FL2: Torquay v Stockport 5 February 2011

A well deserved victory against a very poor Stockport County side today with goals from Zebs and Kee. One shouldn't complain but Stockport would have had no complaints if we hit them for 5.
Stockport are doomed as they say and have a foot in the Conference door.

Not much on the bench and one would hope that a couple of players are due in when the window opens.

Potter in for Bevs was the big surprise of the day but he played well despite not having (I think) one save to make. His kicking was good.

Zebs goal was well taken after Kee had missed his one-on-one with the keeper. Several other chances went begging and the thought of 'not again' with Stockport getting a point with a mishit shot in off the ref's arse.

Second half started like the first with shot after shot before big Billy knocked a 25-yarder into the net after picking up the ball on the half-way line.

Craig Stanley had imo a man of the match performance and Jake Robinson looked lively on the wing. Stanley in particular bought that presence into midfield and wasn't afraid to have a shot.

Poor crowd of 1950 odd but with 3 matches in 8 days not surprising. Nice to have an evening pint with that '3 point smile' on my face.

This was a pricelss three points even if Stockport by all accounts were abyssmal. Did not catch any of the match as I was out enjoying a very good local game without any idiotic stewards and saved myself the best part of fifty quid. BAck home by five with my feet up and a chinese and a bottle of wine. I really cannot see myself attending Plainmoor again after the way I was treated at the Crawley game.
Still pleased we won though. Very interested by Buckles after match interview though. Seems like he played Potter because of his kicking ability in windy conditions!
Astonishingly he said that Swindon also wanted to sign Kee as well as Benyon which seemed quite a suprise.
As usual he got in the "punching above our weight" quotes though but seemed to allude to the theory that we had no right to beat Crawley because of the money they had spent, which I thought was actually incorrect.
Perhaps if he had turned out a forward line of Zebs,Kee,Benyon and O'Kane the fans might have had every right to have expected a victory - because they are far better players than anything Crawley have going forward, howvere much money they have laid out.
Congratulations to Benyon who got a last minute equaliser for Swindon yesteday - they have got a bargain. And good to see Sills get a couple.

My favourite steward




harrison is a legend

Many thanks for all your views on the game against Stockport. After reading them again and then my own match report, I feel I may have come across as a bit negative about our performance.

It was most certainly three very welcome points that takes us closer to safety and the sooner we know we are the better. There were some very good passages of play and times we looked good going forward but.

I was at the Tuesday night game when we played Hereford, a team also near the bottom of the table. I know they have been on a good run of late, but they did completely out play us and also forced us into making so many mistakes.

I left the ground determined not to get to carried away with how we played in the Stockport game, they were so very poor and one reason we did not make too many mistakes was because they put us under no pressure at all.

Billy Kee scored a fine goal, but he ran from our half all the way to the edge of their box and only had to shrug of one player while the others all stood off him. That is something that won’t happen against most teams we play and our defense and goalkeeper will have far more work to do than they had to against Stockport.

There may well have been improvements in our play, but until we play a better team than Stockport, we won’t really know. Saturday’s game away to Barnet will be a much harder game to win and I’m looking forward to hear how well we played in that game.

Not one to make excuses but I think that we can probably ignore the Hereford debacle - it seems like the players knew we had lost the game before it had finished, so really they cannot be expected to peform as they should have done.
With Buckle waxing lyrical about Jake Robinson it makes you wonder why we didn't try to sign him on a permanent deal particularly as we flogged Wroe to Shrewsbury. No doubt if he scores a few he will be off elsewhere at the ewnd of the season.

I think you may find that the reason we went three up at the front was more to do with the fact we were playing a team with the worst defensive record in the league! In fact Stockport have a goal difference that is twice as bad as any other team in our League!
I would still however like Paul Buckle to play at least two up front against Barnet, but still expect to see Kee up there on his own with Zebs and Robinson on the wings.

Two 3-4 defeats helped us out with that!