Eddy starts and notches again!

It may not have been pretty, but three points is three points and to be fair City more than deserved their win. And believe it or not, the fact we didn’t concede a goal, meant it was the first league game since the 12th March, 32 leagues games, since we last kept a clean sheet!

Looking back through the records, the last time the Treyew Road crowd watched a clean sheet at home in the league was actually all but twelve months ago to the day - Tonbridge Angels on the 1st December 2012, when a crowd of 346 witnessed goals from Marcus Martin and Kieffer Moore to ensure a 2-0 win.

Of course Moore became a goalscoring hero for us, and today’s marksman is fast becoming one as well as Liam Eddy crashed home the goal, his fifth league goal of the campaign and his eighth in total this season.

After Tuesday’s 6-0 defeat at Hungerford, the starting line-up had five changes in it, albeit three were enforced with Ollie Chenoweth (working), Steve Tully (recurring calf problem) and Jamie Lowry (going down sick this morning), while Jordan Pearce and Neil Slateford started on the bench.

In came goalkeeper Grant Fisher for his home debut, the full-backs were Shane White and Warren Daw, Jordan Copp slotted into a midfield role with manager Steve Massey deciding the time was right again to bring Eddy back in, and how he ran tirelessly all afternoon, as did his striker partner Ben Watson.

Fisher look accomplished in what he had to do, especially two very good saves – one midway through the first half diving to his right to push out a shot from Omari Sterling-James and then late on, in fact as late as the 89th minute, when this time he dived to his left to touch away a well struck effort from Ashley Sammons.

The game started the same way as recent home matches with City making the brighter start, but this time the defence stood firm and we continued to take the game to the opposition. Shots wide from Joe Broad (11th minute), a Copp free-kick (16th), but once again lady luck wasn’t quite with us as a minute before the break Les Afful hit the post for the second Saturday running.

So at half-time it was goalless, just as it was against Chippenham and Hungerford! However thankfully this time there was no “crazy” period in the second half. The game continued the way of the first 45 minutes with City having the majority of possession and applying more of the pressure, with isolated attacks on our goal from the opposition.

Just past the hour top scorer Harvey Headley flicked a free-kick from Sammons over the Truro bar, but five minutes later today’s attendance of 368 were celebrating what proved to be the only goal of the game.

Jordan Copp’s corner was headed down by Arran Pugh towards Eddy who turned and made no mistake from close range to give City the lead and an advantage which although as expected was threatened as Redditch ran out of time, was never conceded.

The whole team, plus subs, stood firm and did their individual bit for a welcome win on an afternoon where two of the bottom three, St Neots and Bashley also picked up wins.