Saturday 29 March 2003 - Twerton Park - kick off 3.00pm Dr Martens Premier Division

After Tuesday's defeat against another relegation threatened side Weymouth, City boss Alan Pridham promised changes and he was true to his word. Alongside the one enforced change of Iain Harvey replacing the injured Mike Trought, top scorer Jason Eaton, Jamie Gosling and Stuart James were all dropped to the bench. Steve Tweddle, Drew Shore and Frankie Bennett were the beneficiaries of these changes. Against a side so poor away from home as Ilkeston, City would have been looking to put them under early pressure. And for about 60 seconds this plan worked perfectly. The visitors then won their one and only corner of the game and scored from it. Hemming's centre looked destined for Ellis Glassup only for Harvey to weakly head it almost out of the keepers grasp. The ball was headed back into the danger area by Woolley and an unmarked Kelly prodded home from five yards out. In their last three or four outings City had started slowly but this was a worse start than they could have dreamed possible. Andy Williams' last ditch tackle on the goalscorer prevented it getting even worse on nine minutes and Robinson fired high over Glassup's bar five minutes later. A scuffed Dave Toomey shot from Shore's low driven corner on 16 minutes was City's first sight of Ilson's goal and the same player shot narrowly over on 24 minutes. Inbetween Tweddle was forced from the action due to illness to be replaced by Dan Cleverley. After 26 minutes a bad situation for City nearly got much worse. O'Connor burst through City's statue-like defence before squaring the ball to Kelly. The striker was five yards out from an unguarded goal but somehow contrived to blast a shot against the bar. This understandably seemed to knock the stuffing out of Town but with City still struggling to string three passess together they couldn't take advantage and the rest of the half passed in a blur of non-events.

It had to get better for City in the second period and thankfully it did (a bit). Bennett shot just wide of the far post and Shore forced the first save out of Love with a weak (but on target) effort. The tide was slowly turning in City's favour but with Bennett and Williams both struggling to overcome the poor quality of the pitch it was unclear how they were going to find a way back into the game. Their cause was given a boost just before the hour mark. Kelly, who had been involved in several minor incidents with Bennett in the first half, inexplicably floored Jim Rollo with an elbow whilst challenging for a throw-in. The referee had been reluctant to use his cards up to that point but had no option other than to reach for red and send Kelly off. Possession wise it was now all City but time and time again they wasted this advantage. Eaton replaced Toomey after 73 minutes and two minutes later City finally levelled. Another Williams run ended with him losing control as the ball bobbled on the bumpy pitch, however it also defeated defender Coates and sliced off his shin into the path of Cleverley. As if he couldn't believe his luck the substitute cracked it first time past Love from ten yards out. Suddenly City were in with a chance of grabbing a victory that had looked beyond them. Rollo fired a dipping 25-yard volley straight at Love before with a minute remaining Cleverley should have struck again. Love failed to collect a cross under pressure from Paul Milsom and the ball again dropped kindly to Cleverley. The goal was gaping but he could only lift a shot that clipped the top of the bar. This would have been harsh on the Derbyshire side and more than City deserved from a game in which it was impossible to tell which side will almost certainly be playing lower league football next season.