Mexborough & Swinton Times – Saturday 22 March 1913
Denaby Beaten at Home
Denaby United 0 Sheffield Uniited Reserves 3
There was very little enthusiasm at Denaby over the visit of United Reserve. This used to be one of the matches of the season, but times have sadly altered since that burning hot September day four or five seasons ago, when three thousand people assembled to watch a fiercely-contested game, resulting in a victory for Denaby by four goals to one.
During that game we had the almost unprecedented spectacle of buckets of water arrayed along the touchline with lemons floating in them. Both the weather and the enthusiasm of the crowd has cooled since then.
On Saturday Denaby undid their previous Saturday’s good performance against Halifax by losing three goals to none. As a matter-of-fact they were rather the best team on the day’s play, but United accepted their chances and Denaby didn’t. That has been the secret of Denaby’s failure all through the season. They were decisively beaten by Doncaster Rovers on their own ground a few weeks ago, after holding all the best of the exchanges.
Sheffield United played disappointing football. They never really settled down to the game, and, as a matter-of-fact, all their three goals came in the last few minutes of play, all being very smartly negotiated by Moberley. The other goal was scored fairly early in the game by Leafe.
Although the high wind which prevailed throughout the game was not conducive to good, well-calculated football, neither team played up to Midland League standard for any consecutive ten minutes throughout the contest. Denaby played their usual plucky, dogged game, but they always died away to nothing when they got near goal.
Wasted Chances
The visitors, too, wasted chances which they might have materialised had they combined as Sheffield teams usually do combine, and, on the whole, Denaby did not do badly to keep the score down to a goal in the first half.
Inwood, they went near to equalising, when Mitchell had to save in a hurry from Jack Westwood.
When Denaby Shone
All Denaby’s best play was seen in the second half, when the two extreme wingers, Calladine and Blackburn, put a lot of ginger into their work, and shot hard and often. But it was all to no purpose—the inside men were as weak as water, and Raybould was a dead failure in the centre.
They experienced the same difficulty with the wind, which rather accentuated it if anything, but under the circumstances some of Blackburn’s shots were wonderful. It must be said that they tried very hard, and the spirit was willing but the flesh was weak. But they were at length dispirited by their continued non-success, and in a weak moment they let in Moberley, who scored a couple of goals right on the close of the game, and so gave the United a fictitious superiority, which was not borne out in fact.
Sheffield played a poor game, and were never worth a 3-0 victory. Had they succeeded in taking a point they would have been amply satisfied. This defeat places Denaby in a perilous position at the foot of the table, and, with Scunthorpe securing a clever victory at the expense of Lincoln on Saturday, it seems inevitable that the local colliery team will earn the wooden-spoon for the second year in succession, leaving behind them a very poor impression.