Conference Survival Fight Part 1 – Bath City

With the season now more than two thirds of the way through and spring on the horizon, despite the cold weather Britain has currently been experiencing, league games are becoming ever more critical.  In the lower reaches of the Conference Premier table nine clubs are threatened with relegation, with 16th placed Lincoln City some 7 points adrift of Ebbsfleet United, the club above them in the league.

This is the first in a series of articles looking at the clubs that are currently involved in the relegation with the view to making an assessment about which clubs are likely to survive and which are likely to be relegated.

Bottom Of The Conference

16	Lincoln City	32	-14	31
17	Newport County	31	-8	30
18	Stockport County	33	-18	29
19	Darlington	32	-9	28
20	AFC Telford	31	-16	28
21	Kettering Town	31	-36	28
22	Alfreton Town	31	-29	25
23	Hayes & Yeading	31	-24	24
24	Bath City	30	-33	18

Of all the sides embroiled in the relegation battle, Bath City are the team in the greatest danger.  They are currently six points adrift at the foot of the table and ten points adrift of safety with many pundits having already written them off as relegation certainties.  Recent form has also provided little evidence to suggest that the Romans are capable of staying up.  After beating Newport County in a critical game at the start of January, Bath City have managed just one point from the subsequent four games, which included a 6-0 trouncing at Grimsby and a 3-0 home reverse against Alfreton Town in a game that the club would have highlighted as a ‘must win’ beforehand.

As with many clubs at the foot of the Conference, Bath City are currently struggling financially.  The Romans made the 1st Round of the FA Cup and earned a replay against Dagenham & Redbridge which earned some much needed and unexpected income after being watched by an impressive crowd of 1,704.  City also progressed to the 3rd Round of the FA Trophy, which should have yielded another healthy attendance with the possibility of a trip to Wembley on the horizon. However, only 546 souls braved bitter weather conditions on a Tuesday evening as Bath were beaten 2-1 by Grimsby, in what has been reported as the lowest attendance to watch the Mariners in a competitive fixture since the War. 

The low attendance in the FA Trophy has also been mirrored by comparatively low attendances in the league with Bath, at 890 fans per match, currently having the third worst average attendance in the Conference behind Hayes & Yeading United and Alfreton Town.  This level of support is unsustainable at Conference level, given the level of wages required to acquire the quality of player that the club needs to attract in order to survive, and it is no coincidence that the three clubs with the lowest gates in the Conference currently occupy the bottom three positions in the table.

Like Newport, one of the problems that Bath faced at the outset of the season was the increased expectation of the fans.  Having finished a highly creditable 10th in their first season back in the Conference, few would have anticipated that the club would be staring relegation in the face by mid February.   However, the lack of income from gate receipts has proven to be a significant hindrance in Adie Britton’s attempts to improve the squad.

This has lead to the recent and highly controversial announcement that the Twerton Park stadium will be renamed by the winner of a draw, the entry fee for which is £50.  There are virtually no restrictions on the winner in terms of what they will rename the stadium and there are also no restrictions preventing opposition supporters from entering.  The aim is clearly to raise a significant amount of money through one off donations with  the prize potentially being permanent recognition at Twerton Park for the winning supporter or business.  However, whilst Bath are currently publicising the scheme as innovative and exciting, it has met with a decidedly mixed reaction amongst the supporters and perhaps gives a strong indication of the state of the club’s finances.

Despite the challenges that Bath City currently face with their finances, Adie Britton was still able to strengthen his squad with three January transfer window signings.  The most notable of these signings in the context of Tuesday evenings game with Newport is Tommy Doherty, a player of some quality who represented Northern Ireland on 9 occasions from 2003-5 and who made nearly 200 appearances for Bristol City.  During a spell at Wycombe, Doherty made the PFA League Team of the Year on two occasions and he was a regular for Newport County until Justin Edinburgh’s decision to release him in the January transfer window in favour of players with a greater work ethic.  That level of ability should aid Bath greatly as they seek to produce the seemingly impossible, though sadly for the Romans goal scoring is not one of Doherty’s strongest points, with only 9 career goals from midfield.

Also joining the Romans in January were Andy Gallinagh and Sean Canham.  Gallinagh, a 26 year old defender who, whilst never able to hold down a first team position at Cheltenham Town, proved to be a useful squad member, making 130 appearances over five years.  Gallinagh is in some ways not new to Bath, as he has already made 14 appearances for the club this season during a two month emergency loan spell.  Striker Sean Canham has also spent two months on loan at Twerton Park this season and returns to the club on another loan deal, having scored five goals in 14 games during his first spell with Bath City.  Whilst Canham has previously been sent out on loan a number of times before, he has generally produced a reasonable goal return with a particularly successful spell at Hayes & Yeading in 2009 when he netted 6 times in just 14 games.  However, apart from this short spell, he has never managed to recapture the form that saw him score 68 times in 120 appearances for Team Bath.  The Romans will need him to net a number of times between now and the end of the season if they are to survive.

This week has become a critical week in determining whether Bath City have any chance of escaping the drop. On paper, there were three very winnable fixtures against sides in the bottom half of the table.  However, despite creating chances on Tuesday evening, the Romans fell to a 1-0 defeat against Newport County at Spytty Park in the first of these matches after an early Lee Minshull goal.  This blow now means that the forthcoming home games against Ebbsfleet United and Hayes & Yeading are absolutely critical.  Should Bath manage to accumulate a minimum of six points from these games, they could move potentially move themselves within touching distance of the teams above them. This would allow the club to go into a tough sequence of games against promotion chasing  Kidderminster, Luton and York with more confidence.  Anything less, however, and the task will be virtually impossible.

The reality of the situation is, as was demonstrated at Spytty Park last night, that whilst supporters will highlight games that they see as potentially winnable at this stage of the season, it would actually take a dramatic change of form for the Romans to be able to put together the kind of winning run that is necessary to avoid relegation.  Given that Newport are down at the foot of the table and were totally outplayed at Twerton Park in January, Romans fans will have anticipated gaining at least a point and yet they came back with nothing.  Even if they now manage to pick up six points in the games against Hayes & Yeading and Ebbsfleet, they then have to play four of the top five over the course of the next month and it is unlikely that they will pick up many points from these games, even allowing for the fact that three of them will be played at Twerton Park.  Consequently, as many of their fans clearly already believe, it is highly probably that Bath City will now be relegated in April. 

Prediction: Bath City will be relegated.

 

Remaining Fixtures

Table		Bath	Hayes	Alfreton	Newport	Kettering
1	Fleetwood	31-Mar		25-Feb
2	Wrexham		18-Feb	6-Apr	17-Mar	3-Mar
3	Luton Town	3-Mar	9-Apr	14-Apr
4	York City	10-Mar	3-Mar	9-Apr	14/4,TBC
5	Kidderminster	25-Feb			9-Apr	14-Apr
6	Southport		7-Apr		3-Mar	13-Mar
7	Grimsby Town		TBC
8	Gateshead		6-Mar		31-Mar
9	Mansfield Town	21-Apr	14-Apr	20-Mar	18-Feb	7-Apr
10	Cambridge			24-Mar	20-Mar	9-Apr
11	Barrow	6-Mar			28-Apr	18/2,21/4
12	Forest Green	9-Apr	17-Mar			21-Feb
13	Braintree Town			31-Mar	6-Mar	25-Feb
14	Tamworth	4-Apr			21-Feb
15	Ebbsfleet	18-Feb		27-Mar		24-Mar
16	Lincoln City	17-Mar	21-Apr	10-Mar	24-Mar
17	Stockport	24-Mar	28-Apr	6-Mar		31-Mar
18	Darlington	14-Apr		18-Feb	10-Mar	28-Apr
19	AFC Telford		24-Mar	3-Mar	7-Apr	TBC
20	Kettering Town		10-Mar	17-Mar
21	Newport County			21-Apr
22	Alfreton Town	28-Apr			21-Apr	17-Mar
23	Hayes	21-Feb				10-Mar
24	Bath City		21-Feb	28-Apr

Do you agree with the prediction? Why not vote in the poll to the left of this article and indicate which four teams you think will be relegated.  At the end of the series, the results of this poll will be compared with the results of this table.

The next article in this series will feature Lincoln City, who are currently 16th in the table. 

Harris Strikes Again In Another Late Show

   Stockport County 2 Newport County 2

                  Conference Premier

             Saturday, 11 February 2012

               Edgeley Park, Stockport
Despite the very real possibility of a trip to Wembley in the FA Trophy after the spectacular 4-0 demolition of Carshalton Athletic in midweek, Newport County were well aware that the most important match of the week, and quite possibly of the season, was the weekend relegation encounter against Stockport County at Edgeley Park.

Whilst the two teams came into the game in totally contrasting moods, this owed more to transfer activity than it did to recent form on the field, as both clubs having been showing evidence in recent weeks that they have sufficient quality to survive the drop.  On the pitch Newport, in addition to making the quarter finals of the FA Trophy, have also drawn at home to Forest Green Rovers and beaten Gateshead at the International Stadium after two late goals from Sam Foley and Jake Harris gave The Exiles an unlikely 3-2 victory.  Stockport have also shown similar signs of improvement with a 2-1 victory over high flying Kidderminster in their last league outing following on from draws against Telford and Braintree Town. 

The difference is that Newport County, after signing the likes of Lee Minshull, Ryan Charles and Andy Sandell, in addition to discovering what may be a special goalscoring talent in Jake Harris, have made themselves into a stronger, quicker outfit that is far more suited to Conference football than the side that entered into the January transfer window.  In contrast, Stockport have lost 4 of the 16 man squad that featured in the New Year’s Day victory against Barrow after manager Jim Gannon acknowledged that trimming the wage bill and securing the long term future of the club was more important than ensuring Conference survival.  Consequently, locally born goalkeeper Matt Glennon was released by the club on 31 January to the disappointment of many County fans, whilst former Irish under 19 international Sam Sheridan was sent out on a month’s loan to Southport, despite having made 20 appearances for Stockport.  Mark Lynch, Ryan McCann, John Miles, Chris Blackburn and Jon Routledge also left the club in January, leaving Jim Gannon with a smaller squad and perhaps a bit less quality than he had at the start of January.

As if the departure of seven players within a month was not enough, Lord Snape, the Stockport chairman, was forced to announce that Stockport would continue playing football in their home town.  This was because of the suggestion that Sale Sharks, a rugby club who effectively own Edgeley Park, are intending to move back to Salford, a decision that would force the departure of Stockport also. 

Despite these problems, the evidence of the first 30 minutes of the game would have suggested to neutral observers that it was Newport that had lost important players rather than Stockport.  One of the problems for the visitors was the change of personnel, with Ryan Charles returning after his suspension to replace Buchanan, who had scored twice in his previous two outings,  Jake Harris being left on the bench again despite having scored four times in his previous 100 minutes or so of football and Yakubu still suspended after his sending off against Forest Green.

The home side, after taking advantage of some poor away defending to net in the 8th minute through the first of two Danny Rowe goals, were able to dominate proceedings as Newport gave the ball away too easily, and Stockport might well have had more goals as the visitors struggled to deal with balls being played over the top of the defence.  However, despite creating a number of promising situations, Stockport were unable to get the crucial second goal and they were punished for this shortly after half time as Adam Sandell thundered home from 25 yards to add to his already blossoming reputation.

Much of the press coverage has claimed that Sandell turned from hero to villain in the 57th minute, as the left sided midfield was given a straight red card.  It was the 7th red card that Newport have received this season and therefore would appear to be an issue of discipline that desperately needs addressing.  However, more than one of the red card decisions have been extremely debatable and Sandell can consider himself extremely unlucky to receive a straight red for Referee Bond must have assumed was an elbow, though some elements of the press were suggesting that foul and abusive language was also involved.

As occurred after the sending off of Ryan Charles at Luton, Newport fell behind almost immediately after the sending off, as Danny Rowe claimed his second of the game with a free kick from the edge of the area.  This seemed to have cost Newport the match and is an issue that Justin Edinburgh will have to address.  If Newport are to successfully negotiate their way out of the relegation minefield, concentration is required for the full 90 minutes and focus must be maintained even in the midst of frustration and anger.

What will have pleased the manager though, is the way that the club have started to fight in recent games.  Seven days ago the Gateshead game appear to be lost as County went 2-0 down and yet they fought back to claim a critical win.  In similarly adverse conditions at Edgeley Park, they did it again.  On both occasions the hero was Jake Harris, a 21 year old striker who was signed from Weston-super-Mare in June last year. 

 

 

Jake Harris (photo courtesy of Sam Shingler) has been a revelation in his substitution appearances for County this season, scoring late winners at Worksop and Gateshead, and now getting a crucial late equaliser at Stockport County.

 

 

Despite having elected to change the forward line for this crucial encounter, Justin Edinburgh left Harris on the bench again.  However, it is becoming increasingly difficult for the manager to keep the Englishman out of the team and Harris is highly likely to feature again in some capacity for another critical match against Bath at Spytty Park on Tuesday.

	Conference Premier (Bottom)	Pl	D	Pts
16	Lincoln City	31	-14	30
17	Stockport County	33	-18	29
18	Darlington	31	-7	28
19	AFC Telford	31	-16	28
20	Kettering Town	31	-36	28
21	Newport County	30	-9	27
22	Alfreton Town	31	-29	25
23	Hayes & Yeading	31	-24	24
24	Bath City	30	-33	18

The draw was of much more value to Newport than it was to Stockport, as could be gauged by the reaction of the fans at the full time whistle.  Newport, as the table above shows, are within a point of moving out of the bottom 4 and they have a game in hand on all the teams around them.  With a home game against Bath City coming up on Tuesday night, weather permitting, there is real expectation that the club will move out of the relegation zone and survive.

Stockport County, on the other hand, will feel that this was a game that they should have won.  Although the club have moved up a couple of places to 17th in the league, they are only two points away from the drop zone, clubs beneath them all have have a couple of games in hand, and some key players are no longer with the club.  However, this result does represent a fourth consecutive league game without defeat and Stockport will be fully aware that the financial plight of both Darlington and Kettering is considerably worse than their own.  It may just be that this will be the difference between survival and relegation.