Mark Jones previews this afternoon's game for BN:
Set your satnav for the ProEdge Westwood Road stadium in Cambridgeshire, not Cornwall, for the final 90 minutes of a wonderful, wonderful season. The St Ives pitch, it must be said, looks a bit 'damp', but fingers crossed we won't have the quite preposterous situation of a match virtually in May getting postponed for bogginess.
St Ives drew 2-2 with Basingstoke this midweek in front of a crowd of 76, the sort of number that generally draws derision as an away turn out at Edgar Street, let alone a total 'crowd'. It's safe to assume, therefore, that this could be the last, erm...'boutique' club the Bulls visit in a league match for...well hopefully forever. The Midland League and Southern League South and West certainly also threw up some parochial opposition, but those days are imminently coming to an end. Whether our destination is north or south, I have it on good authority that both Blyth and Chelmsford, for example, play in front of 50,000 every week. We're heading for the big time.
Anyway, all of this patronising rubbish is a bit of a front for the fact that I can't think of much to say about this, other than it would have been a near-perfect fixture if the league title had hinged on it. St Ives haven't enjoyed the best of Aprils. They've somehow contrived to draw 0-0 with both Dunstable and Gosport, an unenviable pair of results by any measure, as a glance at the league table would testify. They also lost three matches, including shipping six at home to Stratford. The only bright spot was a commendable 1-0 win against Redditch - were you asleep Fleets? Today's match will be their ninth this month, a situation that would cause utter apoplexy in Premier League managers, and could go some way to explaining how wretchedly they've performed recently. After all, how motivated would you be in front of 70 people at the end of a long season when there's no danger of going down? But to be honest it's not just April. Overall this season, the Saints have only won three league games and sit third from bottom, their safety assured solely by how hard Dunstable and Gosport have found it.
In the starkest possible contrast, The Bulls go into their final league match of the season on a bit of a run - 17 wins from the last 19 games, currently on 110 points and 109 goals. Pete Beadle made several changes to the starting XI for the Hitchin match on Wednesday, with James Bowen in particular settling in influentially as if he'd never been away, and it'll be interesting to see who starts. Up top, it could be a pitch for the Beast and a more direct approach, or it could be that Chopper Mills is given the chance to remind everyone that over the last three seasons he has played as important a part in the stellar progress of this football club as anyone. There's no bigger admirer of Mike Symons than me, but I kind of hope the latter happens if his knee's up to it.
When the sides met at Edgar Street, the home side eased to a 4-0 win, with goals from Cardiff loanee Tyrone Duffus, a brace from John Mills, and a clincher from the Beast.
You'd be a brave punter to back St Ives in this one, frankly.