Bath City’s big derby

You may have guessed that this is going to be an opinion piece and I apologise if the swearing offends you. However this was the most apt opening I could use.

I’ve been watching City since 2000/01 and this game easily ranks in the top 5 worse performances I have seen!

So firstly lets congratulate Chippenham Town from their fans, players, management and committee. It was great to see the derby come back to City after this long break and fans travelled in their numbers to this game. Fantastic to see a line going nearly to the high street as Twerton Park started to fill up.

The atmosphere in the first half was great wherever you were in the ground. Once it got to 4-1 the City fans were silent and the boos started. The return game will be marked as a huge game for both clubs, Chippenham will look to do the double whilst Owers’ City side will try and restore some pride.

Chippenham were far superior all over the park, from the first whistle to the last. Every header, 50/50, loose ball and second ball was contested and nearly always won by the visitors. Dave Pratt and Dan Bowman both came back to haunt Owers with Andy Sandell causing a real handful up front. Both Centre Backs were strong in the tackle and the midfield quick to close and snuff out the danger.

Mark Collier and his backroom team got the squad really up for this game and deserved their win. This is how any team should approach a derby game at any level, I’m honestly very glad we don’t play them every week!

I hate analysing a negative City performance but it has to be done as there were very few positives. We scored two goals and Connor Lemonheigh-Evans had a good first half – that’s the positives out of the way.

Now I could copy and paste around 25 different City fans opinions on what went wrong and I agree with nearly everything they say.

That’s it for this report, I’m still too angry to comment any further. Lets hope that Darren Jones gets shipped out on loan for a month or so to get some match fitness and that Anthony Straker is only played in midfield from now on.

Chelmsford are next up to visit Twerton Park on Sat 12th August and my former writer Matt Lee will be rubbing his hands with glee after reading this report!

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