It’s fair to say that Bath City haven’t been having the greatest of seasons. Despite an excellent start in August, where they won six out of six games, things have been pretty rubbish since.
The management was changed a couple of months ago, but sadly the form didn’t and we kept losing. With the six summer wins a distant memory, relegation to the Southern League has become a real concern.
It is a cliché, but every game at this stage of the season is crucial. However, Bank Holiday Monday’s match against Weston Super Mare carried extra importance. Like ourselves, WSM are struggling, and losing to them would almost certainly condemn us to relegation.
The game wasn’t anything special. City had the share of possession and chances, but created very little. The game looked to be heading for a draw and a point neither side would find helpful.
Then, in the first minute of injury time, Weston somehow scored. That was it. Relegation. Frome Town on Boxing Day. Taunton next Easter. It was at this point, when like every other City fan, I was at my lowest point of the season, that things started to go crazy.
With just a few minutes at the most left, City won themselves a corner. Nothing really to get excited about, except as a result of the set piece, a Weston player lost his mind and cleared the ball off the line with his arm. A straight red card and penalty award followed. The spot kick was converted, which was a surprise in itself, as it feels like we’ve missed more than we have scored this season.
At this point, I was happy, but things were still bleak, as a draw would still leave us in deep doo-doo.
Weston, clearly rattled, following throwing away their lead due to a stupid mistake, gave the ball away, almost from the kick off, where young Tyler Harvey, on loan from Plymouth, and scorer of the penalty, beat his marker and scored from the halfway line.
Everything after that is a blur. All I remember is everyone going batshit crazy. It was the best end to a football match ever and the greatest Bath City goal I have ever seen.
The video containing the entire injury time madness is below (which has just made me wonder why I’ve written everything above, when I could have just embedded the clip). This is the video which broke the internet. It’s had tons of YouTube views, featured on the Match of the Day Facebook page, appeared on various foreign sports websites and made the local news.
In the words of Martin Tyler, “I swear you’ll never see anything like this ever again…”