At the weekend, Bath City played Shortwood United in the FA Cup. Shortwood United – a team so unheard of, that Accrington Stanley fans ask “who are they?”

In typical Bath City fashion, they made hard work of playing their opponents, who play their league games two divisions below them. To be fair, I don’t think City did too badly. Shortwood more than rose to the occasion of the cup tie and matched Bath man for man.

City were at home, so from the start were going to struggle. In football, most teams generally perform better when playing on their own turf. The problem for ‘The Romans’ is they have some old boys, who have been supporting the club since it was formed in the late nineteen century – or at least they look like they have.

They think they’re football managers. This would be all well and good, except, instead of being good football managers, like say, Brain Clough, Arsene Wenger or Don Revie (I’m a Leeds supporter, I had to get that one in), these fans are more like Steve McClaren, Dave Hockaday and Mr Bean.

The would-be-managers will stand huddled together, berating their players throughout the entire game. This torment is enough to put me on edge, and I’m just a fan watching the match. It must get to the young players and affect their performance.

Anyway… the old boys don’t travel to away games, which is why Bath City play much better on the road and haven’t lost since the opening game of the season. It must be said, the match where they did lose, I was in attendance and I haven’t been to an away game since, so have missed all their recent victories, but that is just a coincidence – my presence has no bearing on results at all… no. absolutely not…

Tonight, I will be going to Shortwood. I’ll be leaving work early – in little over an hour and a half in fact. Having never been before, I’m not too sure what to expect. However, considering that Shortwood’s ground is located at the end of a muddy, country lane, which is too narrow for a coach to drive down (we are travelling by minibus), I’m not expecting The Emirates…

In brighter news, her’s a hamster in a cardigan!