By Eddie McAteer, Student Sport Correspondent
Bristol’s first team put on an impressive show during the second half of their recent fixture against Bath’s second team as they went two from two at the start of this season and stated their intentions to the rest of the league.
A crisp Wednesday night under the lights at Coombe Dingle saw UBAFC take on Bath in their second BUCS league fixture of the season. The game started with a composed Bath side passing the ball well without really threatening the Bristol goal, yet, as their confidence grew, Bath looked more and more dangerous.
The breakthrough came in the 21st minute when some fine defensive work by one of the Bath midfielders saw them break on Bristol before getting the ball to their number 9 who managed to somehow turn the defence and curl a brilliant strike into the top right corner.
Following this setback, Bristol rallied and put together some nice moves, however the striker, Femiola, had little to work with and so the game remained at 0-1 as some heavy challenges started to come in from either side.
The game was completely turned on its head at the end of the half, when the ball was won back by some industrious defensive work from the Bristol midfield and worked out wide to right winger, Pagano, who promptly fizzed a cross across the face of goal for Femiola to bring the score to 1-1. This goal and the half-time talk from manager Alan Tyres proved influential as Bristol came out for the second half a different team.
Immediately the midfield continued its diligent defending, winning the ball back in the middle of the park and, taking the ball in his stride, Haire powered off a brilliant shot to the bottom left hand corner to make the score 2-1 in the 46th minute.
With the tone set early by Bristol, Bath tried to get a response and looked good for a period, it took some solid defending from the men in red to keep Bath at bay. Bristol struck again, however, when a throw in from the left saw Bath at sixes and sevens in defence and Hinks gleefully put the ball past the keeper, giving Bristol a bit of breathing space at 3-1.
Shortly after the third goal Bristol regathered possession and some lovely interplay allowed man of the match Hinks to extend their lead to 4-1 with 30 minutes still to play. The loyal Bristol supporters then found their voice and the chants got increasingly confident. The home players seemed to sense this confidence as the Bath players’ heads went down, whilst Bristol proceeded to lay down a marker for the rest of the season.
The introduction of substitutes did Bristol no harm either; all the new men looking to impress. The last 30 minutes was all one way traffic, Bristol threatened on multiple occasions before a fantastic team move down the left-hand side led picked out replacement forward Jasper who took a simple touch and then nonchalantly beat the keeper with a stunning curling effort for the fifth goal in Bristol’s favour.
More intelligent passing play saw Bristol move from their own half into the Bath box at ease and a mix-up from the Bath defender and his goalkeeper allowed Gabe to snatch his teams sixth and final goal by easily slotting the ball into an empty net. With the fans in full voice, Bristol saw out the remainder of the game without any issues and celebrated a well-deserved victory at the final whistle.
After a slightly messy first half, Bristol proved their class in the second half, having shown great character to come back from 0-1 down and fully deserved all their goals.
This game was a great indication of their aspirations for the rest of the season, promotion to the Southern league will surely be on their mind and they should now have the confidence to take on any team in this division, especially after ten goals over just two games.
The next home game for the first team is against Southampton 1s at 15:00 on October 30th at Almondsbury 3G.
Featured: George Lilleywhite
Can the 1s reach the promised land of the Southern league this year?
