Accrington Stanley 1 Exeter City 2. Saturday 27 August 2005.

Ref: C Harwood.

Att: 1312.

BBC match report-

Exeter strengthened their position at the top of the Conference table with a hard-earned win at Accrington.

Accrington's Paul Mullin had a 35th-minute penalty saved and Andrew Mangan fired the rebound over.

Mullin atoned for his miss after the break when he slotted home a left-footed shot from close range.

But Craig Watkins levelled and a couple of minutes later, Billy Jones provided a cross for Chris Todd to deliver the sucker punch and head the winner.

Accrington Stanley: Randolph, Cavanagh, Williams, Flynn, Richardson (Jagielka 86), Brown (O'Neill 76), Craney (Proctor 86), Barry, Roberts, Mullin, Mangan.

Subs Not Used: Brannan, Welch.

Booked: Craney, Mangan.

Goals: Mullin 58.

Exeter: Paul Jones, Hiley, Gaia (Sawyer 90), Todd, Billy Jones, Buckle, Cronin, Challinor, Taylor (Watkins 57), Phillips, Flack (Edwards 53).
Subs Not Used: Rice, Vinnicombe.

Booked: Cronin, Taylor.

Goals: Watkins 68, Todd 71.

Att: 1,312

Ref: C Harwood (Manchester).


Paul Palmer 
City fan exiled in Burnley

THE BISHOP AND THE STANLEY

This year, my first game of the season was to be a very local one, just six miles away at the Interlink Express Stadium, home of Accrington Stanley. As well as the match, Liz and I were also providing accommodation on the Friday night for Pete 'Lance Armstrong' Bishop, as he completed his 300 mile sponsored bike ride from Exeter to Accrington.

As regular readers of my column may (or may not!) remember, I work with a couple of Accy Stanley fans, so the game always takes on a bit more importance that's not to say that no other City matches are important! So, Friday arrived, and throughout the day I received several text messages from Pete informing me of his speedy progress. At 10am he was just outside Worcester, by 3.30pm, Bish was closing in on Crewe and at 4.30pm, Pete had arrived at Northwich.

After what sounded like an horrendous time getting through Bolton, got a call just after 8pm to say that he was about six miles from Accrington, so with the weather deteriorating, set off for Accrington's ground to meet Pete.

Not long after arriving outside the ground, he called to say that he was near Junction 5 of the M65, and was absolutely exhausted and by now it was dark, chilly and raining! offered to come and pick him up, and Pete accepted with obvious disappointment in his voice that he hadn't made it to the ground, although after checking on a map, junction 5 of the M65 is actually a mile or two further North, than the ground!

Once we got back home to Burley, we plied Pete with cups of tea and a hot radox bath! What a bloke - still struggle to get my head around the fact that he had ridden 220 miles in a day!! enjoy a bit of mountain biking, but my limit is 25-30 miles before I'm exhausted, so Pete doff my cap to you mate! After a leisurely Saturday morning, we made the short journey to Accrington The Crown Pub, situated on the main road in front of the ground is a good meeting place for the travelling City fans, normally with a couple of guest beers, these being a couple of Theakston's varieties and the ubiquitous (at least in this neck of the woods!) Black Sheep. My pint was only marred by a text from one of the North Devon Grecians' telling me that at the pub down the road, The Greyhound, they had got Sam Taylors on at £1.29 a pint! Hmmm, how to ruin a good pint of Black Sheep!!

Soon the pub was filling up with Exeter fans and by 2pm, 1 think it was safe to say that we easily outnumbered our Accrington counterparts by 5:1. It was nice to have a long chat with Steve Perryman - how many clubs in the top two divisions could you chat to directors in the pub before a match?! With about 20 minutes to go until kick off, we made our way down the steps at the rear of the pub to the ground, with the 'first match nerves' already prevalent, paid the £12 to get in and took our places on the open section of the rapidly filling terrace.

After an immaculately observed minutes silence by both sets of fans for Nick McCool, a 20 year old who had played for Stanley's reserve and youth team and had died suddenly, the game kicked off. City were attacking the goal at the far end to where we were stood, although perhaps "attacking' is the wrong word!! Accy were quickly out of the blocks and soon putting our back line of the two Jones boys, Santos, Toddy and Scotty under severe pressure, and created two or three clear cut chances that all fell to Paul Mullin, who managed to miss the target on every occasion. City then survived a big and justified shout for a penalty after Santos clearly handled, but the myopic linesman stood not 10 yards from the incident chose to ignore it! City, with Flacky and Phillips up front were misfiring, and apart from a couple of corners and a Flack shot rarely troubled the debutant 'keeper, Randolph - I think that was his surname, not christian name, although his shirt said he was Jones!!

Accrington were awarded a penalty that looked highly dubious from where we were stood, when an Accrington player fell over his laces, although apparently from other parts of the ground he was brought down by Todd or Cronin! Up stepped Mullin and placed his kick to Paul Jones' right, but Jonesy read it and parried well, only for the ball to fall at the feet of an on rushing red shirt, who promptly despatched his shot with the goal gaping. I saw a report that evening stating that Joddrell Bank satellite tracking station had found a new football shaped satellite over East Lancashire! To say that he skied it would be an understatement!! (luckily!). This should have acted as a wake up call to the slumbering Grecians, but it didn't and Accrington still created chances for the rest of the half and think it would be safe to say that we were slightly lucky to go in level at half time! Half time gave me a chance to read the 'Stanley', Accrington's matchday programme. Ummm, not a particularly inspiring read, and feeling like it's printed on the back of a corn flakes packet, I wasn't too impressed with it, although to give them some credit, it was an improvement on last years impression of AdMag!! One page did catch my eye - was the teams sponsorship page, with only 4 out of 48 home and away strips being sponsored and two of those were by the Stanley Supporters Club! Just shows what a great bunch of supporters we have at Exeter.

The second half saw City start much brighter and looked even better when Flacky was replaced by the vastly improved Jake Edwards, and Andy Taylor was swapped for new boy Craig Watkins. But it was Accrington that took the lead with a good move down our right and Mullin tried to miss from two yards out, but his shot didn't have quite enough height on it and the ball went in, via the underside of the crossbar.

Exeter starting playing much more of a passing game and instantly had Stanley on the back foot and it wasn't long before City had equalised through Watkins, as he chased a Jonesy goal kick and headed it over the stranded Randolph from about 16 yards. Then less than 3 minutes later, Billy Jones swung in a corner and Chris Todd met it perfectly to head in what proved to be the winner. City continued pressing and went close with great strikes from the impressive Watkins and Challinor that brought finger tip saves from Randolph.

Stanley tried to get back into the game but sadly (!!) couldn't find the final ball. A nasty clash of heads between Santos and Todd, had the 300 or so travelling Grecians holding their breath. Toddy was soon on his feet, but Santos was carried off on a stretcher and replaced by the capable Gary Sawyer. Finally after about six minutes of stoppage time the ref blew for full time, prompting scenes of jubilation on the away terraces and showering adulation on our heroes as they came over to acknowledge the traveling support.