Poole Town vs Yate Town – Match Preview
After the seven-goal thriller at home to Plymouth Parkway we were perhaps a little disappointed to come away from Hanwell Town with just one point. After taking the lead in the first five minutes through Shaquille Gwengwe, we had hoped to build on that and look for the win. However, the chances went begging and Dwayne Duncan gave the home side a share of the spoils on 73 minutes.
The draw keeps us in second place (P25 W14 D6 L5 48 points) but Gloucester City have two away games in hand and are on 47 points. We have a good home record P13 W7 D4 L2 25 points and we are currently 4th in the form table after taking 13 points from our last six matches.
We are now well into the second half of the season with 17 games to play. We will play 9 away matches, 5 of those will be against teams in the top half of the table and we will play 8 matches at home with just three of those games against teams who are currently in the top half of the table.
Next up for the Dolphins is the home match against Yate Town on Saturday ko 3pm. Our away fixture against Yate Town at Lodge Road has now been postponed twice and will be re-arranged in due course.
We played them in the FA Trophy Third Qualifying Round in October. After going a goal down in the 73rd minute Harvey Slade (76) and Antonio Diaz (86) popped up with the two late goals that gave us our passage into the next round.
Yate Town were promoted from Southern League South as champions last season. They won 26 of their 42 matches picking up a total of 88 points. This promotion brought an early end to a short stay at Step 4 as they were relegated from the Southern League South Premier division in 2022/2023 season.
They are currently in 16th place in the table (P23 W7 D5 L11 26 points) and come into the match on the back of a 2-0 defeat at Sholing last Saturday. In that match they lost the promising 21-year-old full back Oli Jenkins to what appeared to be a serious injury. Ex Dolphin Jake McCarthy put Sholing 1-0 up on 20 minutes and Blaise Riley-Snow secured the points on 79 minutes.
The cub is managed by Darren Mullings who signed as a player from Salisbury in the autumn of 2022, he is a former schoolboy under 18 international and England College under 19 international. Following the departure of manager John Rendell in September 2023 Darren took temporary charge of the team being appointed permanently 6 weeks later and winning promotion in his first full season as manager of the club.
Top scorer for the club is Marlon Jackson on 6. He signed for Yate in June 2024 having been at Weston-Super-Mare last season. The 6ft 2 in striker started his career at Bristol City in 2009 and made five appearances for the Robins over the next 3 years whilst being sent on loan to five clubs – Hereford, Aldershot, Northampton, Cheltenham and Telford before being released Bristol City.
The Bluebirds recently announced that the Young Bristol Rovers midfield player, Charlie Moody, who spent the opening weeks of the season with Yate Town but was injured in the FA Cup replay against Westbury United, has returned to the club to complete his loan and will be available for immediate selection.
There is a lot of rain forecast for the week but hopefully the days of having anxiety over the playing surface are well and truly behind us.
Enjoy the game
Neil Wellington.