Salisbury 8/04/08

L 2-0

Attendance: 2037

Report by Kirstie Bowden 

This season with Exeter it's been a tale of two teams, good City and bad City. As for which team you get, much like the weather it's impossible to predict. Following an outing of good City at their finest at Stevenage some 3 days previous, with all respect to Salisbury I like many others expected nothing less than good City. Alas no, City's tendency to be predictably unpredictable meant that we had to make do with bad City and this didn't make for an enjoyable first visit to the Raymond McEnhill Stadium. I had driven up to Salisbury in my car, Eamo, named after the Exeter legend Eamonn Dolan. After the navigational difficulties of our last self-driven trip I'm pleased to inform you that we only went wrong once, a missed turning that set us on a very wrong course. Thankfully this was quickly rectified and we arrived at Salisbury in good time to receive a prime 'quick getaway' spot. From our vantage point we saw everyone arrive. Tiz turned up and was asked by the steward "Exeter fan or Salisbury fan?", to which he replied "I'm with Exeter". Shortly after this a van went past with the words 'Magician and Children's Entertainer' written on the side. I expect this was the ref- he had a tendency to make every Salisbury wrong-doing magically disappear before his very eyes and his entertainment qualities were universal but sadly for all the wrong reasons.

As a big crowd congregated in the away end I had an ominous feeling. City don't do well in front of big crowds at 'local' away games with their performances against Torquay, Forest Green, and Weymouth tantamount to this. My bad feeling continued to grow as Grecian the Lion was verbally abused by a Salisbury paramedic who stated "I thought that was a real dog". Quite why she thought I'd bring a toy dog, let alone a real dog, and sit them on the wall at a football match is beyond me. It must be a Wiltshire thing. I've done well to avoid it thus far, but now there really is nothing left to talk about but the game. City arrived out onto the pitch after travelling down what appeared to be quite a steep set of stairs. Knowing our luck I half expected one to them to fall and take everyone else with them.

Any hopes for City getting anything out of the game were lost very early on as City fell behind to a 'freak goal', a 45 yard shot by Wayne Turk that will be remembered more for the sight of Andy Marriot frantically running backwards towards the goal, than the goal itself. Early on in the second half City looked promising but sadly our best chance fell to Richard Logan who inexplicably headed wide. Nearing the end of the match we saw a potential way out of our defeat. A strong smell of petrol was emanating from the refreshment hut and we were hoping this would catch fire, safely of course, and allow the game to be abandoned. Surely there must be some non-league kudus if you attend a match that gets abandoned due to a burger van fire?! Sadly the smell soon dissipated, as did any glimmer of City getting anything out of the game as Salisbury were awarded a penalty which Tubbs, sporting a nifty headband (or bandage, it was hard to tell) duly scored. With defeat play-off hopes took yet another blow, but with some way to go yet, all hope is not yet lost. "Keep the faith" as Eamo would say.