TUESDAY 15th AUGUST 1995

COCA COLA CUP 1st Round, 1st Leg.

TORQUAY UNITED 0
EXETER CITY 0.

I may not have been pretty to watch from Exeter City's point of view, but the team was selected to do a job, and that was successfully accomplished as the Grecians drew 0-0 at Plainmoor thus setting up the second leg nicely.

Exeter's five men across the back, with Noel Blake and Jon Richardson in dominating form, repelled anything Torquay threw at them. And when United cit break through, they found Peter Fox unbeatable. He made a superb double save in the first half, and deal with everything else in an efficient manner.

Torquay had an enormous amount of possession as Exeter soaked up the pressure and relied on Mike Cecare and Mark Gavin up front to take advantage of any breaks that came their way. These were few and far between, with perhaps the best chance falling to Gavin, who hit his cross shot through a crowded United goalmouth. It only needed a touch and a goal it would have been.

As the game wore on, Torquay became more and more frustrated, as did the disappointing home crowd, one of the lowest ever for a competitive match between the two sides. This allowed City to enjoy their best spell of the match in the final 15 minutes. Mark Chamberlain twice broke down the right and put over dangrous crosses, but sadly no one could take advantage of them.

With time fast running out, Exeter almost snatched a winner. Cecer took advantage of a slip in the Torquay defence, raced through, but keeper Ashley Bayes got down well to his left to smother the shot. Goaless it might have been, but Exeter were well satisfied with their performance with the second leg still to come at St James Park.

Teams:

TORQUAY UNITED:
Ashley Bayes, Chris Curran, Scott Stamps, Tom Kelly, Lee Barrow,  Ian Gore, Mark Hawthorne, Paul Buckie (Brian Croft). Richard Hancox, lan Hathaway, David Byng (Ellis Laight)

EXETER CITY:
Peter Fox, Neil Parsley Gary Rice. Mark Gooper Noel Blake. Jon Richardson, Mark Chamberlain, Danny Baley, Mark Came, Mike Cecere, Mark Gavin
Subs not used: Martin Phillips, Robbie Turner, Anthony Thirlby

Referee: Clive Wilkes (Gloucester)

Attendance: 2,473.