The Bristol Rovers matches in 2007 perfectly eclipsed the Exeter games in 2018, eleven years apart but not happier sadly.
You will have read how we took a 0-0 draw down to Devon, with slim hopes of perhaps making Wembley. I remember it well, because it clashed with the Football Blogging Awards, in which I was a finalist, and I couldn’t go to either. Instead, I lay on my sofa, a huge scar running down my back and a constant feed of painkillers going down the cakehole. Even they couldn’t take away the pain of defeat at St James’ Park.
The harsh truth is this – Exeter were better than us. We had several players who looked dead on their feat, victims of our ‘quality over quantity’ squad policy. Like this season, we went for better players over more players, and at some point that does catch up. Of course, if you go for numbers and not quality, you might never get a chance at the top seven anyway. it is a balancing act and who is to say what is right, and what is wrong.
Having been missing key players, City did have a more familiar look when kicking off in Devon. Ryan Allsopp started in goal with a back four of James Wilson, Luke Waterfall, Michael Bostwick and Neal Eardley, with Eards again on the left. Alex Woodyard and Lee Frecklington held the midfield, with Harry Anderson, Elliott Whitehouse and Matt Green playing behind Matt Rhead. It wasn’t classic City, we were maybe a centre back down having lost Raggs and Dickie in the winter window and a few might be surprised to see Scott Wharton on the bench. If we needed to change in up, Ollie Palmer and Jordon Williams were our attacking options.
Jayden Stockley (who else) put them ahead in a poor first half, but for thirty minutes we looked like a mid-table side who found themselves in the play offs by accident. It may have been fatigue, it may have been players carrying injuries, but Exeter could have been two up.
Just before half time, we equalised, although we didn’t. Whitehouse had the ball in the net, only for Darren England to rule it out for handball by Rheady, after what seemed like a push. Sadly, Rhead had been going down too easily throughout the season. If it was a push it wasn’t a big one and I guarantee if I squared up to him in a nightclub and gave him a push of the same force, he wouldn’t budge. Referees had got wise to it I’m afraid. All the assistant referee has seen is a hand, all the referee has seen is the goal. We could feel hard done by, but taking off the rose-tinted glasses, just for a second, gave it some perspective. It was a straw to clutch at, but not a convincing one.
Within minutes of the second half starting, with the Imps a goal behind on aggregate, the game was over. Hiram Boateng, a player I’ve always liked, bagged a second and from that point on, we never looked like getting back on terms. Their third on 69 minutes looked to add a shine to the score line they probably deserved. We did grab a consolation goal, nothing more, through Matt Green and we should have had a late penalty too, but Luke Waterfall had handled in the first half in the area and it wasn’t given either, so it would be hard to look back and say we were robbed. We weren’t, we were mugged, by a strong and better side.
Like the Grimsby game I wrote about yesterday, the scenes after the match were not pleasant. Some of their fans were seen attacking our players and officials, and that was not on. They also had ‘special dispensation’ to limit the number of fans we could take due to their ground renovations, and I’m not sure that was fair either, but those factors only served to create an advantage, their team still had to perform, and they did. We can complain about their fans, the disallowed goal and the missed penalty late on, but nobody could complain about Boateng’s dominant performance or Pym’s solid showing in the first leg. The end was unsavoury, but the result was, on the balance of play, entirely fair.
It was a stinging blow after a great couple of seasons. The EFL Trophy was in the bag and this was perhaps the second time I’d felt real pain watching Danny Cowley’s Lincoln City, the other being in the FA Trophy. The fact the two games were just over a year apart shows the progress that was being made and, unlike the Bristol Rovers game in 2007, at least better was to come the following season.