Wednesday 26 January 2005 - Twerton Park - kick off 7.45pm Southern League Premier Division

On the back of the previous Saturday’s dismal defeat against Solihull Borough, Gary Owers rang the changes in both formation and personnel. Out went the manager himself and Jimmy Benefield – missing his first game of the season – to be replaced by Matt Coupe and Bobby Ford, both back after injury. Coupe lined up on the right of a three-man back line alongside Steve Jones and Sam Bailey. The midfield saw Jim Rollo and Graeme Power provide the width with Ford and Ben Cleverley in the middle. Up front Alex Sykes played just behind top scorer John Williams and Luke Corbett. And this 3-4-1-2 formation took just six minutes to bear fruit. In a scene that was to be repeated a number of times through the evening – although unfortunately without the same outcome. Sykes collected the ball from a misplaced Griffin pass and advanced toward goal. With former City defenders Wotton and Howarth backing off, Sykes unleashed a 25-yard shot that flew past another ex-Roman Bryant into the corner of the net. As the root of City’s Twerton Park struggles had been breaking down teams that stick ten men behind the ball and try to catch them on the break, this was the perfect start and forced the visitors to show more attacking intent. Before they could Sykes almost took advantage of a poor Bryant clearance but his shot was saved by the recovering keeper. The Centurions then began to see much more possession but their efforts were finding little headway against City’s rearranged defensive formation. That was until the 22nd minute when the ball was flicked forward to a clearly offside Griffin. The flag never came and it looked a formality for the striker to find the net. Which is exactly what he did but justice was done as it was the outside of the goal that collected his poor finish. However, eleven minutes later City were on the receiving end of another piece of woeful officiating but this time there was no happy outcome. Again the move began with Cirencester giving the ball away to Sykes, allowing him to send Williams racing toward goal. He lifted a cross-shot past Bryant where Corbett applied the finishing touch from six yards out. Despite no sign of an appeal from the Cirencester players or even a twitch from the perfectly placed linesman the referee incredibly decided from his position front on to play he could tell the loan striker was offside. So, even though he was actually two yards onside and behind Williams when the ball was played his ‘goal’ was disallowed. To their credit City did not allow this embarrassing piece of refereeing to disturb them and produced their best spell of the first half in the following ten minutes. Bryant brought memories back of his spell with City by making a mess of a corner only for Ford to be denied a goal by Fitch’s goal-line clearance. He then showed the stronger side of his game, producing a flying stop to keep out Corbett’s dipping effort. The half ended with a nervous moment for City as Wimble’s free-kick almost deceived Paul Evans before the big goalie collected the ball at the third attempt.

The second half saw City up their game in search of another second goal to give them breathing space. Rollo broke forward on 50 minutes to force another smart stop out of Bryant and then Williams pounced onto Sykes through ball but could only shoot wide after poor first touch. Wimble shot straight at Evans after a neat lay-off by Griffin but this was the sum total of Town’s threat as City took control of the game. Time and again they failed to deal with Sykes’ runs from deep and he twice gave Corbett a sight of goal but the finish failed to match the approach work. Sykes then took it on himself to try to find the vital goal, heading Williams’ cross inches wide then testing Bryant with a curling effort. Understandably given the long wait since their last home league victory as the game entered the closing ten minutes City began to look nervous. Cirencester had replaced Griffin with Arndale and were committing more men forward. Bevan saw two good openings come and go but with Coupe, Bailey and Jones standing firm Evans was not called into serious action. Frustration clearly got the better of Stanley when he tried to cut Evans in half when he came to collect an over-hit ball forward and he was luckily to escape with just a yellow card. Two minutes from time City had their final chance to grab a deserved second goal when substitute Ricky Hulbert burst clear from Sykes’ pass only for Bryant to produce another fine stop. This left just enough time for Stanley to shoot weakly straight at Evans before City could finally celebrate a home win. However hard Cirencester and, more to the point, Mr Cassidy had to tried to deny them it.