I thought it was a very good performance away from home. To keep a clean sheet was great and we scored a good goal.”
Although Torquay United’s manager Paul Wotton expressed his joy with the club’s 1-0 victory at Hampton & Richmond Borough, which moved them up to third in the National League South standings before a two-week break, he acknowledged that his squad still had a lot to learn.
After a first two-week vacation, Torquay looked a little rusty at the beginning of the match, but they never seemed like they would let up the lead until striker Cody Cooke scored with a header from a cross by Matt Carson in the 22nd minute. With Brad Ash’s second-half “goal” disqualified for a debatable offside, and Ben Seymour wasting a clear chance in the first half, it really should have been 2-0 or maybe 3-0.
But in the end, one goal was enough with the clean sheet hard-earned by a team that, as Wotton says, is still ‘brand new’. “I thought it was a very good performance away from home,” said the manager. “To keep a clean sheet was great and we scored a good goal.
I thought defensively we were excellent – we contained Hampton to, well, nothing really. James Hamon has had literally nothing to do away from home.
“We observed that they have excellent mobility and rotations, and they play extremely fantastic football. We played the game exactly as we had planned. Of sure we can tighten up in a lot of areas. Negative people may argue that we didn’t accomplish this or that, but I don’t think Brad Ash’s goal was offside, and with a little more finishing, we could have easily scored two more goals. Therefore, all in all, we had a great day.
With next Saturday’s game against Maidstone United postponed, since they are still in the FA Cup, and no game last weekend because Torquay are out of that competition, the Hampton & Richmond game was a particularly crucial one to win. Having just one game in nearly a month is not common. When Torquay returns to Plainmoor on Tuesday, October 22, to play Worthing, it will have been 31 days since their last home game. Up next, they travel to Eastbourne Borough. It is so fantastic to be in third place after ten games, just one point behind Hemel Hempstead Town, who now hold the top spot.
Wotton said: “It’s really hard to win a game of football. It’s really difficult. Not every team wins, it’s tough. It is really hard to get three points, especially in this league away from home. So it was a great day for us. We are a work in progress, we have got so much to learn, we are brand new. But we are digging in and the boys worked really hard today and they deserve a nice weekend, as the fans do.
“The fans were unreal, that’s incredible support, away from home. It gives you a real big smile at the end of the day.”
