Dec 28 Bristol City 2-0 AFC Bournemouth Att: 13807

Last updated : 31 December 2003 By Richie Barker
With City in considerably better form than us (who isn’t?) it was always likely that the participants in a three-legged fancy-dress pub crawl who staggered at intervals into our pre-match watering hole would be spending their afternoon more usefully than those of us heading for Ashton Gate, and so it proved.

Bournemouth started the game with the same 11 that finished against Plymouth with just a positional switch, Maher moving to right back in a straight swap with Buxton. Carl Fletcher’s injury and suspensions for O’Connor and Stock gave young Fawzi Saadi a seat on the bench and the chance to display some natty headwear.

After negotiating some rather over-enthusiastic searching from the steward at the turnstile - “I’ve found four pen knives so far” - good to see someone doing their bit to stamp out the scourge of half-time pencil-sharpening - I took my backless and broken seat just in time for the start and the rarity of a Bournemouth shot on target, Feeney the perpetrator and the game less than a minute old. For ten minutes we looked the brighter side and Feeney had a couple more attempts which failed to trouble the keeper.

For the rest of the half we weren’t in the game as an attacking force, but for all their possession and territorial advantage City weren’t particularly incisive, their best chances coming from our occasional defensive lapses. Moss may have been lucky that neither linesman nor referee was in position to judge whether his fumble from an early free kick had crossed the line, and Broadhurst was looking especially fragile and had to be grateful to Moss on a couple of occasions for good saves after he gave the ball away. Browning picked up his customary booking on the half hour, somewhat unlucky as he seemed to be trying to play the ball and accidentally made contact with a City player who was coming in on his blind side.

Just as I was starting to think that we might just get away with a 0-0 if we could avoid any more foul-ups at the back, Peacock was given far too much room on the edge of the box to control Hill’s cross and turn, and made us pay with a perfectly executed curling shot into the top corner.

Game over given our recent scoring record, and if it wasn’t then it certainly was 10 minutes into the second half when Buxton was first to Doherty’s over hit through ball but allowed himself to be hustled out of it by Brown, who cut in from the left and slipped the ball past Moss.

City rightly assumed that two goals would be more than enough against us and eased up, allowing us the novelty of a few attacks of our own, one of which amazingly culminated with the ball in their net, but the champagne remained on ice when Hayter’s effort was disallowed for offside. A couple of shots from distance were saved by Phillips, but that was about as threatening as it got for the City keeper. With eight minutes left Thomas and Connell replaced Elliott and Fletcher, not much time for either of them to make an impact.

Forget the play-offs, 22 games left to get the 18 points needed to stay up.

Shaun Maher, solid display in a struggling defensive unit.

AFCB: Moss; Maher, Broadhurst, Buxton, Cummings; Elliott, Purches, Browning, Hayter; Feeney, S Fletcher (4-4-2)
Subs: Thomas (Elliott 81), Connell (Fletcher 81), Scriven, Young, Saadi.
Richard Barker, Leyton