Match Preview: Worthing (H) – Tuesday 16 August – 19:45
Our third home game on the bounce sees newly-promoted Worthing travel to the Bob Lucas Stadium to take on David Oldfield’s Terras.
THE TERRAS
In a tightly contested fixture between title hopefuls Ebbsfleet United and the Terras on Saturday, it was the visitors who snatched three points late on, in a game which could have concluded either way. Tom Bearwish and Brad Ash were the goalscorers for Weymouth in the defeat, both getting their league goal tallies off and running in the process. There was clear improvement on the field, in what had been a turbulent week around the football club, which pleased not only David Oldfield, but the fans too. The team will certainly be optimistic towards the fixture this evening as a great opportunity to get points on the board for the first time this season.
Player To Watch: Keelan O’Connell
It’s been a positive start to life as a Terra for Keelan O’Connell who has put in two MOTM worthy performances in the opening couple of games. With his confidence on the ball, there will be expectation that Keelan could be the man to guide the Terras to creating plenty of chances in front of goal.
THE MACKERELS
Last season’s Isthmian Premier Division champions Worthing are enjoying life in the National League South after two games, following a 1-1 draw with Dover on the opening day and their first win of the league season coming on Saturday, as they beat Welling United 4-2 away from home. A double from former Dorking Wanderers striker Callum Kealy and also goals from Lewis White and Joe Rye, saw Worthing go into an early position of 4th in the table which gives the Mackerels great confidence. Going into this season, there was certainly a lot of optimism surrounding Worthing’s potential in this league, and they will be eager to continue their good form with three points away from home this evening.
Player To Watch: Callum Kealy
As mentioned earlier, with two goals in his previous match, forward Callum Kealy will be eyeing up the opportunity to increase his goal tally, and help Worthing in their objective to record back-to-back victories at the Bob Lucas Stadium this evening.
@TerraStatman’s Facts of the Match
Worth a shot!
“Well I can categorically state that over…oh…ummm…we’ve never played Worthing before! Bear with me reader, there are intelligent ways and means I can fill a page regarding an opponent we have never played before! For starters, I can explain that we have never crossed paths due to very different journeys up to this point. The visitors today have always played in South Eastern regional leagues, namely the Sussex League, Athenian, Corinthian & Isthmian, geographically, not Weymouth’s backyard. This is their very first season at National League South level and we have also never met in the FA Cup, FA Trophy or faced each other in a friendly. Worthing won the Isthmian League last year to secure their National League South place this season, scoring exactly 100 league goals in the process over 42 games.
Sussex success?
We can’t look at head-to-head games but we can look at teams we have played from the same county of course. Worthing reside in West Sussex and, astonishingly, it has been nine years since we last faced a team from that part of the world, when we had a titanic FA Cup tussle against Bognor Regis in the second qualifying round. We were 0-2 down at home and going out when goals from Stewart Yetton and then Ben Joyce saved the day and we finished the job off in the replay on the South East coast with a 4-1 victory. We also played Bognor in league games this century back in 2004/05 & 2005/06 as well as a friendly the following season. The only other teams we have played from the area in the last 20 or so years are Horsham in a 2002 friendly and of course many meetings against former fierce foes Crawley Town, including the famous “winner-takes-all” loss in the Southern league in March 2004 during the Claridge era.
The stellar list of some other players who have turned out for both teams today is …
Lee Charles, Steve Claridge, Lewis Cook, Matthew Davies, Jefferson Louis, Matthew May, Paul Odey.
A couple of names leap out there from a Weymouth point of view – living legend Steve Claridge of course but he only played one game for Worthing (according to Wikipedia) in 2007 between his second and third tenures in Dorset. The second name of note is of course the famous journeyman Jefferson Louis who played 26 times in 2007/08 and once in 2010/11 for The Terras and six times for Worthing in 2005. Jefferson is currently at Risborough, his **checks notes** 41st club.
Worth mentioning?
In other news – this is our third home league game in a row at the start of a season due to Tonbridge Angels having to switch the opening game of the season to Dorset, due to fears of their new artificial pitch not being ready in time. This is the first time our first three league games have been at home since 1937-38 when we in fact played FIVE times in Weymouth before going on our league travels! We did however play two away FA cup games during that run.”