St Austell V Grampound

A cold afternoon at Poltair Park saw the visit of an inconsistent Grampound side buoyed by a win the previous week. St Austell were also in confident mood after a big derby win at fortress par track in their last encounter with Biscovey, the tea hut crowd were expecting a thriller. Town were in their changed strip of skin tight white.

St Austell were without several regulars : lee Harvey working, Zidane away, Ross Sundercoumbe spear chucking and Richards Osbourne MIA at a stag do slash stock check. Injury also robbed the lillywhites of Phil Hutchins who’s ankle injury is proving to be a real worry to the management and also the rest of the lads as his lineman skills are shocking!!! Luke Buckland once again stepped in between the sticks but was rarely troubled.

The match began in typical fashion for St Austell, very slowly! As once again it took them 30 minutes to warm up, Grampound without ever really threatening caused the Town back four a few problems early on and the game was scrappy to say the least, this was most evident when following the only good passing move of the first half Luke Patton uncharacteristically blazed over from 6 yards, the ball ironically ending up in his old front garden!

The breakthrough came just after, a clumsy foul in the box resulting in a Patton penalty, 1 nil Town. The game was still all over the place, and with little good passing going on frustration began to creep in, this was eased slightly after Nick Bennetts clever lob put St Austell 2 nil up on the stroke of half time, a poor first 45 then and little sign of the carnage to follow.


After an unusually calm half time team talk from the gaffer the lads were determined to improve after the break and so it proved with can only be described as a demolition. Goals came at regular intervals, Bennett , showing glimpses of his ability notched 5, Patton despite earning the Donkey of the week for his performance notched 4 and Dan “goal a game” Tree once again showed his worth to the team with a goal, in truth it could have been 20.

A big victory then, but surely there are more difficult tests to come in the next few weeks and St Austell will need to play a lot better to get anything from the season.

The team enjoyed their standard sausage and chips at the Cookworthy looking forward to the big Halloween party at Pentewan, there was some brilliant fancy dress on show, with Steve Kellow in particular catching the eye, his enormous fake ears were a sight to behold.

A good 3 points , and onto North Hlll in the cup next week where St Austell will be looking to avenge their opening day debacle.

St Austell 4-4-2

Buckland, Edens (Bishop 75) Knight, Allen, Powell (Kirby 65) Pascoe, Kellow (Tree 65) Whittle, Pearce, Bennett, Patton.

Man of the Match: Nick Bennett – 5 goals . some wonderfully taken.

Donkey of the week: Luke Patton – scored 4 should of scored 24.