Ebbsfleet United v City Preview

City will look to end their disappointing run and start the climb away from the lower reaches of the league table when they visit Ebbsfleet United on Saturday.

The Kent club have made a strong start to the season and a run of four wins leaves them currently in third place with nineteen points from the nine matches played. Three of their four home fixtures have been won, the latest on Tuesday evening with victory over Braintree Town.

Hopefully the Fleet’s players will have other matters on their minds as seven days later they travel to Leyton Orient in the first round of the FA Cup, their prize for having already knocked out Carshalton, Aylesbury and Hampton & Richmond.

One of those players will be a former Twerton favourite in Sido Jombati who played a major part in the 2009/10 promotion season and the following memorable year in the National League, making 94 appearances in total.

City’s first visit to Stonebridge Road was way back in 1947 and in 35 league matches have been victors on eleven occasions. Until 1990 their opponents were known as Gravesend & Northfleet United but by the time this fixture resumed twenty years later the club had adopted its present name.

Our away record against Ebbsfleet is two draws, two defeats and just the one win but that memorable one in 2015 will hopefully be a good omen for Saturday’s match. City travelled to Kent just a few days before Christmas having lost seven of their previous ten matches while their opponents were well ahead at the top of the table and were firm favourites. Those City fans who were there that day, plus Dan Ball and Jack Batten who played, will never forget Kaid Mohamed’s winner in the last minute and the deliriously happy celebrations by the dugout.

The ground at Ebbsfleet looks slightly different to our last visit ten months after the above match with the Club opening a new stand.

Those fans travelling to the match can buy their tickets in advance from the Ebbsfleet website.

Unfortunately there has not been sufficient interest for a Supporters Club coach to run and the 150 mile journey from Bath will again be affected by closures this weekend on the M4.

The train trip from Bath Spa will take around 2.5 hours with a walk of ten minutes from Ebbsfleet International station to the ground.

Hopefully as many supporters as possible will manage to get to Stonebridge Road but remember if you cannot that there will be full commentary provided by the excellent Bath City Internet Radio station.