Pre season friendlies

Usual range, will no.8 be Cheltenham given JG connections? I see its a Bristol Rovers X1 fixture and its not listed on the Rovers first team pre season list though currently no other game for them on the 21st July.

Rovers at home is always the big game.

I won't bore everyone with my thoughts on friendlies yet again (!) except to welcome the Weymouth fixture.

In the 6 seasons since our relegation from Conference Premier we've played our final warm up against Yate (3), Torquay, Shepton Mallet and Bideford. Torquay at the time may have been challenging opponents, but these 6 friendlies were followed by just 2 wins in our opening league fixtures on the following Saturday. And more to the point, we have picked up an average of just 6 points from the opening 4 games.

While friendlies with the likes of Rovers bring in welcome revenue for the club, the above suggests that we've been going into the season under-cooked.

While it wasn't possible to line up a final warm up against a club at our level (attempts were made) Weymouth away looks the next best thing as they narrowly missed out in the play offs. And although they start their campaign a week later than us, hopefully they will give us a tough work out before the big ko.

And yes, I probably will go down there!

comrade powell wrote:I won't bore everyone with my thoughts on friendlies yet again (!) except to welcome the Weymouth fixture...
And yes, I probably will go down there!

Hold the front page, I can see the headline...Comrade ATTENDS Friendly!

Will there be a coach?  Don't forget the bucket and spade, sun cream, swimming costume etc.

I'll get onto the Dorset Echo right away!

I'll have you know that I attended a friendly last season (can't remember which) and TWO Somerset Cup games!

Frustrated I can’t make Weymouth, even though it’d be a far better location for the stag party I’m helping organise for that weekend. I saw them draw 0-0 with Poole at the back end of a season a couple of years ago, effectively cost Poole the title. I think Jason Matthews and George Rigg played.

My guess is we often play ‘easier’ games a week before the start of the season to prevent injury, but happy for the change. The Torquay game was a thriller, too.

comrade powell wrote:In the 6 seasons since our relegation from Conference Premier we've played our final warm up against Yate (3), Torquay, Shepton Mallet and Bideford. Torquay at the time may have been challenging opponents, but these 6 friendlies were followed by just 2 wins in our opening league fixtures on the following Saturday.

How many have been home games?

Shepton was at Twerton and hastily thrown in to avoid Chas starting the season suspended, I believe.

BenE wrote:

comrade powell wrote:In the 6 seasons since our relegation from Conference Premier we've played our final warm up against Yate (3), Torquay, Shepton Mallet and Bideford. Torquay at the time may have been challenging opponents, but these 6 friendlies were followed by just 2 wins in our opening league fixtures on the following Saturday.

How many have been home games?

Only one of the six. But our home record has been so iffy in recent years that it's not all that relevant. In fact in two of those seasons, we have recorded more wins away from TP.

On the basis that the Weymouth game is the final friendly, I have just realised that the season must start on 4th August - is it me, or does it get earlier every year? I expect we will still have played a quarter of our league games by the second week of September.

Excellent question, LB, and you're correct, it is getting earlier and earlier. Just a few seasons back we started at Welling on 18/8 and Bish on 17/8. But since then records have been broken. I don't think we had ever started earlier than 8/8 and yet 2 years ago the Margate match was on 6/8 and last season Bognor was on 5/8.  

The league seem to have decided that the season will ko on the first Saturday of the month rather than the second. So this year it's 4/8 and next year 3/8! And in 2020 (leap year) we should be kicking off on 1/8 but we'll be in the league by then with different dates...

As a teacher, I am quite glad to get a month of the season out of the way while still on holiday.

Reminds me of my reply to someone who asked me what I liked most about teaching....August!

With the World Cup in June / July every week of every month of 2018 involves English players?

Too much football.

Although I have my doubts about the upcoming finals, what with the venue, VAR etc, I think that the World Cup is a great festival which is ideally timed for every four years. The problem is that many of the players will arrive shattered from domestic and continental club competitions. Remember Kane's non appearance two years ago at the Euros?

But to answer your question, yes there is too much of a very average quality. As usual tv has a lot to answer for with matches staggered to allow for live coverage and this means so much of the former 'free time' is now taken up.

The highlights will probably be the controversial VAR moments as the games are normally boring due to teams playing unadventurous sideways football.  

With no Andy at Wimbledon England cricket and no National Hunt horse racing I could go on holiday until August...and miss nothing.

I don't buy this exhaustion nonsense. They play one maybe two 90 minute games per week for which they do nothing else all week but prepare for. I wish I could be that exhausted.

Bunch of prima donnas.

Prima donnas yes, but the pace of the modern game, especially in the EPL, is bound to take its toll.

I think the most important thing to note is that if England finish second in their group they could be playing in the quarters at the same time as the Reading game.

If the trend continues and we also have a Winter break, we could find the season starts before the previous one has finished. That would do away with the need for pre-season friendlies. With the league places, 2nd to 7th, being involved in a knock out competition to decide promotion, perhaps the FA Cup could take a leaf out of the Champions League system and start of as a league. All in all we won't know whether we are coming or going.

According to Bristol City’s website we are playing their U-23s on Saturday 14 July

yuffie wrote:I think the most important thing to note is that if England finish second in their group they could be playing in the quarters at the same time as the Reading game.

I'd wager that there's more chance of seeing me at the Reading match than England in the quarters.

Ash - cannot find Bristol City U23 site.
Does it say TP or AG?

TP