Matchday Preview – Bath City – FA Cup 1st Qualifying Round
By Duncan Gardner
The Twerton Park based outfit are a very “familiar foe” as we have played them a grand total of 194 times over the years (we have only faced Poole & Ye0vil more in our existence in fact!) The overall tally is 63 wins to the Terras, 81 to our opponents, with a hefty half-century of draws.
Our most recent encounters were two seasons ago in our tempestuous 2024/25 Conference South campaign when a 1-1 draw in the spa city (loannee Christie Ward springing up to head the Terras goal) was followed up by a 0-3 dunking back at the Bob Lucas.
The recent results between the sides have generally seen the points (or the prize) flow in one direction as we have recorded just the one win in the last dozen encounters, a 1-0 home victory on Easter Monday in 2023. A low recent tide mark in this fixture indeed.
If we filter the pool to just look at FA cup encounters, we have fared slightly better against the Roman city as we progressed twice compared to just once more for the black & white stripes. Our last victory against the Somerset side in the oldest of competitions was under Garry Hill is 2005, the last loss under Bobby Wilkinson in 2023.
If we now focus on cleaning the records to view only 1st qualifying round ties against all-comers, we have traditionally performed extremely well and in fact have progressed in 9 of the last 12 times we played at this stage – but we have sunk in this round on the last two occasions – v Banbury in 2018 and of course Tadley Cavella just last season.
But if we look at any round where we played away against a team higher up the pyramid a different picture emerges – since WW2 we played 33 times under this criteria with just 2 wins, 6 games going to a replay and 25 losses! Most Terras fans of a certain age can tell you the most recent victory – the glorious 3-2 comeback win at Cardiff City in 1982. The other was “of course” the 1949 victory at Aldershot by the same scoreline. Although a damming statistic, the vast majority of the ties under this criteria where when we had already progressed a couple of rounds (if not more) from our entry point into the cup and therefore we were nearly always minnows facing big fish in the football league or near the top of the non-league pyramid.
In terms of familiar faces in the squads this weekend there are at least four – current Terra Mitch Beardmore enjoyed two spells at the sloping pitch of our opponents where as three former Weymouth men are currently employed by Bath – Harvey Wiles-Richards in goal with Reuben Reid & Harry Parsons marauding outfield.
But back to today and will we see the Romans march on to victory or can the Terras drown their more lofty opponents in their own bath?
