My Bath.....

I was asked (in fact I may have even have done the asking!) to do the 'My Bath' section of the Bath Chronicle in my final edition (May 31).And here is a slightly extended version of what I did ....

Editor Sam Holliday – who leaves his role on Friday after six and a half years – answers the questions in our My Bath feature, in conjunction with Bath Tourism Plus






What’s your favourite part of Bath?

I guess it is something of a cop-out but I love the whole city and I find its sheer diversity to be its most enjoyable feature. Of course I love the traditional attractions – and how good does the Roman Baths look at the moment for example? – but Bath has just got so much more to offer and even after six years or so, I’m still discovering new streets, new sights and new sensations.

Where is the best place to eat?

When I first arrived here someone told me you could eat somewhere different in the Bath area every day of the year. Sadly I’ve not been able to test that theory but I don’t think I’ve ever had a bad meal in all the time I’ve been here. I have a particular fondness for The Firehouse and for a quick and tasty Thai meal, you can’t beat the Yum Yum Thai. But frankly if you can't find something to suit your taste you simply aren't trying.... 

What’s the best view in the city?

A tricky one this but I would have to go with the incredible view from Alexandra Park. Up there you get to see the whole city in all its complexity and variety and I particularly enjoyed popping up there during the rebuilding work on SouthGate to get a great overview of the development and how it affected the surrounding area.

What would your perfect day in Bath entail?

A lie -in (yey!), a nice potter around the city centre, a relaxed meal, a trip to somewhere sporty (Twerton Park or The Rec) and then a night at the theatre or even better, at the Little Theatre which I believe to be the best cinema in the world. Food, drink, sport and a film – what more could you ask for?

Where would you meet friends for a drink?

I don’t have a particular favourite because half the fun of Bath is finding new places to relax and take in the city and its people. As I am usually driving so much I rarely get the chance to have a ‘proper’ drink, but if I do then a pint of Gem, by our very own Bath Ales, takes some beating.

What’s your favourite shop?

I think one of the reasons Bath is so successful as a retail destination is because it combines the big shops we all know and love with lots of small quirky independent shops where you think you are buying things that can be sold nowhere else on earth. And as a big book reader, I’m just so thrilled that this city has so many cracking book shops – long may that continue.

What one thing about Bath would you change?

I know it’s a cliché (but hey I’m a journalist!) but the traffic, particularly at rush hour can be a drag. However, as this is such a beautiful city if you’re going to get stuck in a car staring at buildings, you might as well get stuck in Bath…

Bath City's relegation and sport - it's the hope that kills you

One of the many wonderful things about sport is the collective sense of hope that occurs seconds before the first ball is kicked, thrown or batted away at the start of a season.


Thus, at a couple of minutes before 3pm on a Saturday afternoon in August, football supporters who follow teams from Clevedon United to Manchester United all secretly thought “this is going to be our season”. Within maybe a few minutes some may have doubted that thought, but for that glorious moment before it all kicks off, everybody can see only glory.

That is how Bath City’s loyal supporters may well have felt as their team lined up on August 13 at Mansfield Town where they went on to pick up a creditable draw to start the season in style. The team had gone into the campaign on the back of a superb top ten finish in their first foray into the Blue Square Premier League and with a new, enthusiastic chair(wo)man on board, hopes were high on and off the field for a season to remember.

Well, it has certainly been that – but sadly for all the wrong reasons.

For last Tuesday night, City became the first club in the top five divisions of the English game to be relegated. Cast adrift at the bottom of the table they didn’t even have the opportunity to influence their own fate as it was decided by a result elsewhere which left the club down and indeed out of a league they seemed so at ease in 12 months ago.

It is hard to take much comfort from the season that has passed and to those loyal Bath City fans – and we should never under-estimate how loyal so many of them are even when the club has performed so consistently poorly on the pitch – this will be a very tough period indeed. To be looking down the barrel of relegation before you’ve even had the chance to open an Easter egg just doesn’t seem right.

But, in this gloomiest of weeks for local football fans, I want to try and stay positive. The second season after promotion is always notoriously difficult – it is sport’s equivalent of the second album syndrome – and City week in, week out were competing against teams with bigger squads, bigger budgets and bigger crowds. The fact that they did so spectacularly well last year seems even more remarkable now and I hope the club and their fans will remember that. And, once they have licked their open wounds in the coming weeks, I hope they will start to think afresh about next year when they will be in a league where they will go from being the underdogs to being among the top dogs again and the winning habit will return.

I watched City myself last Friday night as I returned to my hometown Tamworth to watch the fixture between my two favourite non-league teams and it was great to see City perform so doggedly there and claim an unexpected victory.  I hope for the rest of the season they will exhibit a pride and even maybe a sense of freedom now their inevitable (?) fate has been sealed.

Bath City are a great club and an important part of the local community. I sincerely hope that they will regroup in the summer and come back stronger, fitter and more determined when the 2012/13 campaign begins. Oh, and there is one thing we can all do to help as well. If more of us watch this team more often then it will have more resources to be able to ensure that horrendous seasons such as the one they are currently living in are very much the exception not the norm.


Bath needs a strong football club – but it also needs us as a city to invest in that to make it happen.

How I faced the Tebbit test when Bath faced Tamworth

On Saturday, in Bath, I was asked by two different people, if I was struggling with the ‘Tebbit test’.

For those who don’t remember, former Tory hard-liner Norman Tebbit said that all those people who move to a new country should, in effect, support their adopted home in sporting terms as a sign of commitment to their host nation.

I always thought that this was hokum as I have friends and relatives in countries such as Australia and America who love their new abodes but are still fiercely pro-British. And so if they are allowed to ‘fail’ the test why can’t those people coming into the UK?

However, the question of split loyalties was what I still faced in a sporting sense on Saturday when the wonders of football saw me attend a match featuring the team of my adopted community, Bath City, against the team from my home town who I have followed for decades – Tamworth FC.

It has been said that men are more likely to change their wives than their football teams but I’ve always believed that when you arrive in a new area you should at least try and support the local clubs – without, crucially, abandoning your original ones.

It meant that on arriving here I immediately became a Bath Rugby follower (although that is easy as I didn’t have a rugby club before) and I duly adopted Bath City as my local football team.

But, on Saturday, as Bath ran out against Tamworth, I realised that you can’t change your heart and although I stayed as neutral as possible throughout and cheered chances at both ends, I knew that ultimately you can’t ever leave your true sporting love.

What I also realised – as I’ve always passionately believed – is that football at non-league level really is a joy and I thoroughly enjoyed my time at Twerton Park as much for the camaraderie and fun amongst both sets of supporters as for the action on the pitch.

As someone who began his association with non-league football by selling programmes at Tamworth FC’s ground and then spending more than a decade reporting both home and away on the club for my old local paper, I had the pleasure of travelling all around the country and meeting so many people whose main passion for their home town was manifested in their local football team.

The grounds weren’t always beautiful (and the football certainly wasn’t) but there is a real spirit about grassroots sport that makes all the shenanigans of the multi-millionaires in the Premiership seem like a different, and far less pleasant, world.

So, my overriding thoughts about Saturday’s game were all positive. I realised how much I liked and admired Bath City and their fans and I realised again that, once the seed of love for a team is planted inside you, that love never dies. As the chant goes Tamworth FC 'I'll love you til I die...'

You’ll notice, incidentally, that I haven’t mentioned the score of Saturday’s game and that is because I genuinely think I was the only person in the ground who didn’t care who won. Put simply, I just didn’t want either side to lose.

So did I fail the Tebbit test? Possibly.

But did I remember again how much I love non-league football? Definitely.