Southern League
04.09.2007 @ 19:45 - Victoria Ground
Tuesday night visitors Gloucester City have had a tough start to the season with the distraction of their ground flooding and the need to find a new home causing disruption to their pre-season. Good news has been the FA Premier League?s donation of ?10,000 to their fund towards the new ground.
On the field Gloucester started by reversing their home game against Cheshunt to an away match which they won comfortably 3 ? 0. It has been harder to find a win since but despite two defeats, the last on Saturday a 3 ? 2 reverse against Rugby Town, they have two creditable draws against Bashley and Halesowen. The 1 ? 1 draw against Halesowen was Gloucester?s first official home game at the New Lawn, Forest Green Rovers ground where they are ground sharing this season. We play there on 4 December so be sure to book it in your diaries as it is a brand new ground built to Conference standards and looked impressive when we took a trip there last season one Saturday when Rovers game was off.
Gloucester currently stand 17th in the table on 5 points and should provide tough opposition as they always have done in previous seasons. You may remember the last season we were in the same division we had three and a half goes at fulfilling the two fixtures with a floodlight failure due to a power cut at the Victoria Ground and a January postponement for the away game. Unfortunately, we also managed to lose both games 1 ? 0.
Gloucester?s top scorer at present is midfielder Alex Sykes on 3 goals but you will recognise forward Jack Pitcher who was in the Clevedon side when they were in our division and played in that memorable play-off semi-final game. Unfortunately, Jack has been out with injury but the City staff were hopeful both may be available this week.
New signing Jamie Price is the great hope for Gloucester and will presumably be in the squad having been signed last week and was due to make his debut in the Rugby Town game on Saturday. Jamie is an ex-Blues and Tamworth player.
No mugs at this level Gloucester finished 10th last season and won 9 games away from as opposed to only 6 at home. As ever at this level there are no easy games and we will have to continue in the same vein as our performance on Saturday if Rovers are going to get the points.
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