It wouldn’t be a normal season for Weymouth Football Club if there wasn’t some sort of boardroom fallout overshadowing matters on the field at some point. It was all going too smoothly. Going into last Saturday we were third in the table with just one defeat all season, and were gearing up for a trip to Histon – a side who had not won in the league this season.
But then, all hell broke loose. Chairman Nigel Biddlecombe announced via social media that he was no longer chairman of the football club, and rumours were circulating that Chris Puglsey was new chairman.
While the fans argued on the club forum, the team suffered a severe set-back up in Cambridgeshire. Jake Wannell was sent off after just 3 minutes, and after missing a number of chances to take the lead, Weymouth fell behind with the last kick of the first half, and went on to lose 3-0.
In the days since it has been confirmed that Chris Pugsley is indeed the club’s new chairman, and it remains unclear as to why the lifelong fan, club historian, and respected public face of the club – Nigel Biddlecombe, was removed from the position.
Nevertheless, we were still set for another tough away trip to North Devon to face Bideford on Tuesday night. This is always a difficult place to go to. The fans are quite far away from the pitch so there isn’t much atmosphere at the ground, which is also very open, and the pitch very bobbly. Therefore playing our usual free flowing football was a struggle. But the Terras were still the better side throughout the first half. We had a number of great chances to break the deadlock, but as expected – it was Bideford who made the breakthrough with their first attack of the game, after we’d been all over them but failed to make the pressure count. Any Weymouth fan there that night who didn’t see that goal coming obviously hasn’t seen enough over the years! Mind you, the Bideford fan who removed his shirt and went running along the side of the pitch waving the aforementioned garment above his head was a bit premature in his celebrations…
Thankfully, the side we have this season is made of sturn stuff, and it does not simply roll over and accept defeat. We kept fighting, and got our just rewards with Chris Shephard bundling home an equaliser right on half time.
Adam Kelly turned the game on it’s head early in the second half, and despite coming under a lot of pressure late on, Weymouth held on for a deserved victory.
The perfect response after the debacle on and off the field over the weekend, hopefully we can have a similar sort of result when we face the same opponents in the FA Cup 2nd Qualifying Round on Saturday. I’d like to think that on our own pitch, where we can get the ball down and play our own game, with the home crowd behind us, we should have too much for them. But one never knows, anything can happen in cup football.
But whatever happens, we can’t afford to let the circus off the field effect matters on the pitch. We still sit 3rd in the table, and providing neither of us has a cup replay, our next league game on Tuesday night will be a tasty Dorset derby against the unbeaten league leaders – Poole Town.
As manager Jason Matthews said when he came over to the travelling fans at full time on Tuesday night: “This is what it’s all about. Nevermind what happens upstairs, it’s all about what happens here on the pitch”. Well said gaffer. Now lead us to cup glory on Saturday!
James Spring
