Loan pair ready to make debuts after Covid blow
A former England manager will be in the opposition dugout at Bath City on Saturday.
Peter Taylor made David Beckham captain for the first time during his one match in caretaker charge of the international team in November 2000, a 1-0 defeat at Italy in a friendly.
Twenty-one years on and 15 jobs later, he finds himself back where he started – Step two of the nonleague ladder. In 1986 it was at Dartford, now the 68-year-old manages Welling United, who travel to Twerton Park this weekend following three wins, a draw and two defeats in Taylor’s first six matches in charge.
Their latest was a 1-0 success against Billericay last Saturday thanks to Aaron Barnes’ 82nd minute scrambled finish, whereas on Friday night City were forced to postpone their away match at Ebbsfleet United the following day due to a positive COVID-19 test among the playing side.
“We’re disappointed because we really wanted to play the game,” said Bath City manager Jerry Gill. “We had planned for it, contrary to what some people thought we were looking forward to it.
“We trained, delivered our analysis session, practised set-pieces for and against. We didn’t know it was postponed until about five o’clock on the Friday. There was a lot of toing and fro-ing between us and the league.
“Do we want to go to Ebbsfleet on a Tuesday? No. That’s another reason we wanted the game on but it’s out of our hands.
“There are no other positive cases in the camp. We thought we had another case in our squad but thankfully it came back negative, but the player didn’t get their result back until Saturday morning.
“We were looking forward to seeing our new players.”
Gill is confident Saturday’s match will go ahead as planned and will welcome two new loan players in Zak Delaney and Jordan Dyer, while Tom Mehew returns for a
similar spell from Bristol Rovers after his paperwork wasn’t completed in time for the Slough match nine days’ ago.
Defenders Delaney and Dyer arrive from West Bromwich Albion and Exeter City respectively.
“Richard Beale from West Brom is a good friend of mine, he recommended me Zak,” said Gill. “I watched him as well and spoken to him at length, he’s a great character.
“He’s a naturally left-footed athletic player. He loves defending which is a bit different to some academy players. He’s a bit like Callum Wood.
“Exeter have been great with us over the years – Jordan comes to us in the same situation as Alex Hartridge – he wants to get a contract at Exeter and Alex wasn’t sure if he’d get one before he was on loan to us. He did and now bigger clubs are looking at him.
“Jordan knows the level having been with Chippenham last year. He has power and strength and can handle the ball.
“I reckon 90 per cent of our loans have been very successful. They all enjoy and want to play for Bath City. I’m really excited about these two joining us.”
Dan Ball has returned to Swindon Supermarine for the remainder of the season on loan having impressed for the Southern League Premier South side for a month earlier this campaign.
The new arrivals will help cover that departure and another absentee in Eddie Jones should be back within two weeks having missed the last two matches with injury.
“He had a bit of bruising on his calf when we took him off against Banbury,” Gill confirmed. “He trained the Tuesday after Banbury because of his brilliant attitude – he doesn’t want to miss a session.
“Over the next few days it became worse and we were worried it was DVT [Deep Vein Thrombosis]. Thankfully we had him scanned quickly to confirm it wasn’t that and it’s now settling down. We will have to go careful with him.”
It means he’ll be on the sidelines for Saturday’s meeting with Welling United.
“It’ll be a battle of two teams near the bottom of the league battling to get up the table,” said Gill. “They’ll be physical – they’re a big and strong side. Every team at this level now is strong.
“I watched their game back from Saturday against Billericay. In Peter Taylor’s own words it wasn’t the best of games. He’s still in the process of trying to shape his squad.
“We’ll have to keep the ball and first and foremost we have to keep a clean sheet. That’s why I’ve brought in these new lads – we’re conceding far too many goals. We need to be harder to play against.
“It’s a busy few weeks which is good with four games at home this month, hopefully a fifth with the FA Trophy.
“We want to try and make Twerton a fortress again and get some points on the board.”