Stafford Rangers 1 Gloucester City 0 (FT)
David Grice
It was back down to earth for Gloucester City as they went down 1-0 to Stafford Rangers.
A thunderbolt volley from Rangers midfielder Jake Moult in the eighth minute was the only thing to separate the two sides at a wet Marston Road. Despite numerous chances from the Tigers they couldn’t get past Rangers keeper Lee Evans who produced a man of the match performance between the sticks.
With the pitch carrying a lot of early rain this had the makings of a scrappy affair. However the hosts came out the more aggressive. The aggression soon paid off as a free kick from Rangers captain Bobby Wilson from just inside the City half couldn’t get cleared from the visiting defence. This gave Moult the chance to rifle the ball home with a rising volley into the top left hand corner giving Tigers keeper Mike Green no time to react.
However despite going one down City came out stronger and created a number of chances. This began with a low Jamie Palmer drive which was only parried by Evans. A potential one-on-one opportunity for Mike Symons was read perfectly by an Evans sprint out of the area to swat away any danger.
The rest of the first half was given to referee Mr. D. Adamson as his cards started to come out again and again. This also included a penalty appeal for City which was waved away as Tigers hot shot Lee Smith seemed to be tackled in the area, but Adamson thought otherwise and let play continue.
In the second half, the wind and rain returned and with a vengeance as both teams had it hard trying to control the start of the half.
However City did create probably there best opportunity of the game as a Jack Harris cross came to Will Morford’s head from three yards out only to have it go over the bar.
With crowds from both teams willing their team on, the hosts did get the momentum back in there favour, as a mad scramble in the City box eventually had the ball hitting the post almost giving the hosts a two goal lead.
Despite that City still went on to get that equaliser as a quick attack ended with captain Matt Rose’s header to be tipped over by Evans.
With the arrival of Jack Pitcher coming on for Morford, City had a new dimension of attacking. A cross from Pitcher gave Smith the chance to equalise on the volley but once again Evans got a hand to it and pushed it out for a corner.
With the visitors pressing, Rangers had the chance to counter-attack with a long individual run from Tom Thorley gave Levi Reid the chance to seal all three points but his low shot went narrowly wide from the left hand post.
City had one last effort from substitute Alex Sykes whose effort with the outside of his boot just sailed wide of Evans’ right hand post.
The game ended on a sour note, with the early departure of Palmer after having receiving a second bookable offence in injury time.
This defeat means another wasted opportunity to achieve back to back wins in the league for the first time this season. Another loss puts the Tigers one point off the bottom three ahead of their crunch tie with Gainsborough Trinity in there next league game on Saturday 28th November.
David Grice
