Pre-season friendly

Yate Town 2 Bath City 3

IT WAS a case of new season and a new-look Yate Town at Lodge Road as they entered their final big pre-season friendly on Tuesday night before kicking-off their Southern League Davison One South and West campaign at Evesham United on Saturday week.
And if Yate can cut out the errors from Tuesday night and keep themselves going in the final quarter, this could be the year they deliver.
Yate have enjoyed a reasonably good summer under manager Craig Laird which saw them getting fit on the beaches of Brean Sands in Somerset and winning a couple of fixtures prior to meeting the men from the Roman city.
For the first 20 minutes, Yate battled well against the Conference South opposition.
They forced a corner and had a shot fly over the bar high above the head of Bath’s former Bristol City keeper Steve Phillips.
But a sloppy piece of defending inside the Yate penalty box gifted Bath the lead with 22 minutes of the game gone.
Big striker Nick McCottie was given acres of space and bags of time to pick his spot in the corner but still had to be accurate to beat the decent dive from keeper Martin Horsell.
Laird barked orders from the touchline as he sat on a water box and  to their credit, Yate dug in. They managed to gain some good possession and patiently passed it around the back four while looking for gaps.
And that patience paid off when  a thumping shot from George Box just inside the penalty area screamed into the Bath net past the despairing dive of Phillips.
It was the tonic that Yate deserved but they nearly shot themselves in the foot minutes into the second half when Bath’s Ash Kington was taken down inside the area.
The referee pointed straight to the spot and it seemed that another visiting goal was on the cards. But Horsell saved it to his right and denied McCottie a second goal.
Yate looked confident as they turned up their pace and started to get Bath rattled.
They took the lead just before the hour mark through a great Darren Edwards goal from ten yards.
Manager Laird rang a few changes from the sub’s bench but Yate lost their rhythm and Bath made them pay for a horrible error on the edge of the penalty area for John Davies to score.
And Davies got another from ten yards on 79 minutes to give Bath victory.
Yet, there were a lot of positives for Laird to take into the season opener.