Pershore Town Bench Talk
Saturday 6 December 2003

A warm welcome to everyone from Pershore Town for this early December fixture here at Tally Ho. Was it a choice between 'footie' and Christmas shopping? No choice really! I would much rather stand in the cold fresh air anytime.

Our last home game was the comfortable 3-0 win over Alveston two weeks ago with goals from Martin Slattery, Richard Cox and Steve Piearce. Everything looked pretty rosy as we trundled off to Massey Ferguson the following Tuesday on the back of two home wins and two clean sheets.

'Funny old game'. Never was there a truer saying. Sixty per cent of the play to us in the first half, we forced eight corners and go in three nil down thanks to some horrendous defending.

Team talk all about pride at the half-time interval, stay disciplined, see if we can get an early goal and work ourselves back into the game. You've guessed it. Forty seconds gone, two errors and we are four nil down. It was all totally down hill after that as Massey attacked in waves, looking like they were going to score each time they came forward. Mark Bellingham tucked away two goals in the last ten minutes as we departed with an 8-2 hiding.

As I said to the player's after the game. Nothing can be done about the result; it's how you respond in our next game against Pershore that now counts. So here we are and let's see how we handle the situation. There are quite a few players unavailable with Martin Slattery and Mark Langley away for the weekend. Paul Probert, Steve Piearce, Gavin Smith and Lyndon Price are unavailable due to work, Richard Frost, Dave Blake and Mike Mason are still injured and there are doubts over the availability of Ian Millward. Having said all that, we are still turning out a decent side and the player's have shown a pretty good attitude all season.

Following today's fixture, we have two nice easy games away to Leamington next Tuesday and Romulus on the Saturday! Come on, get out in the cold and support us. Enjoy the game.

Jim Scott