Match Preview: Braintree Town (H) – Saturday 12th November – 15:00
Weymouth welcome Braintree Town to the Bob Lucas Stadium tomorrow afternoon in the latest National League South instalment.
Manager Bobby Wilkinson spoke to us ahead of tomorrow’s game:
On preparations: “Training has gone really well, we’ve had a good chat about certain points from the last couple games, we need to aim to follow on the second half performances of both games into this game. We had an exciting time last week at home and now it needs to be the same again this weekend in the league.”
On what to expect from Braintree: “They are flying at the moment, it’s going to be a tough one. They’re quick and well organised going forward. We’ve worked on our shape, done our homework on them as usual, man for man we need to be able to win the battles, bring the ball forward but don’t waste it either and come on, lets get a home win.”
On what in particular he’s looking for in the performance: “Just to be brave on the pitch, we can keep saying we played well, its irrelevant, we need three points. We need to be able to keep getting wins otherwise we’re going to fall too far behind from the rest. It is crucial that this cup momentum is transferred over into the league.”
On team news: “Luke Nippard is very close now, he trained yesterday which was great news. Everyone else, bar Teddy Howe, is fit and ready to go.”
@TerraStatman’s Facts of the Match
Historically we actually have had a bit of luck against this Cressing Road based outfit with a handy W7 D4 L4 record. At home that improves further to a W6 D2 L1 tally with our solitary loss being in the FA Cup final qualifying round in 2013. Therefore we are unbeaten at home against our visitors in the league…no pressure lads!
Our most recent meeting was also in the National league South in the pandemic-truncated 2019/20 promotion season. On that occasion we just managed the one game against The Iron, a 3-0 home win in the last week of October 2019 with a Ben Thomson adding to a Jake McCarthy brace. The only surviving member of the current Terras squad that day is Cameron Murray who came on as a 51st minute substitute for Josh McQuoid.
The last time we came across the Essex-based-outfit was in consecutive seasons in 2013/14 and 2014/15. As a Southern League Premier team we did very well in both seasons to battle through two qualifying rounds only to be drawn against Conference National opponents Braintree Town on both occasions in the fourth qualifying round despite odds of around 2,000-1 of this happening! In 2013, we were sadly two goals down before a quarter of an our was on the clock, but we did at least manage a 90th minute consolation through Sam Poole against our visitors who were two divisions above us at the time. The following season, seemingly steeled against The Irons, we fared much better and following a gritty 0-0 stalemate at the Bob Lucas, we forced our lofty foes into extra time in the east of England, courtesy of an incredible attempt from the team to win the tie, as we came back from 0-2 down and then 1-3 down with 14 minutes to go to be awarded with an extra 30 minutes to try to cause a cup upset! However, perhaps the energy had been drained from our part-time players as Braintree scored twice more before 120 minutes were up, Round 1 proper and a tie against League One Chesterfield the prize and a brace by Adam Kelly and a Stewart Yetton goal were sadly in vain.
Two current Weymouth players have featured for Braintree Town in past times – Dan Matsuzaka and Josh Oyinsan. Dan was in Essex for around a dozen games in 2018/19 after playing for Kattaller Toyama in Japan and before turning out for Sutton United the following season. Meanwhile Josh played for The Iron just a few months later arriving from St Albans but only stayed for one month before moving on to Royston Town in January 2020. Former players for both sides include Stephen Lovell, Cliff Akurang, Stephen Hughes, Ashley Vickers, Gareth Williams, Graham Roberts
#UpTheTerras
