City cruise to historic 2 - 0 victory

Tranmere Rovers 0 - 2 Bath City (Coca-Cola League 2)

A deserved 2 - 0 win for Bath City over Tranmere Rovers this afternoon was greeted with delight by the victorious team's fans and players alike.

The first noteworthy incident of the match proved to be controversial, with Bath seeing a goal disallowed. Then followed controversy as Tranmere were denied claims by striker Josh Macauley for a penalty. An error from Lee Molyneux allowed striker Billy Paynter to score a powerful effort.

Veteran centre-back Marek Nikl completed the scoring for Bath with a towering header from close range on 57 minutes.

Attendance: 5436

Looking over the squads in Division 2, it looked like there was a lot of work too be done on the squad. We already had 3 coming in at the July transfer window, but needed a whole squad revamp to keep us in the professional league. Luckily the board have also opened up some of the restrictions and we picked up another 4 coaches to keep the team in shape.

After the holidays, the dressing room had a nervous tension as the dream settled into reality. Nervous, too, for the new members on trial while we worked through th pre-season. In all, 4 long term loaners have joined us along with 5 new players that seem up to the division 2 pace.

Our first game of the league started a 3 game away run that also included our first foray into the league cup. Tranmere. The scouts tell us that the team average wage is 3 times our, but is still on the low side for division 2. The punters also have us leaving without a point at 4-1 against.

The game started well with a new 4-2-2-2 formation to help utilise an overabundance of strikers. We're playing tight, but breaking out to the wings when we have the ball. The speed of Vincent Adelaar and Antonio German helped us get a lot of good ball crossing into the centre. With a packed centre, it gets a bit rough and we lose out on a good penalty claim. Lots of corners too, and we get our 2nd corner into the back of the net through a good near post poke by Paynter. Nikl, our tall Czech defender, heads in another corner after 1/2 time and it seems all too easy.

We're off to a flyer and a great step toward fitting in with the pros.