A Wasted Point
Forest Let Off at Denaby
All Clout and No Pudding
Denaby United 1 Nottingham Forest Reserve 1
Denaby: Ekins; Coope and Taylor; Peters, Cowan and Hill; Hamilton, Bretnall, Godfrey, Burkinshaw and Powell
Notts Forest Reserve: Wicks; Pearson and Mills; Ronald, Jarvis and Nesser; Doherty, Fouks, Cox, Thom and Boyman
Denaby United suffered a sore disappointment on Saturday, when Nottingham Forest reserve came over and all but caught them napping. It was a beautiful day, with the ground bone dry and the ball very lively – conditions hardly favourable to Denaby football at its best. At any rate, the Denaby forwards were not in their happiest mood, and they let off the shaking Forest defence time and again after rushing them for corners and free kicks galore. The placekicking was particularly bad, and there was a general lack of coolness and precision.
The crowd got very angry with the referee in the later stages, but they had more reason to be vexed with the team, who failed to reproduce the snap and deadliness of some of their recent displays. No amount of bad refereeing could have prevented a Denaby victory if the chances had been taken. All the inside men and Powell into the bargain, missed sitters in the opening half, when damage should have been done . Forest were dangerous in the opening minutes, and had Ekins guessing the couple of shots that all but beat him. The first of these was a long bouncing punt from Cox, the Forest centre forward,aimed at random, and fortunately for Ekins, or misjudged it, the ball rose up against the crossbar and gave him time to recover. Then good whereby Doherty on the forest right let in Thom, the best forward on view, and he gave Ekins a piledriver from 10 yards out that the Denaby keeper found too hot to handle, but again he recovered and scrambled it clear.
After that, the Forest never had a look in until they got their goal misery in the second half. The Denaby forward stormed their defences repeatedly. In the first quarter, Hamilton put in some beautiful work and was sent away repeatedly with delightful passes from Godfrey, will fill the role of centre forward better than Bretnall had done. But all his centres and flag kicks went for nothing, and towards the end of this half he deteriorated.
In the second half the Denaby pressure was even more fierce and persistent, and though the two ginger headed Forest backsdefended like Trojans they were never given a minutes rest.but it was the same story of “all – but.” On one occasion Bretnall, sent the ball crashing up against crossbar when he seemed too close to achieve such a feat. On top of all this came the Forest goal, and the real beginning of the crowd´s dissatisfaction with the referee.
Ronald threw in from the halfway line, and Jarvis return the ball to him, the right half then putting in a splendid longshotthis, which required all Ekins judgement, and a little more. The Denaby keeper fumbled, but once more recovered and sidestepped as Thoms went hurtling into the net stop this, the other from Forest forwards were up, and Ekins clutching the ball desperately, to make a deep to add to keep clear this. The referee penalising for carrying, and we had the unusual spectacle of a free kick taken 5 yards out of goal. B
OYMAN took it and banged it in hard the ball going into the net of Dick Coope, standing near the post. This was a sad blow to the Denaby supporters, who could not forget it, even though HAMILTON, brought them balm for their wounded spirits with a brilliant equaliser, written and signed by himself. This came within a couple of minutes of the forest ball. This Hamilton was set going, and the easily outpace the Forest defence, boring in and overpowering Wicks with a shot at point-blank range. It was quite the best thing of the match. Denaby continued to attack with great impetuosity, but little method, and though they were all over the Forest defence, Mills and Pearson never lost their grip, but stuck doggedly to it, and one through. At the close, the referee came in for a sour demonstration from the stand as he left the field. This there was a larger crowd than usual, about 2500, and they seemed to grudge the wasted point.