Youthful Romans exit Somerset Premier Cup

Two goals in the space of three first half minutes ended City’s interest in this season’s Somerset Premier Cup this evening at the hands of Frome Town.

Fielding a mix of first team and academy players City started the game brightly, Elliott Frear’s 8th minute cross just evading Alex Fisher. However, they suffered a setback ten minutes later when Fisher raced clear only to pull up with a hamstring injury. He was replaced by Jordan Alves but the Robins began to get on top after this. It took a great intervention by Tresor Mabika on the half hour to deny Mannings but five minutes later a corner was turned home by Hutson to make it 1-0. And within three minutes it was 2-0 when former City player Ollis found space down the left and neatly finished past Massimo Sardo.

The second half saw Frome largely content to sit on their lead, although Ollis’ header shortly after the restart dropped just over the bar. The introduction of Jensen Wakefield and Emmanouil Athanasiou saw City fielding six academy players and they enjoyed their best spell of the game in its latter stages. Wakefield appeared to be bundled over in the box with seven minutes left, but the referee waved away the penalty appeals, then two minutes later the impressive Owen Pritchard tested keeper Tylek with a well-struck shot. Several other promising positions were well defended by the visitors and after seven successive defeats they could finally celebrate a win over the Romans.