Torquay United V Histon 20th December 2008

Great stuff Gulls - wish I could listen, pathetic Beeb !

Bevan.
Mansell, Woods, Hodges, Nicholson.
Carlisle, Hargreaves, Wroe , Dsane.
Sills, Green.

subs: Benyon, Robertson, Stevens, Thompson, Caryol

Commentary's come on just in time for halftime!

Go in via the BBC Devon and you'll get it now Pete.

As soon as Chas told them it "mysteriously" comes through.................I reckon the twats forget to plug it in.

But it's ALWAYS with us isn't it!

Just got in from Christmas shopping, 4-1 sounds excellent. Eagerly looking forward to those match reports!

From the top-9 only Histon and Kidderminster lose their games, the rest all won. A very important win!

I see the gate was 2201, more than 1,000 under Cambridge and Wrexham's gates.

Just back form a very entertaining match dominated by the Gulls for 80 minutes of the 90.
The Gulls could well have come in at half time leading by many more but for miscues and poor luck with the Histon back line looking extremely vulnerable to the pace and trickery of Matt Green and the supreme aerial dominance of Tim Sills. Histon offered very little going forward and looked ragged in all departments with their reshuffled back line in particular being exposed time after time. Both Dsane goals coming from set pieces the first from a Carlisle corner and Sills knock down fired in from close range. The second very similar from one of a series of dangerous long throws from Nicholson. Half time and we expected more of the same but for ten minutes we looked like a team who thought they had done enough and Histon could see a small chink of light after a long through ball fell to Wright who bustled his way in to the box and hit a low cross shot under the advancing Beavon. 2-1 and all of a sudden and we all realised it could all go tits up, luckily so did the players and we once again raised the level.
On the 60th minute a quick passing and incisive break out from another desperate Histon assault resulted in Nicky Rowe finding himself on the halfway line with a straight run on goal. With great control and an incisive burst of pace confronted the Histon keep and shot low past him and in to the empty net for the best goal of the game. Histon, to there credit still tried to press forward and forced a few dangerous corners which on a few occasions could easily have ended in the back of the Torquay net and lesser sides would no doubt have succumbed but this torquay squad is built of stern stuff and the tie was dead and buried after Tim Sills deservedly tapped in from a woods pull back on 85.
One of the most entertaining games so far and it also answered a few questions for me one confirming that Matt Green can be a very important player in the second half of the season always looking to turn his man and holding the ball up very well indeed and with a little more luck with the run of the ball today could have scored a couple. What this does is take a little pressure off of Tim Sills who once again dominated in the air and was quite outstanding today. Nicky Rowe also looked a class or two above this level and was my man of the match.
All in all a wonderful effort from every one - they all played their part in a very exciting win. ;D

A great afternoon at Plainmoor and a game we fully deserved to win, we did have one spell at the start of the second half, that looked for a while we might have thrown away all the good work done in the first half.

We could have been six nil up by halftime and the game would have been over, but a mixture of poor finishing and some poor decisions, made the half time score only two nil. As early as five minutes the ball dropped to Dsane who hit a half volley straight at the keeper, when if he had put in either side it, he would have scored.

Green was excellent upfront, chasing and winning balls that always looked like the defender would be favorite to get, he was guilty of falling down a few times, maybe it was his studs, who knows, but he played a big part into days win.

One ball he won near the corner he passed it to Carlise, who should have hit it, but he tried to play in back to Sills on the edge of the box. Carlise was then put through with a great pass and their keeper was way outside his box, as he was retreating the ball was there to lob over him, but somehow Carlise hit the keeper with his shot.

Our first goal was from a corner, don't know why their keeper never went for the ball, but in dropped to Dsane who was in the middle of the goal and he smashed it in the back of the net.Then the ball came in from the right, sure Sills won his header to flick the ball on to Dsane who from just inside the box hit a clean drive to make it two nil.

I can't think of anything that Bevan had to really deal with in the first half, I love when the ball is up in the air in our box and he just appears and plucks the ball out of the sky, long before any forward could even think about jumping for it.

We lost our way at the start of the second half, the passing was missing and Hargreaves was in my view poor, I felt he was for most of the match. Histon played the ball up toward their forward, who done Mansell far to easily and ran toward our box and finished with a good shot to make it two to one.

You just felt for a short while that we were going to concede again, but Histon were playing with a very high line in defense, the ball was passed to Green, who played a great pass to wroe, who raced clear of Histons defenders and scored a sweet goal.How Wroe was not man of the match I do not know, he worked his socks off and ran the midfield, I guess the sponsors just like to give it to the goal scorers.

After that we could have gone and scored another five goals, Nico had a fantastic shot off the outside of his left boot, that looked like it was flying in, only to crash against the crossbar.Green continued to work hard and Caryole came on for Dsane, who did what he does best and use his pace to try and beat the Histon defenders. At times he seems to want to do to much on the ball, but he is young and will only get better.

Hard to see what happened for our four goal, but the ball was in around the box and Sills put it in, not sure how, sure someone will have good a better view of it than I was able to.

Just over 2200 at the game, only 15 Histon fans in total, so not to bad a gate really, being so near Christmas, one funny thing happened in the second half, a long ball by Histon was going near the corner flag. There were no players anywhere near it and before the ball went out, the ball boy kicked it. A goal kick was given and the linesman had a word in the young boys ear.

Good to talk with Phil, Jon and good old StuartB and we all got to meet the mystery man Barton Downs, mind you I found it hard to get a word in, that Jon he talks even more than I do

There should have been a red card in the second half, Green was being fouled by the last man, who in the end pulled Green down, the ref bottled it and only gave a yellow. The ref was very poor for the whole game and seemed to miss so many tackles from behind, but gave fouls for things no one could see what for.

Before the game I heard some men talking in the toilet who seemed to think we would lose today and even my driver Al(Ants mate said in the car on the way over, that we would lose one nil.Well we won and in style in the end and Green deserves to be starting out next match.