Nuneaton Borough: Liberty Way

Nuneaton Borough 6-2 St Ives Town

Our tour of the Southern League Premier Central continues! Adrian was originally planning to see Nuneaton Borough vs St Ives Town at the start of the month however with a COVID-19 outbreak within the St Ives' ranks meant the game was consequently postponed. Adrian was never intending to go to the rearranged fixture and instead took a refund for his ticket, however by pure coincidence, the same fixture that was called off was rearranged on a Tuesday night when we both had a spare evening free.
After a day at work, I (Ross) made the journey to Adrian's house where we had dinner before making the brief journey across the A5 and over the Leicestershire/Warwickshire border.
Boro previously played at Manor Park which was situated near to the town centre however decided to sell their ground to developers where a housing estate was later built. They moved to Liberty Way on the outskirts of the town in Attleborough where they opted to ground share with Nuneaton Rugby Football Club. Since then the clubs have gone through various problems off the field which includes entering administration, then being liquidated before reforming as Nuneaton Town plus various disagreements with the rugby club which even saw them locked out of their ground at one stage. In 2018, Nuneaton Town announced the renaming of the club back to Nuneaton Borough. It's fair to say Boro have had it tough over the last 10 years or so.
We parked on the large industrial estate next to the ground where there was ample parking even for the mass crowd of 300 plus. We chose to get tickets in advance however even with the limit of 600 supporters currently imposed, we could've got in on the night paying at the turnstile.

We were rewarded with another open game of football, plenty of quality, goals and entertainment.
The night belonged to Boro's Ravi Shamsi, who actually scored 5 of the 6 Nuneaton goals in what was their first win of the season.
It was St Ives who took an early lead via a penalty for handball, the penalty scored by Marc Richards, the 39 year old will be familiar to many fans in the Football League as he served many clubs including Northampton Town and Port Vale.
Another familiar ex Football League player was involved in the Boro equaliser, Leroy Lita laying the ball off to Tomkinson, whose excellent low cross was fired home by Shamsi.
On 38 minutes, Nuneaton took the lead Shamsi on the left curling a ball into the roof of the net, was it a cross or was it a shot?
The lead only lasted 5 minutes, a neat move down the left by the visitors, resulted in James Ballinger side-footing home and it was 2-2 at half time with the prospect of more goals to come.
The second half turned on a miss by St Ives and a penalty for Nuneaton. The visitors breaking down the right and a low ball into the box was fired against the post by Ballinger, with the loose ball gratefully picked up by the Boro keeper, Breedons. Immediately the home side ventured forward Shamsi evaded a couple of lunges but failed to avoid a third in the penalty area. A clear penalty was awarded by the referee and Shamsi not surprisingly took it and scored, 3-2 and just 53 minutes on the clock.
From then on Nuneaton assumed control, Greg Kaziboni scored the fourth goal, a fiercely struck drive just took a slight deflection on the 70th minute to make it 4-2.
Ravi Shamsi continued his goal scoring feat with two more, clinically shooting home with his left foot following a low centre by Tomkinson on 83 minute and then in stoppage time firing into the roof of the net from 8 yards.
An astonishing night for Ravi Shamsi, a summer signing from Banbury, the scorer of 5 goals in a 6-2 victory for Nuneaton Borough and was deservedly awarded Man of the Match. The season hasn’t started well for Boro but hopefully, this result will give them confidence for the challenges ahead.

Nuneaton Borough

Monday 5 October 2020

Liberty Way

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