Grinding 'Em Out on the Way to Greatness.... (We Hope)!

Bath City defeated Maidenhead United 2-1 Saturday in a scrappy and uninspiring away victory. Who cares if it was scrappy, though? We are now entering the final third of the season and as long as a match results in three points for City I don't ask questions.

Before I get to the match against Maidenhead, though (of which I will not be asking questions), I'd better recount some of the significant events that have happened off the pitch this week. The first to recount is, unfortunately, the sad news that former Bath City manager Brian Godfrey passed away on the morning of Thursday 11 February. Godfrey, a former Wales international and Aston Villa stalwart, was appointed manager of City in April 1977. As this was roughly three decades before my first visit to Twerton Park, I'm not best placed to do justice to the career of the man many consider to be City's finest ever manager. I will try to recount some of the highlights, though.

City's first two competitive matches of the 1977 season were a 0-3 aggregate defeat by Yoevil Town in the Southern League Cup - an inauspicious start for the new manager. After this, however, Godfrey led his team on an incredible twenty game unbeaten run in all competitions, ending finally with a FA Cup 1st Round replay at Plymouth Argyle. This was followed by a quick exit in the FA Trophy (1-7 to Cheltenham Town - ouch!). After this December 3rd defeat, City then went on an even more incredible thirty-five match unbeaten run, finally concluding with a 0-1 loss to Worcester City on 1 May. The only other loss that season was to Udinese in the Anglo-Italian Cup.

Udinese? What? That's right, under Godfrey's tenure Bath City competed in Europe.

Oh, and he also led City to the Southern League championship that 1977-78 season, of course. It is easy to underestimate what an accomplishment that is now. This was in the years before the Conference had been formed. There was no level higher than the Southern League in non-league football. Because of this City were thrown into the mix in the bizarre voting procedure used back then to determine which teams would be promoted, or allowed to remain, in the old Forth Division of the Football League. It was a close vote that year. With twenty-three votes, Bath City set the record for the most votes without being admitted to the league. Who made it? Some club called Wigan Athletic from the Northern League. Just think, with just a few more votes and a sugardaddy with a former sporting goods empire, Bath City could today be the worst-supported club in the Premier League. Gives me tingles just to think about it.

One of the downsides of non-league football is that anyone who sets the place alight when they arrive usually doesn't stick around for long (just ask Bath City's Bobby Zamora). Godfrey's inevitable departure had an ironic twist, though. Tony Book, former Bath City legend and then Manchester City manager, hired Malcolm Allison away from Plymouth Argyle. Someone named Bobby Saxon left Exeter City to take the Plymouth job. Godfrey got the nod for the Exeter post, and understandably took it in December of 1978. So, it's all Tony Book's fault, really. Thirty years later and Godfrey's tenure at City is still the high water mark in the club's history. Everyone, including those of us who were not around to enjoy his success, were sad to hear of his passing.

The other news at Twerton Park this week was more pleasant, although just as unexpected. Former Bath City striker, Dave Gilroy, signed with rivals Newport County at the end of last season. This appeared to be a good move for Gilroy at the time, but as he was just one of nearly two-hundred players signed this season by manager Dean Holdsworth (I exaggerate very slightly), he struggled to get a regular starting place. He has managed a respectable nine goals this campaign, but seven of these were while on loan to Weston-super-Mare. No one quite understands how or why, but Holdsworth and City manager Adie Britton agreed on an unusual six-week swap. Gilroy returns to Bath City, and the struggling, injury-plagued Stuart Douglas (with only only goal this season) will take his place on the Newport bench. City fans can't believe their luck. If ever there was a gift horse that you wanted to take a good, hard look at the mouth of, this would be it. It's too good an offer to question, though. I'll just put Adie Britton down as a genius and move on.

Because of the labyrinthine, and rather boring regulations that surround the various governing bodies of British football, City have to wait until the Havant & Waterlooville match for Gilroy's international clearance to come through (Newport County play in Wales). This meant that the City team that arrived at York Road included Douglas.

One of the first facts you learn about Maidenhead United is that York Road is the oldest continually used football ground in the world. In this modern world of corporate stadiums, this is something worth celebrating. Maidenhead have chosen to celebrate this with a recreation of a nineteenth century pitch - you know, the sort they used to play on back when passing was considered 'ungentlemanly.' Or perhaps it was just impossible. Whatever the reason, Maidenhead's pitch wasn't going to handle the Brazil-like passing game that City have developed over the last few months.

[I should point out that this is a blog written by a Bath City supporter, and if I want to compare City's passing game to Brazil I'm within my rights. Go start your own blog and compare your favourite team to who you like. Besides, City have played some amazing football this year! Really.]

Brian Godfrey's City team of 1977-78 may have only lost twice, but they did grind out a lot of 0-0 draws on the way to their title (seven to be exact). Adie Britton's team of 2010 also have the character to adjust their playing style to conditions. Pushing the ball forward quickly became the order of the day. Despite only managing a handful of half-chances in the first forty-three minutes, they kept Maidenhead to only one attempt in the same period. Did you notice I said forty-three minutes, though? City scored the brace of goals that would see them to victory between minutes forty-three and forty-five: a failed clearance that landed at Kaid Mohamed's feet, and a Darren Edwards header from a Adam Connolly corner kick.

You've probably tumbled to the fact that I didn't make it to the match by this point. This was a bit of a sore point, but I console myself with the fact that the match has been described as 'unremarkable' in more than one account. Rather than fill my blog with attempts to make the unremarkable events I did not witness sound interesting, I'll let you off the hook with a one sentence recap of the second half: City played defensively and allowed a worrying goal at sixty-two minutes, but fortunately not the equaliser. The debacle of the recent home match against Bishop's Stortford was not repeated.

The match may not have been the most exciting of the year, but City's improvement in the league table was enough to get my heart racing. Thanks to Woking's unexpected loss to Worcester City, and Eastleigh's even more unexpected draw to Weston-super-Mare (ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!), Bath City passed both of them, climbing to a dizzying seventh. Now only two points from a playoff spot, City are in prime position to move even farther up the table in Tuesday night's home match against Havant. With the club's strike force now augmented, City fans are imbibing that most dangerous of intoxicants: hope. As long as City win, there will be no hangover come Wednesday morning. And they must win. Brian Godfrey would want it that way.