Davis and Blankley Relishing Trip

Boss Craig Davis and his right-hand man Barry Blankley still cherish recollections of their time with Friday's Evo-Stik South West visitors Salisbury under their previous guise of Salisbury City FC.

The Citizens are hoping that switching the game to a Friday night will boost the crowd for what Davis describes as “a special occasion.”

“Barry and I both had some good times at Salisbury,” he said.

“Salisbury paid £15,000 for me from Bashley and I think I'm still their record signing.

"Barry was assistant manager at the time and we went from this level into the Southern Premier Division and won it by a mile in 2005/06.

"My contract was up in the summer and I left when they went into the Conference South.

“There’s still a lot of people there I’m in contact with and I’m really looking forward to tomorrow. I’d imagine there would be quite a few floating fans there, so I guess we could get a gate of around 500.”

In terms of results, City have not had the best of Octobers. But the fixture list has been harsh on them with tomorrow's test against fourth-placed Salisbury coming hot on the heels of losing to second-placed Bristol Manor Farm and league leaders Taunton Town. In between they were held 1-1 at home by Paulton Rovers.

“It’s been a horrible run of fixtures and we’ve had a bit of a tough time with injuries and players being unavailable through work,” admitted Davis. “But hopefully we’re past that hump now and the fixtures will ease up a bit.

“A positive result tomorrow would take us third. It’s such a tight league that a couple of wins and you’re right up there. We beat Didcot not long ago and they’ve just gone third.”

Salisbury, beaten play-off finalists last season, are eight points behind Taunton with a game in hand.

“Realistically I think Salisbury would have expected to be top,” said Davis. “From their point of view they’ve got some chasing to do to catch up with Taunton.”

Source: Wendy Gee/Southern Daily Echo