That flew by didn’t it?!
It feels pre-season has gone by in the mere flash of a gull’s wing but here we are as both teams embark on their final friendly before they start their league campaigns the following Saturday! For Torquay – next week will be a sense of déjà vu as presumably a broken fixture computer handed them the exact same opening day fixture as 12 months ago – home to Enfield. However everything will be different for the Terras as we entertain Evesham in the Southern league.
But back to this week and a game in which both teams will probably use as a dress rehearsal for the opening day – a chance for a final preen before the curtain opener. For our manager Warren Feeney “It’s another great game for us – it’ll be a tough, tough game which is what I want”. But focus is clearly on what will come afterwards as he stated “We will then get another week’s training before the real work starts”.
Whatever happens in this game it will hopefully be an exciting day for the fans of both seaside clubs as this fixture has been dive-bombed with goals in recent years with an average of almost four a game since 2010 raining down upon us!
However the Terras will feel like they’ve had their chips in almost all of those encounters with the last win over the English riviera based outfit being a 1-0 friendly victory back in 2014. At least one of our current players is the joint scorer in this fixture over the last 15 meetings – Brandon Goodship has ruffled the most feathers against the Gulls by scoring three times – matching the record of former Torquay man Billy Kee over the same period. Talking of players – there has been a flock of over 60 that have featured for both clubs over the years and a couple of ex-Terras may feature in yellow this week in the shape of Ed Palmer and Cody Cooke. But in times gone by the four Torquay men who featured the most for Weymouth were Steve Pugh, Richard A Bourne, Steve Gully Tully and Lee Philips.
But which set of players will be top of the pecking order this time? Will the gulls follow the trawler to the Bob Lucas stadium and take their fill of the sardines or will the Terras swoop in for a smash and grab?
Match preview
By Duncan Gardner
