Bath City are back in the Blue Square South after a miserable season in which they never came out of the drop zone and never looked like beating the drop from January on. The Romans were hoping for another good and steady campaign after being the surprise package of the previous season when they were newcomers but a poor start of the season, winning just two points from the first nine games, seemed to suck all the confidence out of the players. They were playing decent passing football and were getting the better of some top teams but the chronic failure to turn chances into goals was costing them big time and they pretty early in the season were cut adrift at the bottom of the table, giving themselves a huge task for the rest of the season. Adie Britton was working hard to get the team going but they won just one of their first 23 games and really looked down and out by the midway point of the season. Hope was revived either side of the turn of the year when they lost just one of five games and moved within four points of safety. However, just when it looked like a strong second half of the season might get them out of trouble, hugely damaging defeats at Grimsby, by 6:0, and at home to direct rivals Alfreton, by 3:0, seemed to kill the belief in the players. They went on an awful run eight defeats in a row just when they needed points the most to cut the gap and all hope was lost by March. Eventually the relegation was confirmed before Easter but Bath still finished strong enough to finish second from bottom having propped up the table every week from August to April. Bath actually played decent football and are definitely not the second worst team in the league but they paid the heavy price of being ineffective and almost too nice to the opposition.
