Gary Horgan reflects on “good way to bounce back” in opening game of 2024

Chippenham Town kick off 2024 with a point on the road, as they draw 0-0 away to Bath City in front of a packed out Twerton Park, read Gary Horgan’s thoughts from the game below.

Following defeat to Bath City on Part 1 of the A4 Derby on Boxing Day from Boxing Say 2023, the Bluebirds went into the new year with a solid point on the road at Twerton Park as the game finished level at 0-0, we caught with Gary Horgan after the game to get his thoughts on the result.

First and foremost it was a good way to certainly bounce back, and from the disappointment as such of Boxing day for sure, but yeah I felt today we certainly thought in the first half, we were the better side hitting the post early on and probably have real strong claims for two, maybe even three penalties.

Spoken to the ref about one of them, he says he thinks it is handball, but he doesn’t know whether it’s in or outside the box, so he’s decided not to give it which is fine, because I think in these types of games you want the big decisions to be absolutely nailed on, we think they are but he said something would have to be really nailed them for him to have give it today.

So yeah, though again we feel that the big moments probably haven’t gone our way, but yeah look really good point, group showed like I said real good character to come back and put on a decent performance and ultimately which is a really good point here.

Gary Horgan expressed his thoughts of the returning Tom Owen-Evans and Eddie Jones onto the pitch after injury, stating:

Yeah we had to change the shape slightly in the second half, a little bit and bar 15 minutes in the Second half for them, I thought we had decent control, as I said 1st half coming down the hill, we’ve had the most of it and then second half, they had their 15 minutes”. “And then towards the end again, the ball’s just not quite dropped for us. Tyreke got through three or four times. We’ve had a another look back at TOE offside is clean through, and the linesman gave it offside, But again, we feel a little bit aggrieved with that I appreciate that. It’s in a split second for them as we have, you know, the luxury of looking back on it.

So, you know that doesn’t drop our way, but yeah look again l thought they did. Tom Owen-Evans did well today, it was nice to have him back and you know, he makes those types of runs from late and deep and like I said, I thought we were a lot better than we were on Boxing Day.

Heading back to #TheTSStadium for another league clash against Hemel Hempstead before a big ISUZU FA Trophy trip to Bromley, Gary said this..

Yeah we’ll obviously welcome Hemel Hempstead, having already played them quite recently. So, similar to this or not as quick a turnaround, so yeah they’ll look to to come and probably put right What we did to them a couple of weeks ago, a good game before Christmas and when we managed to to run out 2-0 winners that day. It will be against a good side, they’ve picked right up, So we’ll expect another tough game.

And then obviously we’ll head into Bromley so hopefully we can keep everybody fit, certainly for the next couple of weeks, as you can see that today we’ve got a really talented squad and i think we deserved a little bit more today.

The Bluebirds welcome Hemel Hempstead Town in our next scheduled National League South game on Sat 6th Jan 2024, 3pm kick-off.

To see the video interview, please click the image below.