Saturday 12 October 2002 - Woodspring Park - kick off 3.10pm FA Cup 3rd Qualifying Round

Once a ten minute delay to get the 1000+ crowd - made up of over half Romans fans - into Weston's compact Woodspring Park had passed City began well. Home keeper Jones dropped a Andy Williams cross but Dan Cleverley couldn't capitalise on the error after four minutes before Jim Rollo headed a Frankie Bennett centre wide from just six yards out. The closest either side came to scoring in the opening quarter though fell to the hosts. A quickly taken 11th minute free-kick sent Mehew clear on goal. The ex-City striker turned the ball past Mark Bryant only to see Gary Kemp clear the goalbound shot off the line. This close escape seemed to lift City and after a spell of possession, which saw Rollo head another opening narrowly wide, they finally broke the deadlock after 26 minutes. A corner was won after Eaton's looping cross almost beat Jones and an umarked Kemp powered a header home from Bennett's kick. Jones was called into further action from shots by Williams and Eaton as City continued to domiante the game. The second goal arrived after 35 minutes and it followed a move of the highest quality. The build-up began near the halfway line with Eaton holding the ball up before laying it off to Cleverley. In turn, he fed Rollo who beat two players and then exchanged passes with Eaton. All the midfielder had to do was produce a finish to match this play and he did it perfectly with a curling right foot shot that gave Jones no chance. Before the interval Rollo's deflected shot almost saw him beat Jones again and the home side must have been relieved to reach the break only two goals adrift.

It was vital that City kept up this tempo into the second half and before ten minutes had passed Eaton had forced a fine diving stop out of Jones and Iain Harvey had fired a shot into the side netting. A rare attack by Weston saw another former City player, Bradley Thomas, lift Bevan's neat knock-down over Mark Bryant's bar on 54 minutes. Clearly the next goal was going to decide how the final quarter of the game would turn out and to the delight of the black and white half of the crowd it was City who scored it. A poor clearance by Kilgour fell to Bennett. He played a perfect pass to Cleverley and his driven cross was turned in by Eaton from six yards out. Only another sixty seconds passed before City struck again. Bennett was once again involved as he capitalised on a weak punch by Jones to lay the ball off to Eaton who easily beat the over-worked keeper. With the game won City took the opportunity to replace Cleverley and Bennett with Adrian Foster and Sam Allison and it was the former who won City the chance to score a fifth from the penalty spot when his cross was handled by Kilgour. Even if City had had a regular penalty taker on the pitch - Cleverley had been the pre-match choice - it was no surprise when Eaton took the honour. And unlike several of his teammates he was successful from 12 yards, beating Jones to his right hand side. That completed a great afternoon for the City number nine and the rest of the team and they could begin to look forward to the next round.