When John Keats referred to a ‘thing of beauty’ in his poem Endymion I doubt he was thinking that 200 years later it would be describing Steve Coates’s left Foot.

A tally of 2 wins, coming from a goal down against Abbeymead to win 2-1 and a 2-0 victory against Weston Rebels, gave Steve Coates his tournament hat trick. All scored with his left foot.

We started somewhat slowly, wandering like sheep after the ball and not connecting with any passes. Despite the sluggish play we held Exeter to a 0-0 draw Nigel McMain and Rich Orr creating a solid defensive partnership.

Keynsham beat us 1-0 scoring a tremendous narrow angle goal, the only shot in this game to come close to beating Glyn Clarke who again was imperious in goal all day.

Abbeymead, having recently beaten us in the cup, played a hard pressing game and scored their goal after a very quick break away which VAR refused to overrule for not walking.

Woken up by this injustice, Clevedon started playing football and strung some very good moves together allowing Steve C to stroke home the equalising goal. In the dying seconds of the game, he picked up a very slick move from the midfield of Mark Plinston, John Hughes and Bryan Nutt to rifle in a superb long distance goal beating the goalie with placement and power.

By now the team had settled into its rhythm and coming up against Weston Rebels played some impressive passing football for Steve to score his third goal and for Mark Plinston to slot in a shot resulting from a high speed passing move splitting their defence wide open.

Clevedon 0-0 Exeter

Clevedon 0-1 Keynsham

Clevedon 2-1 Abbeymead

Clevedon 2-0 Weston Rebels

Our thanks to Mike Tippins for his support and to Tony for refereeing.

Pete Lyne, 70s manager