"We left everything on the pitch" Kent and Jenkins proud of disciplined Hartpury display against Gloucester City

Hartpury FC duo Sol Kent and Nathan Jenkins say that their side will be proud and very pleased with their efforts as they were denied an upset in the FA Trophy against Gloucester City by a penalty shootout.

After a 0-0 draw, which saw Hartpury produce a superbly disciplined defensive performance, as well as created a handful of really good chances to win the tie themselves – the game went to penalties, with City just about scraping through to the next round.

Following the game, Kent and Jenkins spoke to Butler for BBC Radio Gloucestershire and both were delighted with their side’s application, albeit disappointed with how it ended.

“To compete with a team that are fighting for the league title in the league above, we’re obviously really proud of ourselves,” said Kent.

“I thought we defended really, really well over the full 90 minutes, created a few good chances to go and actually win the game in the 90 minutes, but we can be proud of the moment, although obviously it’s gutting to lose the way we did with penalties, but penalties is a lottery.

But that is football and we can take positives out of it to take into the league, for sure,” Kent added.

“We knew it was going to be a tough task, so we had a setup going to be disciplined and play together with a lot of communication.

We knew they might have a lot of the ball, so we just have to get in, be compact and do our plan. I would say for the 90 minutes we did and like Sol said it’s just lottery at that point, penalties, so unfortunate after the 90 minutes to lose in the end like that,” added Jenkins.

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Kent was awarded Severn Sport’s C Martin Roofing Man of the Match for a display that saw him battle against Harry Emmett, who, for the most part, looked most likely to create the winning moment.

But Hartpury had a number of good chances themselves, with Louis Manning forcing Jared Thompson into a good save before half time, whilst Vanylson Da Silva was a constant threat on the break throughout the 90 minutes.

The Acorns were close to winning it in the shootout too, with centre back Leon Machisa unfortunately scuffing wide with Hartpury on match point at 3-3 after City had missed their third of six penalties.

Despite suffering defeat on both occasions, Hartpury can add Saturday’s game up there with the FA Vase Semi Final against Whitstable Town as huge occasions for the club to host in as many seasons, as the Acorns continue to establish themselves within the football pyramid.

And Kent admits that by having a squad of talented players, supported by the staff behind the scenes, the squad continue to learn and enjoy the big occasions.

“To be honest, I think we’ve learned a lot from the Whitstable game last year. I’d say that all of us thought we didn’t play to the level that we knew we’d set that day.

In the past we may have shied away from a big occasion, so today we really did ourselves justice in terms of playing the Hartpury way, being brave, getting on the ball and getting the likes of Nath [Jenkins] on the ball as well as allowing our defenders to get on the ball and try and play our way.

But having that Vase run last year in the bank, really helped us today and at the end of the day we had nothing to lose really. You don’t want to come off the pitch thinking ‘ah, we could have done more,’ I think we left everything on the pitch today, just unfortunate in how it ended,” said Kent.

Hartpury return to league action on Saturday 11 October, when they head to Mousehole as they look to build on a positive start to life in the Southern League.

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