Mexborough & Swinton Times – Saturday 05 November 1910
Barnsley at Denaby
Denaby United 2 Barnsley Reserve 1
The match at Denaby on Saturday was played in an atmosphere of deadly dullness, which ill assorted with the attractiveness of the visitors.
Denaby United and Barnsley Reserve are old rivals, and of course to respect each other. Denaby’s excellent English Cup prospects seem to revive interest in the club and there would be perhaps 1200 people on the ground.
Denaby put in their English Cup side with the one alteration, Dean dropped out of the inside left position and Johnny Tyas, a Mexborough youth, who has played a lot of junior football, and was last with the local P.M., was drafted in as an experiment. So that the team read:
Shepard; Jackson and Gregory; Jack Westwood, Dyer and Joe Westwood; Lang, Dyal, Jones, Tyas and Thackrah.
There were several old faces among the visitors, including Cooper, Little, Brackley, Biggins, Birtles, Alec Helliwell and Arthurs. Jebb, who has been understudying Tommy Boyle, appeared on the left-wing.
Bad Decisions
The game was spoiled by bad refereeing largely, and Barnsley had reason to be dissatisfied with several bad decisions. The game ran in strata’s. Denaby opened out well, but Barnsley got the upper hand for a long stretch in both the first and the second halves.
It was an evenly contested, average game, with neither side doing anything particularly clever. In actual points Barns assured, I think, one, whereas they are the worst of it by the odd one in three
Their goal fell to bad goalkeeping, and again to a bad stroke of luck. Only one good goal was scored all the afternoon, and that was disallowed on account of offside. That was one of the decisions about which the Barnsley people complained; and had the Barnsley team been as strongly supported in the ranks of the spectators as they were at Wath last year in the memorable Challenge Cup final, I am were we should have seen trouble.
Cooper’s Mistake.
Denaby led off well, and defended the Colliery end. Their goal was the result of a bad mistake by Cooper. Denaby had forced a corner on the right, and Lang sent in a gem of a flag kick. Cooper got to it, and instead of tipping it over the bar he tried to get it away direct. As a result he knocked it down to the ready foot of Teddy Dyal. It went back like a flash. Of course we are all wise after the event, but the mistake was very palpable.
It was alter that reverse that Barnsley began to dig into their work. and in one take movement on the right Alec Helliwell drove the ball against one of the defender’s arms, and appealed for a penalty. Of because, the referee ignored that, but in the next movement Barnsley got a good goal. Birtles sent the ball in almost from the flag kick, and the visitors’ centre, running forward, lunged it into the net. But it was no go. The referee was not smiling on Barnsley that day. In a further movement, Arthurs ran round Jackson and “netted” the ball. As a matter of fact, it went through the side net, so all was well with Denaby.
Then Denaby got their second goal in equally curious fashion. Jones slung the ball out to the right wing, where Lang took it along and sent in a nice centre. Bratley darted in to thwart the waiting Dyal, and the ball shot down off his head into the net, too low for Cooper to reach. It, would have been a lovely goal if it had been sand by an opposing forward. As it was, it was a stroke of rank bad look for Barnsley. Of course, if Bratley hail not intervened Dyal would have had a sporting chance of a goal, but “there’s many a slip.” etc.
Barnsley’s Goal
Denaby crossed over a couple of goals up, but they had scarcely been value for such a lead so far, and Barnsley early in the second half showed – that they had not been got rid of yet. Birtles, who had been doing a lot of work in the first half. was well held this time; but he was going away nicely once when Joe Westwood knocked the ball down with his hand in the penalty area, and Denaby ought certainly to been suffered for that. But the referee let the game go on, and Barnsley settling down to the inevitable, made no shout about it.
They got their goal as result of a lovely centre from Arthurs, which flashed past the first post, and glanced of Shepherd’s arm. The game deteriorated a lot after this and Denaby again assumed control, and were having all the best of it at the call of time.