My Matchday - 277 Twerton Park

Bath City 1v0 Gateshead

Blue Sq.Bet Premier

Saturday 2nd April 2011

The start of a hectic April, which will see your host travelling the full length and depths of Blighty, begins with a 600 mile round trip to the City of Bath in Somerset.

Bath is a major tourism centre which attracts almost five million tourists each year to the city theatres, museums, and other cultural venues. The blend of Roman baths and sweeping Georgian terraces combine to produce one of the most elegant cities in Europe, which was awarded as a World Heritage site in 1987.

Bath was granted city status by Royal Charter in 1590 by Queen Elizabeth I, becoming a county borough in 1889 and later part of Avon when the county was created from 1974 until 1996. When Avon was abolished, Bath became the principal centre of the unitary authority of Bath and North East Somerset.The city was established as a spa resort by the Romans in AD 43, building baths and a temple on the surrounding city hills in the valley of the River Avon through the UK’s only natural hot springs.

“Ahh …the beautiful sparkling healthy spa water of Bath, in Avon"

Due to pre-booked trains being too expensive, I travelled with the GFC Supporters Club which unfortunately means It’ll have to be another occasion to fully appreciate the delights of this beautiful spa town.

When I reached the rendezvous point I was surprised to find not a

conventional mini-bus but a taxi awaiting my late arrival. The jibe you sometimes get from home supporters of “did you come in a taxi” when a club brings a small away following was true in this case.

We left Gateshead at 730am, 7 supporters and our cabby with an additional Heed fan picked up on route at Wetherby. Thankfully the taxi meter wasn’t running, we paid a set fair of £350 made up of £30 each with the difference subsidised by the Supporters Club, which was great value, as our chauffeur played a blinder arriving in Bath just before 1pm and on returning we past the Angel of the North just after 10pm.

On arrival I picked up my press pass and was then allowed inside the ground to take some snaps of this classic non-league ground, before heading for a few pints in the GBG listed Old Crown pub, where I pulled a cracking (or should that be crackling..Eddy) looking lass, although she was a bit of a pig. (see last pic in Web album)

We also had time to call into Randall’s, the impressive clubhouse situated behind the Main Stand. The result aside it was a quite enjoyable day and I must add around 30 away fans in total made the long journey to the west country.

Bath AFC formed in 1889, originally playing at the Belvoir ground situated in East Twerton. The club changed their name to Bath Railway in 1902, then became Bath City, playing competitively from 1908 in the Western League Division Two. After the First World War the club located to the Lambridge Ground at the opposite end of the city on the old London Road and joined the Southern League for the first time in 1921.

Bath City moved to Innox Park in 1932, which had been opened since 1909, securing a £2,000 mortgage from the FA. The ground suffered from a 45 degree slope, which meant removing 15,000 tons of soil as well as surrounding trees to create a playing surface with perimeter banking, which took almost three years to clear.

The Main Stand was soon built at a cost of £2,000 with cover added at the popular side, until further development during the 1950’s saw a clubhouse, new changing rooms, club offices and more importantly terracing and floodlights, which was mainly financed by the supporters club and the odd five figure FA Cup attendance.

City won the Southern League title in 1977/78 for a second time, but missed out on election to the Football League by only a few votes, before becoming founder members of the Alliance League(Conference) the following year.

Relegation and promotion campaigns followed, before the club won promotion to the Conference South in 2006-07, going on to win the play-off final in their third season, beating Woking to regain a place in the Conference for the first time since 1997 and again gaining promotion last season.

The original Main Stand is still going strong, although it was close to death after an arson attack by Bristol City fans on tenants Rovers in 1990. The stand is fully refurbished with 780 black and blue flip seats with an open paddock below with the team dugouts at the front. The basic Family Stand filled with 236 blue seats sits next to the Main Stand. Built at a cost of £90,000 it opened not long after the fire incident in December 1990 and is made available for visiting fans.

Opposite is a covered terrace which runs pitch length with a pitched roof, the terrace slopes up at one side and on the hill behind is a row the houses which looks into the ground, aptly named Freeview Road.

Behind each goal is open terracing. The Bristol End is giving to away fans and opposite is the Bath End a smaller terrace which has a safety net. The ground is completed by a set of traditional corner floodlight which includes one pylon which stands outside in the car park.

Twerton Park has also played home to financial stricken Bristol Rovers from 1986 to 1996 and Team Bath who were a full-time professional outfit playing in the Conference South until resigning at the end of the 2008–09 season. The stadium has a capacity of 8,800 with 1,006 seats with a record attendance of 18,020, set in 1960 versus Brighton & Hove Albion.

Bath City made it three wins on the bounce thanks to Lee Phillips' 14th goal of the season early in the second half.

Chances were at a minimum in an even first half, Jon Shaw headed against the bar for a Brittain cross and seconds later a shot from Watkins came back off the foot of the post in the 35th minute. Phillips bagged the winner two minutes after the restart, playing a one-two with Watkins before slotting a left-footed strike from inside the area under the advancing keeper.

Phil Turnbull and Jon Shaw produced good saves from Robinson, while Paul Heckingbottom went close seeing his header come back off the crossbar. Marley Watkins also struck the woodwork for Bath with a 25-yard effort and Phillips should have done better after capitalising on a defensive mix up.

Gateshead pressed hard in search of an equaliser, but substitute Richard Offiong wasted a golden chance in the dying minutes after a clever free kick from Turnbull, blasting his shot into the wrong net, finding the one behind the terrace and not the one between the posts.

We’re now into the final month of the campaign and this is the first meeting of the two clubs this season, this is all due to the fixture computer and not because of an earlier postponement. After the full time whistle the two clubs meet again in just over 48 hours, so Gateshead have the opportunity to quickly gain revenge, while City hope to complete a quickie league double in the space of just a few days.

Matchday Stats

BCFC 1(Phillips 47)GFC 0

Admission (PP) £13 Programme £2.50

att.952

Ground no.277 Twerton Park - Matchday Web album (23 pictures)

Rabat Ajax FC (Malta)

Based in the village of Rabat in the centre of Malta's main island, Rabat Ajax FC have become somewhat of a yo-yo club in recent years, dipping in and out of the second and third tiers of Maltese football with some regularity. However, they have a long and fairly complicated history. Founded in 1930 under the name Rabat Rovers, they joined with their local rivals Rabat Rangers and a team called Old City in 1937 to become Rabat Zvanks. A year later, they decided that this was too complicated a name, and changed it to the simpler Rabat FC, before joining with a club already called Rabat Ajax in 1980, finally settling on the name Rabat Ajax FC.

Their golden years were in the mid- 1980s, when they twice won the Maltese Premier League. Around the same time, they had a short but spectacular flirtation with European football - twice in the UEFA Cup and twice in the European Cup. 1983 saw them take a 16-0 UEFA hammering by Inter Bratislava, but they performed much better the following year against fellow stripes FK Partizan, losing by only two goals in each leg. However, their title wins saw them enter the big one, back in the day the Champions Trophy was for champions only. Their European Cup debut in 1985 saw them take two 5-0 batterings to Omonia Nicosia, but their biggest moment of all came in 1986 when they got a plumb first round draw against FC Porto.

In the home leg they only conceded a single goal to the high-flying Portuguese champs, so were full of expectation for the return leg. Unfortunately Porto denied the team whose home ground can only hold 400 the chance of playing at their massive Estádio das Antas, and the game was played at the much smaller Rio Ave stadium instead. Still over-awed by the occasion, Ajax took a brutal 9-0 beating, and it was the last time this plucky side would ever grace a European stage.

Their most noted player was Carmel Busuttil, who saw action away from the Island, at first with Italian amateur side Verbania, before joining the Belgian outfit Racing Genk. Also of note from their roster is a chap called Paddy Sloan, a much travelled Irishman who not only played internationally for both Irish national side, but became the first Irishman ever to play for in Serie A when Milan signed him way back in 1948. he also had spells at Manchester United, Arsenal, Fulham and Udinese, before finding his way to Malta, both playing for and managing Rabat Ajax, and eventually ending his playing days at Bath City.

See, we stripes like to keep it in the family!

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Bath City FC (England)

My minor obsession with the teams who play in black and white began a few years ago when I first stepped onto the terraces of Twerton Park - the historic home of Bath City FC. As an exiled West Ham fan in the West Country I'd turned into somewhat of a ground hopper, touring all the local grounds within easy rail travel distance in the search of some footballing thrills.

Living in Bristol but working in Bath, I'd pass City's ground on the train every day and always thought I'd have to make the trip one day. Indeed, my mate Jimmer at work had been badgering me to come along, saying that if I came once I'd be hooked for life. I chortled under my breath, thinking how quaint it was that someone apparently smart and grown up could get so obsessed by a team languishing in the Southern League.

But then one fateful Saturday in September I bit the bullet and went along - and it was one of the best decisions I've ever made. It was a meat and spuds early season game against the now sadly demised Kings Lynn, who held City to a slightly undeserved draw. But there was something about the ground, the players, but most of all the fans - seemingly sparse as they were - that instantly got under my skin... and as Jimmer warned, I was hooked.

I didn't go to every game straight off, but as the season progressed I became a more frequent visitor, and by the end of the term, as it became more apparent that the stripes were going to make promotion to the exhalted heights of the Blue Square South league - the second tier of Non-League football in England - I was even going to the away games too.

It was a great season to start following them, and the more I went, the more I discovered what in interesting club they were.

They formed way back in 1889 as Bath AFC, having a brief spell as Bath Railway before settling on the name Bath City for keeps a few years later. For much of their history Bath City have been in the upper echeolons of the non-league system, narrowly missing out on election to the Football League proper on a number of occasions - most notably in 1977 when as Southern League champions they missed out on a place in the big 92 by three measly votes to a little outfit called Wigan Athletic.

The stripes have got a grand FA Cup tradition too, having reached the fabled third round on no fewer than six occasions, beating full time opposition the like of Crystal Palace, Millwall, Notts County, Exeter City, Southend, Cardiff City, Hereford, and most recently fellow stripes Grimsby Town along the way.

Past players of note include the legendary Charlie Fleming, a Scottish international who had spells at Sunderland and East Fife, who scored a club record of 216 goals in 300 appearances. Former Blackpool and England ace Stan Mortensen had a spell in Twerton at the end of his career, and Jason Dodd, Tony Book, Paul Bodin and former Lavian international captain Andrejs Štolcers have also graced the hallowed turf.

There was also a young chap called Bobby Zamora, who spent an exciting month on loan to us from neighbours and one-time tennants Bristol Rovers back in the year 2000. His run of six games saw him bag eight goals, and marked him as true star for the future.

City also saw the greatest living Frenchman, Eric Cantona, visit the club in 2009. Sadly he didn't pull his boots on, but came to promote his film Looking For Eric, directed by staunch Stripes fan Ken Loach, who frequently holds premieres, benefits and film nights for the club.

For a little team who never quite made the big time Bath City have a long and proud history, and one of the most loyal, supportive and, to be fair, slightly bonkers fanbases in the country. If you're ever passing through town and there's a game on, make sure you get yourself down to Twerton Park. You might not see the kind of Rolls Royce football you see on the telly, but you'll experience a team with passion and grit, and share the terraces with a right friendly bunch.

Come on you City Boys!

All photos © lays with the owners
Videos from YouTube. Underlying © lays with the owners of the clips.