non-league pyramid, but they were no match for the likes of City.

I was not totally relaxed, though. You never can be in football, and I had something extra on my mind as well. After humming and hawing for quite a while I had finally gotten enough nerve to ask a player to let me interview them for this blog. Since he had been very friendly previously I decided to start with defender Sido Jombati. Besides being one of the team's most popular players he is also from Portugal and I wanted to know what had brought him to Bath. Sido was also at the center of this season's biggest mystery - how had he arranged for his Romanian friend Florin Pelecaci to show up on City's doorstep six weeks previously? And how did he end up with a Romanian friend? To my surprise Sido agreed to let me speak to him after the match, and he arranged for Florin to come along as well. I was elated when I got the news. Now that the event was less than an hour away I began to doubt myself. Who am I to interview players? Will they figure out that I only recently stopped calling their sport 'soccer?' How badly could I screw this up? Could I screw it up so badly that I'd be to embarrassed to come to another City match for fear of running into them again? I decided I couldn't' screw it up that much. Maybe just enough to wear sunglasses for the rest of the season.

To the great relief of the City faithful the second half began as the first ended. Lewis Hogg's corner was deflected by the Totton keeper, Gareth Barfoot, directly onto Gethin Jones' forehead. City had a three goal lead and I was just about at the point where I felt I could relax.

I did not get the chance, though. A few minutes later I was jolted from my focus on the game when I heard my name being called over the tannoy. I was asked to come to the press box because of something 'urgent.' Figuring out why I was being called over the tannoy was easy enough: I had left my mobile at home in the charger. Figuring out who needed to speak to me urgently and about what, though, was harder. In the three to four minutes it took me to get to the press office I managed to think of about every scenario. Nervously I opened the press box door and was met by my friend Phil who handed me his mobile to use. 'It's something to do with work,' he said.

I breathed a sigh of relief that it was only work, but only for a second. In my line of work things rarely go wrong, but when they do they usually go very badly wrong and are expensive to fix. I dialed the number and quickly received the news that....actually nothing really serious was wrong at all. A customer had been overcharged in a credit card transaction and they needed my access code to arrange a refund. Now I let out a really big sigh of relief. It turned out that Phil had said over the tannoy quite clearly that it was 'not urgent,' but I had just missed the 'not' part. As I left the press office, feeling a mixture of relief and embarrassment at having left my mobile at home, City chairman Geoff Todd asked me if everything was okay (I bet Roman Abromovich has never asked a concerned fan if he is okay at Stamford Bridge).

Back on the popular side I settled in to watch what I was hoping would be a romp to a large-margin victory. The player that stood out at this point of the match was clearly our midfielder Lewis 'Hoggy' Hogg. After this match, though, calling Hoggy a midfielder may be inaccurate. In an interesting bit of tactics manager Adie Britton had left the talismanic Florin Pelecaci on the bench, moved Sekani Simpson to midfield, and, most surprisingly, put Lewis Hogg in as a forward to partner Darren Edwards. Hogg was a revelation. Totton had no idea how to handle him. He was less a striker than a saboteur operating behind enemy lines. It appeared to make no difference whether he won a header or not. The ball would soon become his and he would whip around whatever defender had tried to block him in seconds. The only thing that stopped the game being a route was the linesman's flag constantly being raised every time he fed the ball forward to Edwards.

With the game seeming secure Adie Britton made a series of sensible seeming substitutions. On came Mike Perrott, Marus Browning, and Pelecaci. Other than Browning taking a position in midfield instead of defence, nothing about those substitutions appeared out of order. Things began to go badly wrong anyway.

Nathan Jack, the 'record' signing, put Totton on the scoreboard with less than five minutes to play. The score became 3-2 in injury time when a City failed to clear a corner kick in time. All the old nervous feelings from the start of the match reappeared, but fortunately, Totton were not able to extend their unbeaten run to fifteen games. The ref blew his whistle and a mighty roar rose from the City fans. City would be in the hat for the First Round Draw, and no matter what else happened the club's budget problems would be eased significantly. All was right with the world. All I had to do now was to find two players I admire greatly, ask them lots of questions that hopefully they would want to answer, and somehow cobble it together into something readable and interesting. No sweat.

I am pleased to say, though, that I did find Sido and Florin in 'Charlie's' after the match. They were both kind and gracious and allowed me to stumble through my enquiries, and they gave thoughtful and interesting answers. I felt totally out of my depth but they put me at ease. You will be able to read what they said later this week. I can promise that you won't be disappointed.

City Host a Stag Party!

Before the FA Cup draw for the Fourth (and final) Qualifying Round was announced yesterday I had a sinking feeling that we were going to draw Eastleigh. Bath City had had two fortunate draws in a row: Willand Rovers, who play three leagues below City, and Bishop's Cleeve, who play two below. It seemed unlikely that fate would smile on us for a third time. With Newport County having been eliminated by the lowly Paulton Rovers (ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, oh stop it!), Eastleigh's goonish, elbow-happy giants seemed the most likely bogey team to be cast our way as payback for our recent good fortune. If not, then Dover Athletic, Hayes & Yeading or Hampton & Richmond could also provide equally unattractive opposition. After a nervous morning drinking too many cups of tea and checking the FA website every five minutes, the results of the draw finally appeared.

AFC Totton! At Home! I was thrilled. I went round the office punching the air. AFC Totton! I mentioned it to everyone. I mentioned it to my colleagues who hate football just so I could hear myself say it again. 'Did you know that City drew AFC Totton in the next round of the FA Cup?' They would just roll their eyes and nod vaguely (and of course they did know because I had just asked them the same question five minutes previously). AFC Totton!

I was so pleased, of course, because AFC Totton (the Stags) was one of the lowest ranked teams remaining in the competition. That should, in theory, make them easier to beat than a higher ranked team. I say 'in theory' because this is often not how it works out, as in the recent case of Newport County's loss to Paulton Rovers (ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, mercy!). City will still go into the round as strong favourites, however, and you can't ask for more than that.

AFC Totton are in the same league as City's opponents in the last round, Bishop's Cleeve. The league's current name is the 'Zamaretto League Division 1 South & West.' This is a league City fans are becoming increasingly familiar with as we will now have played three of its teams inside a month. You may be wondering what a 'Zamaretto League' is when it is at home, so let's take a moment to explain.

The lower leagues of the non-league pyramid often forgo their traditional names in order to pick up a bit of sponsorship money. The 'Zamaretto League' is actually the Southern League, which has been playing since 1894 and which Bath City have been champions of three times (most recently in 2007, when it was known by the rather dreary title 'British Gas Business League'). Previous to this it was known as the Doc Martens League and the Beazer Homes League. None of these names are as wacky as the current one, though. Sensing that there was an untapped market for flavoured amaretto drinks (as in more than just the normal sweet almond flavour), InterContinental Brands (ICB) have released eight new flavoured concoctions spiked with day-glow food colouring. These are (and you might want to sit down to read this): Blue Raspberry, Banana, Cherry, Apple, Pear, Peach, Chocolate and Original. Sensing that Banana flavoured amaretto is just the sort of tipple the pie-and-chips-loving non-league football crowds would fancy, ICB took over the sponsorship deal as British Gas moved out. The people who came up with Dasani tap water and Crystal Pepsi had nothing on these guys.

The other odd thing about the Zamaretto League Division One South & West is that it isn't truthfully a 'division one.' The top level of the Zamaretto League is the Premier Division. Below that are Division One Midlands and Division One South & West. There is nothing below either of these (in other words, no division two). It is hard to think of what the point of having a division one is without a division two. Perhaps there were some clubs that were especially thin skinned and someone thought they would feel better if they were placed in 'Division One.' Despite their apparent sensitivity, however, three clubs from the Division One South & West remain in the FA Cup: AFC Totton, Mangotsfield United, and Paulton Rovers (who recently defeated Bath City's rivals Newport County - ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, oh lordy!).

Despite their league's silly name, City will need to take Totton seriously. As I write this the news of their eleventh victory on the trot has come in. And, surprisingly, Totten supporters have generally reacted to the news of the draw with as much jubilation as I did. I suppose it could have been worse for them. 'Dibden Stag' wrote on the AFC Totton forum:

This is a good draw and a game we can win, Bath's current form isn't too good, 3 wins 4 draws and 5 losses in the Conference South. They beat Bishops Cleeve away 4-1 in the last round, the same score we beat them by, so I think we have a good chance of making the first round.

The bad news for Dibden Stag, and the good news for City fans, is that City have been giving textbook lessons on how to defeat lower league teams in their first two appearances in the Cup. With £12,500 in prize money up for grabs manager Adie Britton will be pulling out all of the stops for a win in front of the Twerton Park faithful. He won't be making the same mistakes Dean Holdsworth recently made with his Newport County side in Saturday's loss to Paulton Rovers (ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, oh, it hurts now!).

Well, I hope not, anyway.

Come on City!