Storm Bert played havoc across the south last weekend, not least at The Black Gold where it was extremely difficult to play meaningful, attractive football. Unfortunately, we fell to our fourth home defeat of the season at the hands of Hanwell Town.
We now turn our attention to the TigerTurf Stadium in Gloucester where we will face title chasing Gloucester City. The top of the table is beginning to look like a three-horse race between Merthyr Town, 38 points, Gloucester City, 33 and the preseason favorites AFC Totton 31. It’s difficult to imagine that anyone other than one of these three will occupy the top spot come the end of the season.
Gloucester will consider themselves in with a chance of taking the title although their recent form has slipped a little. They are still in second place (P17 W9 D6 L2 33 points) and have won six matches at home in front of an average crowd of just under 900.
The Tigers achieved the biggest comeback of the day last Saturday when they found themselves 4-0 down after 34 minutes at Walton & Hersham. However, manager Mike Cook was delighted to come away with an unlikely point when Joseph Hanks tucked away his 12th goal of the season in the 92nd minute. Surprisingly Gloucester find themselves in 14th place in the form table (P6 W1 D4 L1) losing their last home match 2-0 to Bracknell and taking just one point in the 1-1 draw with Basingstoke prior to that.
Perhaps with this slight dip in form in mind Mike Cook has brought in striker Stanley Anaebonam from Stafford Rangers. He has a wealth of experience and will offer pace and another versatile option to the Tigers attack. The Norwegian born player has played for a variety of clubs in England and the Republic of Ireland having featured for Redditch United, Shelbourne, Truro City, Hednesford Town, Stourbridge, Hereford, Stourbridge, Bromsgrove Sporting and his most recent side Stafford Rangers.
Cook himself returned to take up the reigns in September 2023 after gaining management experience at several local non-league clubs. He was not able to prevent relegation from the Vanarama National League North with the club being cut adrift at the foot of the table on 21 points and winning just five home matches and one on the road. In his playing career he played for York City, Cambridge United and Coventry City.
Leading scorer is Joseph Hanks who is in 3rd place in the leading scorers table for this league.
The Dolphins played a friendly on Tuesday at Shafesbury in order to get some much-needed minutes for many members of the squad. Like several clubs in this league, we have won more points away from home than we have won at home. We have won three matches, Marlow, Frome and Basingstoke away from the Black Gold.
Steve Tully told us this week that although we seem to be taking two steps forward and then one step back, we are still on track to finish the season strongly. We will be without Oakley Hanger who was shown the red card late on last Saturday.
Enjoy the game,
Neil Wellington.
