Thornbury Town will visit Fairford Town on Saturday afternoon in the Hellenic League Premier Division in their quest to climb up the table, being the only team in the league that do not pay their players.
Manager Richard Joyce believes his team are in good shape ahead of visiting a team currently in a play-off spot. “Going into the weekend, we’re actually in a good place given our last two performances. So yeah, we feel in a good place and we feel like we’re going in the right direction again after a blip thanks to that little two week break with the weather, thankfully.”
After their unplanned break, Thornbury were able to defeat Mangotsfield United and only narrowly lost to Corsham Town. “We played Mangotsfield and got a brilliant 1-0, a clean sheet, a late goal, really good performance against the Mangotsfield team who’ve trying to push to get in the playoffs but also have been on a really good run of form themselves. And then last weekend we pushed Corsham all the way who were another team trying to get promoted, really big budget, good players and we performed really well against them.”
88 mins: ⏰ GOAL!!! THE GAME HAD A HERO AFTER ALL 🦸
— Stoner (@AS_FootyReview) February 17, 2024
Ball out wide to the no17 for Thornbury who drives and cuts inside to hit a low effort into the bottom corner…. Have they snatched it right at the depth!! (Remember #FW doesn’t do 0-0’s 😉) @thornburytownfc 1-0… pic.twitter.com/XN6pmx8PP2
Thornbury Town are in 18th place in the Hellenic Premier Division, but they have a healthy 15-point gap to 20th-placed Wantage Town, who are in the relegation zone.
“It is a good way of describing it as a free hit. We have quite a few of those during the season. Fairford is probably a bit of an unusual one in the sense that they probably, based on recent seasons, aren’t normally as high as they are, but they’re having a fantastic season.”
Joyce added: “So the reality is they’re going to be the favourites and they’ll be expecting to get a result as well because of course that’s what they need to get if they’re going to keep on maintaining a place in the playoffs. But 100%, given our last couple of performances, we can travel there with a bit of confidence. We still need to get more points on the board just to sort of make it a good season.”
Joyce is confident that they have an idea how to make their rivals’ day worse. “This will be the sort of fourth time we’ve come up against Fairford in the last two seasons, obviously playing them twice last year and already this season. So we have a good idea of how they play. I know quite a lot about their players because I know some of them personally, but also I’ve watched them play several times before, so we know how they are going to set up.”
Joyce also believes while his team are the less favoured on Saturday, they will have to focus on themselves rather than stopping their rivals.
“We’ll go there with plenty of information on them, but also, we’ll go there knowing all too well what our own jobs are individually, with and without the ball. So it should mean that we’re going there quite confident,” Joyce concluded.
