Director of Football, Paul Maitland paid tribute to the impressive support inside the Bob Lucas Stadium as over 1,800 fans watched the Terras see off Dorchester Town in the Evo-Stik Southern Premier Division fixture on Bank Holiday Monday.
The crowd – 1,832 to be exact – was almost double that of any other fixture played in the same division on Monday, and is over 300 more people than attended the August Bank Holiday fixture between the two sides last season at the Avenue Stadium.
And Maitland told theterras.com that it would be great to see similar sized crowds down the Bob Lucas Stadium more often.
“The support from the home fans was great, I always ask them to be loud from the start and we don’t always get it, I understand why because they are waiting for something to ignite them. But the noise before we came out was sensational and the fact that they were still singing and cheering 10 to 15 minutes after the whistle is testament to them.
“The fans were great throughout and I’m really pleased that we were able to give them something to sing and shout about. No doubt they will enjoy this when they go back to work.
“When you win a derby it is always for the fans, they are such an important part of any football club, but particularly for us they can be that twelfth man. I’m really pleased for them that it will give them a few months of bragging rights until Boxing Day when we got up there and I will ask them to come out in full force again.
“It would be great if the next home game we could have a gate of around one thousand, because the players deserve it. Let’s not make today a one off because when you see football like that it’s great value for money!”
It was Weymouth’s second game in the space of three days and their second 5-0 victory having defeated Chesham United at the Meadow by the same score line on the Saturday.
Given the amount of football played over such a short period, Maitland was particularly impressed with the way which the Terras started the game on Monday.
“We started the game very well with a high tempo, something which we had spoken about with the players coming into last weekend. In both games I felt we had started a lot better than we had done in the previous games. It was important to get off to a good start and we certainly did that.
“The first goal in all games is important, but particularly in derby games and particularly if you’re the home team. It changes the impetus of the away team, they then had to come out and try and get something out of the game, but we just stepped up another gear and the second and third goals weren’t long in coming.”
Josh McQuoid caught the eye of both the sponsors and the fans as he won both sets of man of the match awards, an impressive performance which saw him open his Terras account in the first half before adding a second goal towards the end of the match.
“It was great to see Josh McQuoid get off the mark, I’m really pleased he won man of the match because I thought he was outstanding. It was a really good first half performance, we never took our foot off the gas apart from a 5 minute spell when we were 3-0 up, which was always going to happen.
“The second half become a bit of a non-event, it’s very hard when we’ve played on the Saturday away from home, with quite a reasonable amount of travelling, to expect the second half to match the first. Dorchester weren’t going to come back out and roll over, they had to play for their travelling support, they didn’t want to throw the towel in and credit to them for that because they didn’t.
“We dominated the game from start to finish, it was pleasing that Josh McQuoid got a second goal. I don’t think Dorchester can have many complaints about the score line.”
Weymouth’s next game in the Evo-Stik Southern Premier Division when they travel away to Farnborough on Saturday 1st September; they will return to the Bob Lucas Stadium the following week when on 8th September when they host Banbury United in the FA Cup.
