Category: First team

The Rovers are back on the road again, this time making the trip up the M5 to Gloucestershire as they take on Hartpury. The Whites had a less than desirable start to their away trip last time out when they went to Swindon Supermarine. With a draw against Falmouth Town, the Whites were going into this game with some momentum.

Not many changes to the starting XI, with Ross Edwards still out; this means Thiago Sa and Jordan Copp assist the skipper Jamie Richards in defence.With Willand looking to get their first win of the season at newly promoted Hartpury. Hartpury looking for the upset.

The mid-Devon side would be the stronger side on paper going into this game with some experienced players at this level. As they look to take their tally up to 5 points this season. The game started off even, but it wouldn’t take long for the home side to score, with their first coming in the 6th minute.

The hosts would get another in the 11th minute with a headed goal past Sowden-Bird. The Gloucestershire outfit have most of the ball, and it pays off; their dream start gets better, as in the 20th minute they make it 3. Just 11 minutes later they make it 4; with a few twists and turns, they shoot it bottom right.

In the 33rd minute they make it five in what can only be described as a thrashing for the Rovers, with Hartpury showing no mercy. They make it six on the verge of half-time (HT): Hartpury 6-0 Willand Rovers in what can only be described as a game the Willand faithful would want to forget.

The second half would start out the same as the first, as the hosts would get their seventh just 2 minutes into the half. Hartpury were overloading on chances to make it 8 with Willand defending heavily, but they wound crack in additional time, as in the first minute of additional time Hartpury scored an eighth. Full time: Hartpury 8-0 Willand Rovers.

Cup action next as we welcome Bishops Cleeve to Silver Street as we take a break from league action for right now as we look to get our first win of the season against Bishops Cleeve in the cup. Get behind the lads because they can really do with some support to deliver and get some wins on the board.

Another game in the Southern League, with Willand hoping to keep momentum as they make the trip up to Gloucestershire as they take on Hartpury. Last time out for the Rovers, they scored two late goals to rescue a point against fellow struggling side Falmouth Town.

Another chance to get some points on the road as the Whites travel up to the Hartpury University Stadium, where they will look to get the season well and truly underway and drag themselves out of the relegation zone.

The one to watch in this game is Louis Manning; he was their top scorer last season, and he will look to bring that exceptional form this season as he looks to be a goal threat for the visiting team tonight. He is a good player for the club and will cause some issues for the visitors.

The Rovers are back at Silver Street for some cup action next as they welcome Bishops Cleeve to the street as we look to turn our form around in the cups, as Willand got knocked out by Bideford in the first round of the other cup.

Get behind the lads, as they could do with some support in numbers as we look to get our first win of the season. Get behind the lads as we push through to September, and join us at Silver Street for some cup action after Hartpury.

With a less than ideal start to the season, the Rovers hoped to get their season off on the right track with a win away against Swindon Supermarine but slumped to a 3-0 loss. With one point against Melksham and a loss against Manor Farm, things had to change, and Willand hoped that would be the case on the road.

The Whites are back at Silver Street for their next fixture at home against Falmouth Town. Looking to right the wrongs of this season and get their first win of the season to get things back on track. With Willand’s start of the season, it’ll be interesting to see how they approach this game.

The one to watch in this game is Rubin Wilson, the 23-year-old centre forward from Plymouth Argyle’s academy. The prolific striker will look to continue his impressive goal scoring for Falmouth Town like he did for clubs like Bideford and Helston Athletic. He will look to break down the home side’s defence.

Willand are next on the road when they travel to Gloucestershire to play Hartpury on the 30th of August. Then on the 6th of September we welcome Bishops Cleeve down to the street for another round of Southern League action.

Get behind the lads as we look to get a good result against Falmouth and get the wheels in motion. There is a lot riding on this game, so get behind the lads, as they need your support in order to get our season well and truly underway against Falmouth Town.

Which one me should I use 🤷‍♂️

Our first away game of the season saw the Rovers travel to the Imagine Cruising Stadium looking for their first win of the season. The Rovers looked to get their season back on track with a win or a draw against Swindon Supermarine.

The away side reverted to more of the same, with Ross Edwards being the only name the away side were missing from the line-up. A team that has by now become familiar to the Rovers. With the whites looking to cause an upset in their first away game.

Supermarine would go into this game as the favourites, as they are keen to get promoted at the first time of asking. The game started out well for both sides, as they both had chances in the first half. It would be the visitors with the most chances in the first half, but the first half remains goalless.

The hosts would come into their own in the second half and score with a shot nestled in the bottom right corner in the 51st minute. Supermarine would continue to create chances and trouble the Rovers’ defence. In the 72nd minute they were rewarded with another goal to make it 2-0.

The away side had some chances, but it would be the home side which dominated possession and kept getting shots on the counterattack. And in the 87th minute, the Imagine Cruising Stadium saw three goals as the hosts topped off an amazing night for them with a third. FT 3-0 to Swindon Supermarine.

Our next game sees Willand take on Falmouth Town back at the street. Get behind the lads because they can do with your support and hopefully get our season back on track with a win against Falmouth Town on bank holiday Monday. It hasn’t been an easy start, but wins will come. Get behind the lads as we look to get our first win.

Match Preview
Swindon Supermarine v Willand Rovers

The open road awaits Rovers as we finally leave our patch for a different pitch with our first away fixture of the season seeing us make the journey up the M5 and across on the M4 to Wiltshire to take on Swindon Supermarine in matchweek 4 of the Southern Football League Division One South with a 3 pm KO

Last time out for Rovers, it was a night under the lights for another of Willand’s famous Wednesday games, as Melksham Town made their way to Silver Street, looking to build on their promotion hopes. Willand would be happy to break their losing streak, and a welcome 0-0 draw for both sides turned a page in their chapters. The focus is now able to switch onto the upcoming matchweek, where the dust has settled from pre-season.

This time it is the turn of Swindon Supermarine who last season suffered relegation from the Southern Premier League in which they had been settled in the division for several seasons. Stuart Fleetwood departed the Webbswood Stadium and in came experienced boss Bobby Wilkinson who had dropped down to step 4 to guide Supermarine out of the Div One South

One to look out for for the hosts on Saturday would have to be James Harding who in recent years has been among the goals in step 3 & 4 as he provides a goal-scoring threat and throughout pre-season proved that he will be Supermarine’s star man and has ambitions to be one of the top scorers in this campaign.

The last time out between the both sides was an FA cup fixture back in September of 2022 in which we made the trip up on a cold Tuesday night where a place in the second round qualifying was up for grabs, the hosts however narrowly took a win and progressed in the competition, three current players are still in our squad from that day. Josh Searle, Bailey Kempster & Ashton Hewitt.

We all may live in a yellow submarine, so the Beatles thought but can you beat a blue Supermarine? This is the question we are hoping to answer on Saturday once again as the Southern Football League Division One South roars on.

The fun bus is back in operation once again this season with departures to Swindon from Silver Street at 11 am with a £15 fare, if you would like to travel up with the lads then contact Mike Hawkins or our social media pages to book your seat.

Sometimes he talks about the football

Preface – this is not a demotion.

It’s more of a sideways move away from the weekly match reports to what was supposed to be a monthly review of what’s been happening, both on and off the pitch. It means I can concentrate on non-footballing matters while the match reporting duties are undertaken by our team of young, hungry reporters.

I say “supposed to be monthly” because the astute amongst you will notice this version covers pre-season, the FA Cup game, and the first game of the season. I guess it’s on brand if nothing else.

Either way, I hope you enjoy the first offering from a new series of writings, still called Sometimes he talks about the football.

Life on the mean streets

Things seemed easier growing up on the mean streets of south Warwickshire in the 1970s.

We had three channels, no internet, and our alarm clocks weren’t the chiming of mobile phones, but the trajectory of the sun. Once it had dipped behind the ridge of the Cotswolds, and we couldn’t see whatever the ball de jour was in the dusk glow, it was time to go home.

Holidays meant caravans, weekends meant grandparents, and Sunday afternoons were spent taping the Top 40 onto a cassette, thumb poised on the stop button to avoid the DJ’s chatter.

It occurred to me recently that my 13-year-old will never understand the power and fear of compiling a mixtape for someone he likes. The agonising choice of songs, the balance of side A and side B, and the terror of what they might read into your selections. Not that he’d care — I’m not sure what he listens to could even be called music. It’s basically a cacophony of noises that apparently originate from his gaming obsession.

Looking back, it’s probably no different from how my parents felt about Pop Will Eat Itself and Half Man, Half Biscuit. But I’ll never admit that to him.

I suppose it’s a generational thing. And when his kids are tormenting him with the latest in AI-generated pop, he’ll feel the same. I’ll make sure I’m there to watch (if not listen).

Labels and life

Nothing really changes, I guess.

The biggest difference between my youth and his seems to be as simple as perception and labels. When I was growing up, kids and contemporaries didn’t have autism or ADHD. They were “slow” or “troublemakers.” There were no interventions, no tailored learning plans, no counselling sessions. There were detentions. And there was the ruler.

It was definitely simpler. But was it better? Viewed through the prism of nostalgia maybe. But viewed through the lens of life, things have improved immeasurably.

Not that everything has changed, of course. Some of the things that blight society today were still evident in the ’70s and ’80s. Incompetent internal leadership, a screen star as president across the pond, and Forest in Europe. Some things, apparently, are eternal.

Racism too was prevalent, still wrapped in the flag of national pride but targeted more at race than religion. It was still being peddled to the masses by everyman toffs, play-acting as snake-oil salesmen.

Football, irony and Ceefax

The biggest change between the Baylis generations can be seen through football — and irony.

While my football-loathing son can watch a game on most days of the week, growing up a football fanatic in the pre-Premiership days, when Sky was still just an island in Scotland, casual fans were limited to two choices: Ceefax and Match of the Day.

It’s almost impossible to explain the joy of Ceefax. Even to someone who lived through it. Describing it to anyone beyond Generation X would be folly. But imagine a beta version of football Twitter, with just scores and blocky graphics resembling space invaders. It also probably had the highest viewing figures of any given Saturday afternoon.

Match of the Day was, and remains, an institution. An institution that hasn’t really changed much in four decades, other than the hairstyles of its presenters, and in that time you still rarely got to see any Cheshire-based teams featured.

To watch an actual football match, start to finish, you had to wait for Cup Final day. And that wasn’t just a match, it was an event. From Saint and Grievsie to the open bus parade, it wasn’t 90 minutes – it was timeless.

My brother and I crossed the Worcestershire border annually and absorbed every minute. We watched Alan Sunderland’s last-gasp goal in the five-minute final of ’79. We sang along in ’81 as Ossie’s knees went all trembly.

Cup Final day was mystery, pageantry, ritual. These days there’s a good chance I won’t even know when it’s on, never mind who’s playing.

The argument, I suppose, is that morel is better. But I’m not convinced it always works out that way.

Scooby Doo and Scrappy don’t

If you’ll allow another tangent from my youth, one of the programmes I loved across my trifecta of channels was Scooby Doo.

On the face of it, it was nonsense: a talking dog who couldn’t really talk, his owner — who today would no doubt be reported to the RSPCA — and a gang of college friends who seemed to spend less time in class than I did during the early ’90s.

Add a mystery, a spooky fairground or castle, and a middle-aged man in a monster suit, and you had perfection.

But more is better, right?

More, in this case, came in the form of Scooby’s nephew. A character so bereft of reason to exist that he became the poster child for programmes “jumping the shark.” That moment when a show tips from must-watch to unwatchable.

Scrappy Doo ruined a dynasty. That’s a hill I’m happy to die on.

Pre-season: hope and false dawns

Another thing changed by 24-hour football coverage is pre-season. Before Twitter, finding out who your team had signed, or even who they were playing, was an active pursuit. It lived somewhere between obscure websites and word of mouth.

Now, arguments break out because one team calls a deal a loan while the other insists on the proper procedure. That genuinely happened.

For Willand, there was early movement westward, as George Burton and Jacob Wellington crossed the M5 to Tiverton. Most of last season’s squad stayed put, though, and David Steele wasted no time in getting business done. Tom Bath — my favourite non-league footballer — returned to the club, joined by Helston pair Jordan Copp and Rikki Shepherd. The number one shirt was also filled early with the signing of Andy Sowden-Bird.

Pre-season itself is always a haberdashery of hope and innocence. This one was no different. Willand went unbeaten — though without ever really showing their teeth, or their starting eleven.

Fans often put too much weight on pre-season, but in non-league it’s usually a pointless endeavour. Holidays, late signings, and early injuries mean the first-choice side is rarely seen. The manager, of course, sees options and formations and opportunities. Intelligence that will matter more as the season rolls on.

The results were encouraging: a win at Bishops Lydeard, draws with Tiverton and Taunton, a gritty win over Bridgwater. The final game, a 4–0 home win against Honiton Town, felt like a statement.

But it turned out to be a false dawn.

The season begins

I can’t tell you about the first game of the season — an FA Cup tie against Devon rivals Barnstaple. Not that I wasn’t there. I was. I just don’t want to think about it.

Everything that had looked promising in pre-season seemed to have been left there, sipping margaritas on the beach of meaning nothing at all.

Instead we got a dark mild. Drunk by old men in mining towns. Not a great analogy, but you get the point. We were expecting a Ferrari and ended up with a Fiat 500.

The lesser Italian motored on into the first league game soon after. Another defeat. I can’t tell you much about that one either, because I was 35,000 feet above the Atlantic at the time. Apparently, I missed very little.

It’s not the start we wanted. And it’s not the start pre-season promised.

Closing thought

Sometimes life comes at you fast. And all you can do is play the cards you’re dealt.

I suppose that’s why I still watch Willand, and why I’ll keep writing about them. Not because I expect Ferraris every week, but because I’ve lived through enough Fiat 500s to know that, one day, something special will roll up.

In the meantime, we’ll take our false dawns, our nostalgia, our dark milds and our missed Cup Finals — because that’s football. It never really changes.

And maybe that’s why we love it.