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Team Bath aim to graduate with full honours

Jon Culley
Saturday 16 November 2002 01:00 GMT
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Any dictionary of football phrase and fable requires a new entry under the heading of Team Bath. The game's traditional place of deep-water post-match bonding has been usurped in common usage by a bunch of footballing academics who make history today by becoming the first university side to play in the first round proper of the FA Cup for 122 years.

The students of Bath University, who play in the Screwfix Western League, meet Mansfield Town of the Second Division in what must certainly be the first football match from a campus playing field to be screened live on national television.

Team Bath had the option to switch to Mansfield's Field Mill ground but instead have erected some 6,000 temporary seats to enable them to stage the contest, which kicks off at 12 noon, on their own pitch. The stage is thus set for a moment of genuine Cup romance, although those harbouring images of pale, swotty young men casting aside mortar boards and gowns to display the virtues of mens sana in corpore sano might have to adjust their notions a little.

The phrase footballing academics is used with licence. They are all students, as their manager, Ged Roddy, has been at pains to emphasise all week, but the majority are not in pursuit of erudite self-advancement of the traditional kind. Of the 15 players in Roddy's squad, 11 have a background in professional football in England, one played in France, one in Italy and another is an ex-Scottish under-21 international. Most are studying for the Higher National Diploma in coach education and sports performance – not a course with which Bamber Gascoigne will have been familiar.

The defender Peter Tisdale, who represented England at under-18 level and played at reserve level for Queen's Park Rangers and Bournemouth, is a graduate in politics and economics, but the only player who has no links with the paid game is the architectural engineering student and left-back Mike Wisson.

The reserve goalkeeper Chris Gibson, the 19-year-old son of the former Manchester United defender Colin, was once actually on Mansfield's books. Giuseppe Sorbara was with Como in the Italian League, Bertrand Kozic played for the French club Biharel. Easily the most experienced is the 28-year-old striker Barry Lavety, who won Scottish First Division titles with Hibernian and St Mirren.

However, Roddy insisted: "All of our players are real students. But we are the first to admit that they are not everyday students. They have come here for two reasons – because they want an education and because they are talented footballers. It just happens that this year we have a great class."

The game is a shop window for those seeking a second chance, such as Caleb Kamara-Taylor, who was rejected by Wimbledon. "I was still keen to stay in football but had a hankering to go to university, so when I heard about the Bath scheme it seemed the ideal solution," he said.

Team Bath are among 32 non-League teams hoping to reach the second round, among which the former giantkillers Hereford, who face Wigan in a 5.35pm televised game, Scarborough (v Cambridge United), Yeovil (v Cheltenham), Southport (v Notts County) and Northwich Victoria (v Scunthorpe) look prime candidates to have their own team baths overflowing with celebration.

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