Gloucester Revolution 8-8 Bath Futsal
Pre-season
10/08/14
Bath Futsal Club faced Gloucester Revolution Futsal in their second pre season friendly of the season. A lot of positives could be taken from the Coventry game last week; so Bath were quietly hopeful of getting a decent result. Gloucester play in Division 1 and this will be one of Bath’s hardest tests in pre-season.
Bath Futsal Club took several blows before the first ball was kicked with only 7 players available from the first team squad due to Holidays, Injuries and Sickness. With this said Bath were still confident in the squad that travelled.
The first half started and Bath found it difficult to find their feet, Bath were being pulled all over the place and quickly went 2-0 down. Bath then began to find their feet and work Gloucester out bringing it back to 2-1. Both goalkeepers were having great opening 15 minutes to the game.
Unfortunately a couple of defensive mistakes cost Bath and again they found themselves conceding a couple more goals to go 4-1 down. Reacting quickly Bath made a couple of changes to try and get themselves back on track. This proved a great change and the game was quickly brought back in reach at 4-3 this is how it stayed until Half time.
The half time team talk was simply to be tighter in defence and work on pressing higher up the court. The second half started very brightly for Bath and by controlling possession of the ball and some accurate passing into the top man the game was quickly level at 4-4. Bath now had a chance to really push on which they did and found themselves in front for the first time in the game 4-5.
From this point on the game stayed at 1 goal either way with the lead staying mainly with Bath. The last two minutes of the game saw bath leading 7-8 and an attack which could prove the game winner, whilst on the attack a solid challenge from a Gloucester player injured Bath’s Graham Gardiner and whilst he was trying to make a quick substitution off Gloucester broke forward with a 2 v 1 at the back and levelled the game 8-8.
There was a one more chance for Bath to take the game which resulted in striking the post. The game finished 8-8 and was a very good friendly for both teams.
Manager Michael Wootten said after the game:
“It was a great game for us with so many players missing it was always going to be hard, we faced a side that has competed regularly against the best teams in the country and therefore had a wealth of experience.
I was slightly disappointed we didn’t get the result as I felt overall we deserved the win. What’s great is we had a chance to put that right on the 24th when they travel to us for another friendly.
I was extremely proud of the players today who fought hard and gave everything to get the result. If we take out a couple of the simple errors that cost us today we can be very happy with the overall game.
Next week we travel back to Gloucester to face Gloucester Uni Futsal who won Division 2 last year unbeaten”
Goal Scorers for Bath:
Ermand Rusta – 2
Gary Bell – 2
Michael Wootten – 1
James Curtis – 1
Graham Gardiner – 1
Howard Dennis – 1
MOM- Ali Macdonald, an inspiring performance in goal.