"They were unbelievable" Williams praises Gloucester City supporters following FA Trophy defeat

Gloucester City’s Ed Williams has praised the travelling support after Saturday’s FA Trophy defeat at Marine and has issued a rallying cry for the rest of the league season.

Williams was one of the unfortunate players to miss in the shoot-out as Gloucester City were knocked out on penalties, following a 1-1 draw.

After Sion Spence’s first half opener, James Potter levelled for the hosts and Ben Morgan was issued a straight red card for a lunge just before the hour mark – giving the Tigers a tough task.

But they stuck to it well and even created chances with 10 men to win the tie, however after going to penalties, William and Marcus Day saw their penalties saved as City bowed out at the Fourth Round.

After the game, Williams spoke to Butler for BBC Radio Gloucestershire and said that despite the result, Gloucester can be proud of how they played in the 90 minutes.

“I think us boys can be really proud of ourselves today,” said Williams. “I think we gave ourselves a really good account against a team obviously in the league above but we are obviously disappointed to go out.

Penalties have sort of fell on our favour recently, but unfortunately we were on the wrong side of them today. But I think we can all be really proud of ourselves and I just said to the boys, we’ve got to keep our heads up because I think the performance was the most important thing today and we certainly got that,” Williams added.

There were over 900 spectators in the Marine Travel Arena, with a strong away contingent making the trip up the M6 to back their team and Williams thanked the support and said the players hoped to have repaid them for their efforts with a good performance.

“They were unbelievable,” Williams said of the supporters. “I mean, to see so many of them, I didn’t realise how many had travelled – but o come all this way, cold, obviously, there’s been a lot of snow and all the rest of it – but to travel all this way and show their support and their love for us is unbelievable. We tried to repay that today in a decent performance.

Unfortunately, we couldn’t get over the line, but we all obviously really appreciate that support and hopefully that continues back into the league,” added the stand-in Captain.

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The performance from the Tigers was much improved from a disappointing 2-2 draw against Evesham United last weekend and their 2-1 defeat at Taunton after Christmas and Williams believes their improved display can bring confidence with it into the coming weeks.

“It’s certainly a massive performance today and we needed it. I don’t think we’ve performed very well lately,” admitted Williams.

“Showing a lot of character, it was a different type of game today. It wasn’t one where we dominate possession, but it was one that we needed to stand up to a physical test.

I believe that we’ve done that and played the game which was needed. Hopefully, we can take that little bit of that togetherness into the league – I think that’s been missing lately, a bit of energy as well as a bit of fight, but those are the positives that we can take into the coming weeks,” said Williams.

With cup competitions now off the agenda for Gloucester City this season, their task is to now go as close as possible to closing the gap to Walton & Hersham at the top of the Southern League Premier Division South, but Williams reiterated the importance on only focusing on Gloucester City and calls for everyone to fight together until the end of the season.

“We have to just focus on ourselves, not looking at anyone else and taking it game by game – that’s all we can do, try and beat our opponents on the day.

We have so much belief in our squad, staff, manager – we’re all going to need everyone as well, fans included. So, let’s fight for it together,” said Williams.

Gloucester City are back on the road on Saturday 17 January, when they head to Havant & Waterlooville, before a home game against Tiverton Town the following weekend.

Cover photo taken and copyright Jamie Brain Photography. Visit his Instagram @jamiebrain_photography