Today's game.

Unfortunately, I had to pull out last minute so could someone post pictures of the away kit?

We are 1-0 down apparently.

2-0 down now. Pen. According to radio we are wearing b/w stripes.

Just got home from match.3-0. 2 penalties. One of the most dire City performances I have seen for many years. If we do not improve on this we will be relegated by Easter. Along with Concord. Who are really not impressive but as we only had 1 shot on target all game we gave it to them easy.I am normally an optimist but I really feel for the faithful who have the long journey home to contemplate this score. Bottom of the league...the only way is up.

….or staying in the same place.

What is unfortunate is that it has slightly deflated the feel good factor from the pre-season friendlies which were, there is no doubt about it, impressive. If a result like this had happened mid-season after a good run, then you put it down to a blip but it is more symbolic as the first game of the season. Luckily, we very quickly have Tuesday and Saturday to get some points and suddenly it looks more optimistic.

Well let's hope we got the worst performance of the season out of the way today as that was dreadful. Apart from some decent saves by the badly exposed Mellor, I can't think of any positives, as we were 2nd best in all departments with some pretty brainless tactics against their huge defenders. What particularly annoyed me was that for the opening game of the season the bench contained players who were not fit. If we cannot afford a larger squad, we must utilise players from the under 21 set up.

This is pure thinking out loud as I wasnt there, but I often feel that for a team like us friendlies against league players gives us a chance to show how "classy" we are, but we need more against teams of the same level (as well not instead of) - hard, route 1 and give you no time on the ball. Partly because I am also convinced poor footballing sides do bring you down to their level unless youre in the habit of overcoming this, and I am guessing this is what happened yesterday! (I am aware this is used as an excuse up at Lansdown by dozens of players every week, but I do think it does happen sometimes!)

15:35

Bath have one of the worst, difficult to see numbers on striped shirts combo I have ever seen. And I've seen a few!

Many would agree.

I certainly do - they make us look like a Sunday morning league outfit, which was backed up by yesterday's performance.

A couple of other interesting comments in that blog. Yes, Concord did keep up their high energy approach for the 90 minutes. They had the excuse after losing to us in April that the game had been the final one of an incredibly congested April. We can't use that as an excuse for our lame effort yesterday, which was in complete contrast to our high energy display in the opener at Bish 12 months ago.

Also, the blogger mentioned sitting next to the Concord manager in the stand. This was on the opposite side of the pitch to the dug outs. What has happened to the idea of one of our management watching the game from a more detached position than the frenzy of subs and others, so close to the pitch?

Dodgycarpet wrote:This is pure thinking out loud as I wasnt there, but I often feel that for a team like us friendlies against league players gives us a chance to show how "classy" we are, but we need more against teams of the same level (as well not instead of)  - hard, route 1 and give you no time on the ball.  Partly because I am also convinced poor footballing sides do bring you down to their level unless youre in the habit of overcoming this, and I am guessing this is what happened yesterday! (I am aware this is used as an excuse up at Lansdown by dozens of players every week, but I do think it does happen sometimes!)

For me, friendlies serve virtually no purpose except for getting the players to match fitness and having seen our team swept aside by a far more mobile team yesterday, even that is debateable. But I do agree about the opponents lined up for these games. Ok, have the likes of Rovers and Cardiff down to attract decent crowds and some much needed money, but Yate 7 days before the league opener?! Instead of playing a team 2 levels below us, we need a real workout against a club from the same. I don't really understand why we can't play the likes of Weston, but if we must avoid clubs from the same league then why not Gloucester or Worcester? And then of course there's the old chestnut of getting the Somerset Cup played pre-season. We would be playing the likes of Taunton and Frome, but I bet it would be more intense than a run out at Yate.....

Like Dodgycarpet I was not there but have similar feelings. We always have problems with the big, direct teams and there seem to be more of them every season. I thought Walsh and Hemmings had been brought in to give us some different options but apparently neither were fit yesterday. I think we will be ok but not sure about the play off's that have been widely talked about, yesterday will have brought a few people back down to earth.
One position that does worry me is midfield. Apparently Concord were very much an 'in your face' team and we do not have (as I have said many times before) the Holloway or Harris type player who loved that sort of game and midfield battle.
We must get it right on Tuesday. I would not expect a good crowd Tuesday night anyway but another poor performance and result will make things very difficult and with another home game next Saturday the attendance could be very low indeed if we do not improve quickly.

I won't go into detail about the performance (yet) but think the reason for not playing more, say, Southern League clubs, in friendlies, is because we always seem to pick up a crop of injuries against them. Same as Western League clubs, if you watch a Western League game it is more physical than skill most of the time. If we'd lost say Andy Gallinagh because some no-mark forward goes in two-footed in a nothing game I would have been fuming.

Also according to Basil, having spoken to the 2 players before the game, Phil Walsh and Frankie Artus were both absolutely fine to play. I'm not sure why they didn't

stillmanjunior wrote:I won't go into detail about the performance (yet) but think the reason for not playing more, say, Southern League clubs, in friendlies, is because we always seem to pick up a crop of injuries against them. Same as Western League clubs, if you watch a Western League game it is more physical than skill most of the time. If we'd lost say Andy Gallinagh because some no-mark forward goes in two-footed in a nothing game I would have been fuming.

I think a reason for not playing Southern League clubs is that's it's no preparation for who we will be facing a couple of weeks later in the league. Premiership teams are not helping out Bristol City in their last friendly. Anyway, as weirdo said, the silly season is over. Yesterday's 90 minutes should have told our management far more about our players than those endless games against Swansea and Cheltenham XIs - a reality check which might do us a favour in the long run...

I couldn't bring myself to report on the full 90mins of football so I've done a more personal feeling article about the day itself. Let me know what you think, it's on www.mtannersports.com now. It's sort of a follow up of watching a 'top flight' Cardiff game back in March.

Also if anyone else wants to contribute to the site at any point during the season then get in touch. Can be a one off article sharing your views of Bath City/non league or a completely different sport! Don't be shy give it a try and all that, enjoy!

(Roll on Tuesday night!)

Great piece Mark. I am sure we'll put it right and there will be many more trips with results for City

a great account, mark, and thanks for sharing the highlights (although our performance looks just as bad 24 hours later!). the clip at 2-45 underlines how close the ground is to the thames...

The Basingstoke forum is like a mirror image of this thread after their home defeat by Hemel. Expecting a tough match on Tuesday, lets hope we dont disappoint them.

One of the constant issues, since I have been following Bath City, has been whether we play the attractive football that got us into the Conference and kept us there for a season or whether we play down to the level of most teams in the Conference South. We have had pre-season friendlies against good footballing sides, not least the excellent Swansea U-21s and, as such, have really performed well. I have said before that, in the second season in the Conference, we panicked and started to play physical long ball stuff which, firstly, we didn't have the players for and, secondly, we were always going to be second best against big, fit, professional teams like Wrexham etc. This was what got us relegated. We may have been relegated playing our original type of football as well but, at least, we had the players for that.

In some ways, the choice has been made for us because, for the umpteenth season running, we have signed small, quick, passing players. I know that we have Hemmings but, even with his height, he isn't exactly Akinfenwa. I don't mind this as I have very much enjoyed the quick passing game that we do really well at (when we aren't crossing the ball into the box to no-one). It does mean, however, that route 1 football isn't going to happen for us.

Personally, I say that we stick to what the style has been for the last few years. That's the style of player we have signed, it is obviously what the management want to play and, to be fair, it hasn't exactly done us much harm over the last couple of seasons.

I think sometimes we lack the midfield terrier. You have to earn the right to play but I agree with you........I want to see a passing game. A bit more battle to win the ball would help first.

Yes, you're probably right. From the pre-season friendlies, we need someone to control possession in the middle. A Mascherano of non-league. Should be easy to find.

kerslake is spot on with his match report...

http://www.bathchronicle.co.uk/Bath-City-pay-penalty-Concord-Rangers-opening-day/story-22284616-detail/story.html

palmer will enjoy reading the 1st comment posted at the end!   

It doesn't look good on the video. Very strange not to start with Artus given he has been the pick of the midfield during pre-season plus Walsh as we have always been punished when we don't have a big bloke at the back. Simmo and Pratt both strangely off their game. Was the team bus late in arriving at the ground? Loads and loads of long balls probably because they spent most of the time chasing after sloppy passes and just wanted to clear their lines.

The best you can say is that it is good to get a performance like that out of their systems early in the season. I feel sorry for the travelling fans.

You can't win either way with friendlies. You don't really want them to be competitive at this level because of injuries. Probably best then to concentrate on attracting decent teams to boost the coffers.

I suppose normally playing those teams increases fitness because the players have to do a lot of running without the ball. The problem this year was we dealt with those higher opposition teams too comfortably.

I think that Conference South is a very different league now to the one we won promotion from. I think generally the standard is lower, with little to choose between all but the top half dozen teams last season with most of them basing their game around big strong defenders, something we tend to find it hard to deal with. That said, I agree with others that we should try and stick to our chosen style of play.

I also agree with the comments about a midfield 'terrier'. We haven't really found a replacement for Adie Harris, although I think Noah Keats could perhaps have grown into it if he had stayed. It is probably the one part of the team that is missing at the moment.