Mexborough & Swinton Times – Saturday 05 April 1913
Mud-Larking at Denaby.
Denaby United 1 Scunthorpe United 3
Denaby United have had the Fiend’s own luck in the matter of weather for their home matches, and quite half their attractive fixtures have been ruined from this cause alone.
Quite a brisk and interesting game with Scunthorpe would doubtless have been seen had the conditions been at all reasonable on Saturday, but the match was played to a finish in a drenching rainstorm during which football was no more possible than it would have been in a dense fog or a first-class cyclone.
However, the players and officials stuck it with a persistency which did more honour to their hearts than their heads. The players themselves never once appealed to the referee against the conditions, and he, plucky man, ploughed away through the rain and the mire, hoping against hope for a break in the clouds and a breath of warm air.
The conditions were unendurable, and surely never has a match been played through at Denaby upon such terms. It was the weather that beat Denaby United, for Scunthorpe adapted themselves to it a good deal more handily, and while it demoralised the home team the visitors seemed to revel in it. The way in which the Ironworkers’ forwards managed to control the ball upon a perfect morass was wonderful. It was equilibristics and gymnastics of a very good order, but it was not football.
Scunthorpe’s Enthusiasm.
Scunthorpe United made a wretched opening of their first season, and for a long time appeared likely to have to contest with Denaby to get away from the bottom position, but latterly they have done quite well, especially in their away matches, two of which they have won and two they have drawn.
Indeed, since Christmas they have not looked back, and it must be said they have all the encouragement which an enthusiastic following can give them. For the Denaby game, which from their point of view could not have been a particularly attractive fixture, especially in view of the unpromising nature of the weather, they brought about a hundred supporters with them, and that hundred, installing themselves in the stand, made more row than I have heard from a Denaby crowd since Christmas Day.
They were full up to the throat with enthusiasm, and all through the game rent the saturated air with abjurations and hearty encouragements. The Scunthorpe team was representative, and with the exception of Bell, who appeared at centre-forward vice Cox, was the same as that which has pulled up so tremendously of late.
Bell was an emergency man, and at the same time he is one of the shining lights of the Scunthorpe team. It will be remembered that at Mexboro’ he and Walden (the old Denaby centre-forward), succeeded in swamping the Town, Bell scoring a couple of goals and Walden three, and all five came from brilliant breakaways.
Denaby’s Changes.
Bell was destined to perform brilliantly for Scunthorpe on Saturday, though his triumphs came rather late in the game, and for a long time his star was overcast, so that the entreaties of a stentorian voice from the stand to ring the “Bell, Tommy,” fell on deaf ears until the ends had been changed.
Among their hundred Scunthorpe brought with them a real live mascot, a swarthy dark-moustached gentleman full-equipped in a suit of the Scunthorpe colours, who watched the game from the Press stand to the accompaniment of a great but quiet eagerness, and a succession of cigars.
The Denaby team was somewhat about representative. Swinbourne was off with an injury sustained in the Goole match, and his place was filled by Williams, a reserve back, whose lean lanky form was very busily employed all the afternoon.
Rob Pattinson should have played at right-half, but he did not appear, and the evergreen Joe Nimrod turned out again, while Johnson was fitted into the centre-half berth. Raybould was back in centre, and Calladine and Prith were on the left wing. Tim Peters was also out of the team through injury.
Denaby’s Only Goal.
While decent football was yet possible, Denaby had rather the better of matters, and after Heath had escaped from a hot run and centre by H. P. Roberts, the ex-Leeds City man, now operating at outside-right for Scunthorpe, the Denaby forwards made things particularly warm for Wogan.
Calladine and Blackburn were particularly prominent, and on one occasion the former got going with a nice header, which brought the whole front line swarming round the Scunthorpe goal for A. Roberts to make a very weak attempt at a clearance, which resulted in a corner.
Denaby failed to utilise the advantage immediately, but their only goal of the match was not long in coming, and it was Calladine’s almost sole individual effort which brought it about, for he forced another corner from Roberts, and his flag-kick, soaring high and swerving a lot, utterly deceived Wogan, who fumbled it through himself without another head getting near it.
The Scunthorpe goal had had a very narrow escape just prior to that, when Blackburn was let in by Calladine and attempted to shoot almost at the foot of the post, being chopped just in time by Roberts and Wogan, who cornered him hopelessly.
Exciting Exchanges.
The other Roberts was again conspicuous with a good run and shot, which Heath dealt with comfortably, however, as he also did with a centre from Pearce, and with Denaby once more attacking, it looked as if the home United had laid the foundation of a comfortable victory.
Then, however, came the rain in torrents, and soon the plight of players and officials became pitiable. However, they stuck it gamely, although the weather was so bad that the whole attendance—a few hundreds, still remaining without the stand—were admitted to shelter free.
Scunthorpe were not conspicuous in attack until towards the close of the first half, and even then were not convincing in front of goal, though Heath had a pretty anxious time of it.
Scunthorpe certainly should have been placed level when Splevins flashed out of the ruck, and with only the goalkeeper to beat shot high and hard over the bar. The shortcoming was the more surprising in that Splevins is the crack shot of the Scunthorpe team.
Then followed a very exciting rally in front of the Denaby goal, when Bell, Walden, and Pearce all had shots at close range in one movement. Heath saved finely from the first two, but the latter hit the crossbar as the Denaby goalkeeper was beaten to the world.
Pearce had experienced similar misfortune a little earlier with a shot which hit the foot of the post, with Heath in a hopeless tangle.
A Welcome Breather.
Never was a breather more welcome when the referee blew the whistle for the interval, and the wretched bedraggled players trooped off for a bath and a change.
Walden alone was the dapper immaculate self, and all through the terrible mud-larking which ensued, the clay never got any higher than his knickers, while his hair remained in sleek smooth serenity to the last wisp. That was probably why comparatively little was seen of him, and he certainly failed to reproduce anything like the dash which gained for him his hat-trick at Mexboro’.
When the players re-appeared they hesitated awhile in the stand, and then taking the lead of the referee, who plunged boldly on to the field of play, they marched up for the centre kick, and worried through a gruelling half.
In the second half Denaby died away almost to nothing. There were one or two brilliant flashes from Blackburn at the outset, but the weather conditions beat Denaby altogether, and there was only one team in it.
The equalising goal came after about three minutes of the second half. Pearce opened out the work for the point, and it was Splevins who put Bell in the way of a brilliant shot, which beat Heath to the world.
The second goal was not long in coming, and this time the centre which gave Bell his opening came from the right. Then there was a lull, and Denaby struggled desperately to regain their lost advantage.
They were helped materially by a bad decision of the referee, taken after consultation with the linesman, who ruled against an apparently good goal by Splevins, one of the best efforts of the afternoon.
Scunthorpe felt the set-back a good deal, and were further incensed against the referee when he pulled up Bell, who got away in his own half with a wonderfully clever flick of the ball, and had the whole field to work in when the whistle blew.
However, this couple of decisions did not affect the issue materially, for shortly after Bell dashed right through and completed his hat-trick as well as the scoring for the day.
Why Scunthorpe Won.
I fancy the game was closed a minute short of the proper time, but nobody was likely to grumble at that, for players and crowd alike were heartily sick of the miserable conditions and the scrappy encounter.
The scene in the last quarter of an hour was remarkable. Every time the ball touched ground it raised a dull yellow splash and shot forward like a cricket ball, while the area in front of the Scunthorpe goal was a nasty clayey bog, in which Burkill and Roberts moved about painfully all the time, never resting for a moment for fear of becoming rooted.
There is something radically wrong with the drainage of this new ground when such a condition of things is produced by less than an hour of even heavy rain. I think it will be admitted that it was too hastily constructed and laid, and that another season should have been taken over the work.
The Denaby team played fairly good football while good football was practicable, but came very badly out of the mud-larking, and failed entirely to reproduce the form they served up against Notts County Reserve in similar conditions earlier in the season. They had no command of the ball at all, and the only reasonable opening they secured in the second half saw Blackburn clip and boulder with the goal at his mercy.
This defeat should not discredit Denaby materially, for it was possible for anything to happen in the conditions. It would have been a good, even battle, granted fair weather, but in the circumstances Scunthorpe deserved their victory.