The unofficial archives of Tiverton Town Football Club
Cirencester Town 1 - 0 Tiverton TownSaturday 27/11/2010 Southern League Premier Division | Tivvy Archive |
Man can not live by statistics alone. Records are there to be broken. Lies, damned lies… You can’t blame the strikers if they never get the service. Tivvy bypass the midfield, it is no wonder we don’t score. We need to freshen things up. We’ve got a good team on paper. We just need the rub of the green. The sort of comments one would hear when submersed in the life and times, the toils and trouble, the blood, sweat and tears of our little mad world that is Tiverton Town Football Club. Each of the clichés above has its merits but singularly they are worthless and the solution to the problems the Club currently faces is not as simple as just passing the ball on the floor or signing a striker with a good goalscoring record at a lower level. There are many people working very hard to stop the rot, and if the answer to all our prayers is to be found then it needs to be found quickly. At Cirencester it was jolly cold but the pitch was in good nick (at least until the last fifteen minutes when it started to freeze underfoot) so there was no reason why Tiverton couldn’t at least give it a good go, get the ball down and play, and make use of a midfield line-up that was technically adept. And that is just what the Yellows did, but the rub of the green still didn’t favour Tivvy and an indisputable fact is that the team have now extended their goalscoring famine to five games. That is just one match away from equalling a club record that was set in September 1974. To say Tivvy battered Cirencester would be an overstatement but the Yellows were very much on top in the first half of the game and had what seemed to be a perfectly good goal disallowed after just nine minutes. It came via Colin Marshall’s right boot and from a corner kick that swung inwards towards the far post. Ciren goalkeeper Matt Bulman jumped and flapped, the ball dropped into the net and the referee blew his whistle for a foul on the ’keeper. Bulman admitted later that he wasn’t touched, the Cirencester manager was as perplexed as anyone concerning the referee’s decision, and Tivvy has to regroup frustratingly safe in the knowledge that the Gods were not yet ready to start smiling upon them. They will one day! Marshall and Mark Saunders were instrumental in taking the game to their hosts and the former volleyed another chance just over the top when he found space to receive David Steele’s cross after half an hour. But other than that, and a half-chance for Steele there was little goalmouth action at either end. Cirencester did threaten on occasions, particularly down their right but were kept out by a combination of good positioning from Steele and Alex Faux, and luckily (or unluckily depending on your perspective) by Liam Ellis’s arms. Bulman saved from Saunders but knew little of it before the hosts launched a counter attack that was as clinical as it was devastating. James Mortimer-Jones sent Matt Sysmun scampering forward from his full back slot, Sysmun crossed deep, over Ryan Draper and perfectly onto the head of Mark Draycott, allowing the former Didcot forward to mark his debut for the Centurions with a headed goal from close range. From there on the pattern of the game was generally that Tiverton defended deep but effectively and struggled in the face of a stiff breeze to push forward into enemy territory. Yet while Cirencester had a wayward effort from Carl Brown and a shot straight at Draper from Tom Etheridge to show for their territorial superiority, Tivvy and Marshall should have equalised fifteen minutes from the end. But it wasn’t to be; after a penetrating run and a clever one-two with new boy Michael Nardiello Marshall ballooned his shot half way to Cheltenham. The performance was a vast improvement from some early-season debacles, the result and the goals scored column was still much the same. Cirencester Town: Matt Bulman, Matt Sysmun, Matt Jack, Callum Henry, Chris Thompson, Lyndon Tomkins, Mark Draycott, James Mortimer-Jones, Jody Bevan (Marcus Palmer 67), Carl Brown (Sean Wood 74), Tom Etheridge Goal: Draycott 62 Booked: Draycott 28 Sent off: None Tiverton Town: Ryan Draper, Alex Faux, Liam Ellis, Kevin Hill, Jak Martin, Tom Gardner, Mark Saunders (Michael Nardiello 63), David Steele (Adam Mortimer 81), Joe Bushin, Colin Marshall, Ryan Turner Booked: None Sent off: None Attendance: 89 |
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