South Yorkshire Times October 12, 1946

Denaby Scraped Through
Winner Two Minutes from Time

Denaby United. 2, Brodsworth 1

A goal by Eaglen with a couple of minutes to go scrape Denaby through this replay tie at Tickhill Square on Wednesday. “Scraped” is the word. Rarely have I see a ball fly about before a goalmouth as often as it did before the Brodsworth goal. Denaby’s forward play was astonishing poor and they will certainly have to pull out something better than this to go much further on the Wembley trek. After Saturday’s drawn game (1 – 1) at Brodsworth, it looked for all the world as though the first 90 minutes were going to produce a similar result.

There was no score in the first half. Then after 27 minutes into the second spell, one of Killourhy’s many delightful touches gave a perfectly placed ball to Robinson and a goal lead to Denaby. Eight minutes later Staton had equalised, in one of the few Brodsworth sorties that ever promised a goal. Millership, well down the field, tried to backheel the ball, missed it, and let in the whole swarm of Brodsworth forwards, and Urien, who had hardly handled the ball for these first 80 minutes was flat out when Statons shot crashed into the net.

The winner came indirectly from a freekick just outside the Brodsworth area. Jack Williams took the kick. It was cleared, but Denaby forced one of their several corners and Eaglen nipped into the clinch the issue.

It was a terribly poor game, enlivened by four sparkling performances, Jack Williams played the game of his life. His constructive play was accurate and calculated. His kicking clean, his clearances lovely to watch. Killourhy worked tremendously hard and undoubtedly made a difference to the forward line, but he was the only forward on Wednesday with a goal in his boots. He had a hand in both goals and literally made the first one. Madin, Denaby right back, also played a stormer. He was always there, and so often followed up a stroke of great defensive play to set the Denaby forward line moving on their interminable sorties for goal. Would that they might have been rounded off with goals! Hero of the match was H. Riley, Brodsworth’s remarkably agile goalkeeper. He saved shots with uncanny anticipation, and justly earned the roaring applause of the 1,370 dictators. Strangely, though Brodsworth’s raiding was spasmodic. They seemed, particularly in the first half, always the more likely to score. The defence positioned well, tackled well, but was much overworked.