Torquay 1/1/08

L 1-0

Attendance: 6021 (They only came for the City)

Matchday Report by Kirstie Bowden

Our trip to Plainmoor on New Years Day provided a nice short trip for the long suffering away travellers. Calls for a service station stop were unsurprisingly ignored and we reached Plainmoor in time to join the long queue outside the ground. Once inside the ground we were met with two further queues, one for the refreshments and one for the solitary ladies toilet. Special thanks must go to Neil Le Milliere for negotiating with the Torquay stewards to allow us to use the toilets on the school side!

Buckle's dubious tactics became clear from kick-off, namely to injure Jamie Mackie at all costs. Despite this it was Matt Taylor who left the pitch early injured. This injury was a real blow to City, with Matt superb in defence up until that point, giving City fans favourite Tim Sills a few shoves in the back for good measure. Indeed, Sills was easily locatable in the first half as with City fans located along one and a half sides of the ground, everywhere he went you could hear cries of "cheat, cheat, cheat".

The half time entertainment was provided by the intermittent tannoy which was used to summon their electrician to a variety of locations including the home end, catering hut and to much hilarity from the away fans, the home dressing room. Rumours abounded that Buckle had blown fuse or more likely, Lee 'not as slim as he used to be' Phillips had pushed the microwave to its limit preparing his half time burger. Sponsored by Sparkworld, this lack of electrical competence came as a surprise and we prepared a whip round to fund the meter to keep the floodlights going for the second half.

On arrival at the away end at the beginning of the second half, Martin Rice, one of the countless Exeter connections in the Torquay team received an interesting reception. He dealt with it better than Lee Phillips, who in response to chants about his expanding waistline, lifted up his shirt to reveal a sight almost as disturbing as Tim Sills later goal. The game continued in the same vein as the first half with the biggest cheer reserved for Wayne who came very close to accidentally knocking Buckle out on the touchline.

Whilst the referee was taking little, if no action on the continued victimisation of Jamie he decided it was vital that the game was stopped in order for Zebroski to tie up his shoe laces. He spent so much time doing this in the second half it would probably be more effective for Torquay if he switched to velcro boots.

City fought on but it wasn't to be. It proved ironic and somewhat inevitable that Tim Sills scored the winner and celebrated with another spectacular dive. Despite Buckle stating before the match that it was just about 'the points', the way in which he celebrated the victory as if they had won the league proved otherwise. To add insult to injury the measly exits at Plainmoor meant that it took a very long time to shuffle out. Once safely back on the bus we amused ourselves by joking about Torquays towering dynamo Danny Stevens. Mark found him modelling the childs strip on page 34 of their programme, and we expected him to fly down the hill on his skateboard as we crawled away from the ground. Joking aside however we all agreed that he is a brilliant player, and despite their enviable league position, he is the only Torquay player we would even begin to consider joining the mighty Grecians!