TYLER HARVEY was a Bath City player for 28 days – but they’ll be talking about the 20-year-old at Twerton Park for the next 28 years, and then some.
When Weston-super-Mare scored the opening goal in the 90th minute of an Easter Monday game, Bath were heading into the National League South relegation zone.
The referee signalled four minutes of time added on, and Weston’s celebrations took up at least 90 seconds of that.
From the kick-off, however, Bath went forward, won a corner and Harvey’s header was tipped over the bar by Kane Ingram. Great save, only Ingram isn’t a keeper, but a midfielder! He was sent off, and young Harvey stepped up to level the scores from the spot.
Manager Gary Owers takes it up: “Weston took the kick-off again, we won the ball back but conceded possession, so I turned round to the dugout and thought ‘That’s it, we’ll take a point’.”
But, within 17 seconds of Weston taking the kick-off, the ball found its way to Harvey, who was a couple of yards inside his own half by the centre spot.
He took one touch to cross halfway, looked up and pinged a beautiful right-footed shot from 45 yards that caught Weston keeper Luke Purnell off his line to dramatically earn Bath their first win in nine matches – and set them off on a run of five wins in their last seven that ultimately saw them finish 14th, six points above the drop.
“I turned round in time to see the ball going over the keeper’s head,” says Owers, who worked with Harvey in his previous job in Argyle’s youth set-up and then first team.
“I hadn’t seen what happened, but I knew there was only one player on that pitch capable of it. Pandemonium broke out and we’d turned it around, or Tyler had. He’s a great lad and a great talent.”
What became of the young man who saved their season? Well, he headed back to Home Park and he scored twice on the final day of the League Two campaign against Hartlepool to mark his 50th appearance for Argyle in style.
He’s now got a play-off final to look forward to as Plymouth try to win promotion to League One, and he told The NLP: “I really enjoyed my month at Bath. I’m glad I managed to get a few goals, including those two that proved very important.
“I’d seen the keeper off his line a lot during the game. A couple of times he’d been right out of his area to sweep up, so when I got the ball I knew we didn’t have long and thought I’d have a go. Luckily it went in!”
