30th September 1972
Football League
Exeter City v Colchester

Exeter City 1, Colchester 0

It is difficult to argue with the view of the totally partisan that in the long-run it is points which count. Certainly in this over-competitive world it is true that the crowds seemingly will always follow a winning side. But, pious hope, though it might be, there should be more to foot- ball than that. This, for instance, was one of those games where only the devout Exeter supporter could have been truly satisfied. Exeter got the points, maintain their League position, and sustain what undeniably is their best start to a season for a long time. But as a piece of footballing entertainment, this match was largely a non-starter. It did brighten up a little after Dick Plumb had scored that 58th minute goal, but taking the match as a whole, it was a pretty dreary affair. Colchester's formation looked defensively inclined, and that, until the goal at any rate, proved to be the case. In the first half Colchester did little attacking of any strength, and it was a case of Exeter trying to find the formula to break that defence down.

But whether Colchester's defence was in fact that strong, one doubts. Certainly it was helped by the fact that Exeter did not set about it with, fast and fluent football. There was, instead, too much hesitant, half- hearted probing. There was precious little construction or plan to Exeter's attacking play, and the result was the first 45 minutes were mainly confined to a lot of scrappy skirmishes midfield.

For the Exeter supporters this period of the game was as frustrating as an expert safe-cracker must feel when he is confounded by a piggy bank. Even so Exeter did have the edge, always looked the better side, the more promising combination, even if it took a long time. for that promise to be fulfilled.

The first half went on its tedious and goalless way. But, to a certain extent, the 58th minute goal changed all that. It did two things, gave Exeter a boost, and forced Colchester to come at City and play some attacking football if they were to earn their first away point of the season. And there were times when it looked as if Colchester might do that. In some raids they banged the ball about to some effect, but apart from a couple of tricky incidents, Colchester's finishing was the anti-climax to some hopeful approach work. This was not a game of incident. Such as there were came in little flurries rather than any rousing storm. Colchester did get the ball in the net early on, but it was so obvious that centre-forward Dave Simmons had fouled Bob Wilson that nobody took it very seriously, Tony Scott fed Fred Binney with good cross early on. but the Colchester goalkeeper Barry Smith moved smartly to pick the ball out of the air. Then a good crisp cross from Campbell Crawford threatened danger, only this time Plumb got in a mix-up with Binney, and headed wide. Another cross. this time from Jimmy Blain, was headed down by Plumb, and the ball went to Tony Morrin, who shot wide. Just before half-time a Scott corner kick was headed down by Mike Balson, but he stabbed his shot wide. But finally City did did break the Colchester defence when Campbell Crawford picked up Morrin's short free-kick and lunged forward. He chipped the ball on, and Plumb came running across the goal to head in. After that there was more interest in the match, and Colchester came close a couple of times. Generally, though, the Exeter defence was up to the job, and a couple of fine saves from Wilson -a spectacular dive to a shot from Brian Hall, and a quick-reaction pounce on the ball at the feet of Hall in another move, made sure that one goal was enough.

The crowd was Exeter's biggest attendance of the season-5,005.