Weymouth marched through to the third qualifying round of the FA Cup last Saturday after a second win in 5 days over Bideford, this time 4-1 at the Bob Lucas Stadium.
Just like on the previous Tuesday night in the league game in North Devon, it was Bideford who drew first blood, but rather than batter their opponents before falling behind, Weymouth instead decided to give their visitors hope by not turning up for the first 15 minutes.
The Terras struggled to get a foot hold in the game early on, and Bideford took a deserved lead when Kevin Squire magnifficently lobbed the on rushing Jason Matthews from the edge of the penalty box, after a hopefull punt forwards was headed on. Not the best of starts.
However, the goal seemed to spark Weymouth into life, and they immediatly began to pressure the visitors. Within just 3 minutes, Weymouth equalised – the ball going in off the heel of Stewart Yetton after Chris Shephard sent a dangerous ball into the near post. Quite how much Yetton actually knew about the goal I’m not sure, but it went in, and as any good striker would do – he did his best to celebrate and act like he knew exacly what he was doing.
Weymouth began to shift up through the hears, and on the half hour mark they went ahead, following some beautiful inter-passing on the edge of the Bideford box which left their defence at sixes and sevens, and it allowed George Rigg to fire home from close range.
The second half was a tight and scrappy affair. Bideford continued to huff and puff without really caushing the hosts too many problems. Bideford’s hopes of forcing a replay took a blow when defender Nick Milton recieved a second yellow card after hacking down Tim Sills right under the referee’s nose. To be honest there was probably a case there for a straight red card. And in truth, Bideford should have been down to ten men a lot earlier than they were, when Chris Shephard was taken out toward the end of the first half, and ended up coming off with a severely bruised neck. He was down for a good 5 minutes before getting to his feet. Thankfully he should be available for Saturday’s trip to Redditch.
Weymouth added some gloss to the scoreline late on with two identical goals from Chris McPhee and George Rigg. 4-1 certainly flattered Weymouth, but they deserved the win without question. Their reward is a trip to Isthmian league side Billericay Town. Billericay sit 10th in the equivelent division to Weymouth. Certainly a winnable tie for the Terras, but a tough place to go to and another long away trip. As it stands now, Weymouth will only have two home games in the whole of October – and they’re in the Red Insure Cup and Dorset Senior Cup!
As for the other two Dorset clubs – Dorchester Town progressed thanks to a 2-0 victory at Hellenic Premier Division Abingdon United thanks to goals from Sam Lanahan and a Dan Smith penalty. That was new manager Graham Kemp’s third win out of three so far, but the Magpies were brought crashing back down to earth with a bang on Tuesday night as they suffered a crushing 6-1 defeat at Cirencester Town in the league. Next up in the FA Cup for them is a home tie against another Isthmian Divison team – Hendon, who currently sit third in the table.
Poole Town on the other hand bowed out at home to Conference South club Bath City. They had drawn 1-1 at Bath on the Saturday – Marvin Brookes netting a 90th minute equaliser to force a replay at Tatnam on Tuesday night, and also force the big derby between Weymouth and Poole to be postponed. This game has now been rearranged for Tuesday 25th November.
Bath won a hard fought replay 2-0 at Tatnam. In truth, Poole didn’t really cause the Romans too many problems in the replay, in fact they failed to muster one shot on target. Bath took the lead right on half time when Dave Pratt pounced on a fumble from the Poole keeper to score from close range.
Pratt then found the net again with a stunning first time volley into the top of the net on the hour mark, and that was enough to end Poole’s cup run.
In the meantime it’s back to Southern League action this weekend. Poole are still top of the table and unbeaten in the league, and on Saturday they have what looks to be a home banker against strugglers Histon. Meanwhile Dorchester welcome second placed Dunstable Town to the Avenue Stadium, while Weymouth face a long trip to the West Middlands to take on Redditch United.
James Spring
