Denaby were Admirable Mansfield Excelled

There was an encouragingly larger “gate” to see Denaby United’s Midland League match with Mansfield Town Reserves at Tickhill Square on Saturday and United’s 5-2 defeat would certainly do little to discourage the “occasionals.” In a nutshell—United were admirable—Mansfield were excellent.

One of the liveliest encounters Denaby and experience this season, it was a match in which the bold score – Denaby 2 Mansfield 5 – tells a very inadequate story. United’s performances this season have left a tremendous amount of leeway to be made up. They could that grounding giant strides on Saturday. The forward line Wombwell; there was coordination and there was the obvious will to shoot. That United were so often robbed by chance legs and bodies in an endless series of exciting goalmouth scramble just the luck of the game . It happened both with the club get their share of good and bad. I can remember at least half a dozen close range shot that would have registered on a luckier day, but we must not lose sight of the excellent work of the Mansfield defence. They largely held the key to Denaby’s defeat. The halfback line held a splendid mastery for 7/10 of the game and when this became too heavy, the Mansfield goalmouth was packed tight as a can of sardines.

The Denaby defence found a slacker rein – that was the other half of the story, for halfway through the first half was clearly apparent that Denaby would have their work cut out to hold this lively Mansfield forward line.

The Die was cast

They did so for 70 minutes then the die was cast. Swinscoe got a hat-trick and Emmonds emphasised the penetrative power of the line by scoring a second goal to supplement his equalising scored in the 54^th minute 54

The very nature of Mansfield rapid retaliation to Denaby’s successes flashed the red light.

There was a flying start to the possible ‘double’(Denaby beat Mansfield 3-2 in October) when Bobby Southall converted his fifth penalty this season in the fourth minute following an upending of Woodger. And immediately Mansfield swept into the Denaby goal area only to see Vaughan miss a rapid equaliser by shooting a yard wide across the United goalmouth. For a long time the scrambles came in the Denaby goalmouth but towards half-time Denaby shook of this persistent attention and a Woodger log hovoured tantalising over a mass of heads in the Mansfield goalmouth only to strike the post and to be scrambled, away for an unproductive corner.

And at half-time it was Denaby 1 Mansfield 0

Throughout the second half there was little to suggest that the final margin was going to be. Mansfield certainly locked like goalscorers but it was United who got the next one – via a well taken Egan shot.