Sittingbourne hasn't been in the news too much since Henry V stopped off for food on his way back from The Battle of Agincourt but history was made there yesterday so the week's round-up of our loaned out players is obliged to start nowhere else. After a 9-3 defeat at Hungerford last weekend, Plymouth Parkway were beaten again, 3-1 by Poole, in midweek so confidence can't have been high as they took on the 450 mile round trip to Kent in their bid to reach the fourth qualifying round of the FA Cup for the first time in the club's history. Our 18-year old keeper, Ewan Griffiths, made a crucial save at 2-0 up as Sittingbourne threatened to get back into the game and Parkway went on to win 3-0. They're now only one win away from the first round proper and three away from being in the draw with big hitters like us.
Elsewhere, Malachi Fagan-Walcott continues his serene progress at York as a 0-0 draw with Eastleigh makes it four clean sheets in a row for him. I'm not sure why he wasn't given the kind of first team chances here that other young players were in the cups last season. Having dispelled any fitness issues during his loan spell at Dunfermline last season I wondered if the issue was an error-prone casualness that ball-playing centre-halves can often have but York have only let in one goal in the six games he's played so far so if he is making mistakes then they're not getting punished. Two more 8/10 performances from him this week, he's been very consistent so far.
While York played against City old boys Sam Bowen and Lloyd Humphries (who joined Eastleigh from Weston in the summer) this week, Raheem Conte trumped that by coming up against Steve Morison yesterday for Woking. Morison's Sutton side won 2-1 with Conte coming on as a half time sub. Woking play York next Saturday in a game that's being called El Loanico by a number of people (one is a number). The game has been moved to 5.30 for tv, naturally.
Conte's wasn't the only sub appearance yesterday as Ryan Wintle at Millwall, Josh Beecher at Barry and Eli King at Stevenage all came on in the second half for their sides. King seems to have been a casualty of Stevenage's defeat at Exeter last week and failed to get on at Wigan in the week before getting only four minutes yesterday. Plenty of time to establish himself there yet though.
Mixed fortunes for the players who did start yesterday. Luke Pearce made an impression as Sligo drew 0-0 at leaders Shelbourne, whose keeper made outstanding saves from both Pearce and Ollie Denham. Cheltenham were booed off as they lost 2-0 at home to Fleetwood, ninety minutes for Joel Colwill but a pretty miserable afternoon all round by the sound of it. Some injury problems there which didn't help, including one to another City old boy, Ibrahim Bakare, who was with our u-21s a couple of years ago.
A better day for Newport after a tough September as they beat Crewe 2-1. Kieron Evans had a lively 90 minutes on the right side of midfield. No goal involvements for our loaned out players this weekend as far as I'm aware but Roko Simic has the chance to put that right as Kortrijk play Union Saint-Gilloise this afternoon.