Torquay United V Lewes 18th November 2008

Full time at Dorchester - v.close. Sounds like the ref favours the bigger club. Will listen to extra time and let you know.

Dorchester down to ten men!
The commentary's better on Oxford BBC than ours, nice and partisan.
Think Hilly's boys are doomed.
(shouldn't I be talking about our magnificent new record though?)

Oh bugger, 2-1 to Oxford.

Delighted with the win tonight, it was a case of scoring at the important times tonight to make it quite a comfortable night's viewing. Crowd 2,118, I counted 7 from Lewes ! Sponsors MOTM Wroe. A good atmosphere tonight and an improved performance by the floodlights. The pitch looked immaculate under the bright lights.

A perfect start to the match. We nearly scored with the first attack, the keeper punching the ball onto the crossbar. After 2 minutes a Nicholson delivery was headed in powerful by Sills. Lewes struggled all the match to deal with our long throws and corners and in particular with Sills in the air.

Torquay's early goal made Lewes come out and they played some excellent attractive passing football. Lewes had a goal disallowed after one such delightful move, and Bevan also made an outstanding save parrying the ball at full stretch. Torquay did try to pass the ball around but were running into cul-de-sacs most of the time and there were some sloppy passes to the opposition, e.g. from Woods and Thompson.

However when we seemed to be struggling we scored our second, thanks to the hapless Lewes defender who sliced his clearance for Stevens to score at close range. Our play still was not that convincing but a quality run down the right by Stevens and great delivery was headed in by Sills just before half-time. 3-0 half-time.

Soon after the re-start Stevens made it 4-0. Following a cross on the left the ball found its way to Stevens on the right just inside the penalty area. Danny hit a delightful volley past the keeper at the near post. Lewes did pull one back when you felt we were a bit sloppy at the back. There were one or two more nervous moments at the back. Again Bevan made another outstanding save successfully tackling a player with his feet when clean through.

The rest of the match was mainly Torquay who were getting stronger with Lewes tiring. Benyon and Carayol came on for Thompson and Stevens respectively. Sills came close to his hat-trick more than once, including one short range header over the bar. Carayol showed delightful tricks on the right-wing and was beating the Lewes defenders with ease. A fifth goal looked on the cards, but alas we had to settle for 4-1.

Great scenes at the end celebrating the Gulls taking top position. The best performances tonight those around me felt were from Sills, who was again magnificent as a target man, and Mansell who got well stuck in and involved in many of our moves.

Swangull good report as we have come to expect from you, yes it was a win and as we said before, games like this can often be the ones you slip up on.

Have to say me and Joe had a good chat at half time, he was banging away that drum of his all the first half, was it taken of you Joe, for the second half?

Buster I did watch a winning team and glad it was a win that took us to the top of the table. I can't post on here that i found it a good game to watch, it was in my view a poor display by out team.

We have said before that while winning is what it is all about, being entertained has to have a part in the evening, if you are paying to watch. I agree the die hards will turn up week in and week out, but the club can't meet its bills on gates like to nights again.

I know we can't put on great displays of football every game, some games will be like tonight, but tonights display may make some feel that paying £15 to watch that, is not giving them the entertainment value they need for their outlay.