Mexborough and Swinton Times January 10, 1936

Sheffield Senior Cup
Tame Dual
Guest puts Denaby through
Missed Chances

Denaby 2 Thurnscoe Vics 0

there was little glory in Denaby’s victory on Saturday. Plano day that was ideal for football with sides that were comparatively even Matt (the cream of the Denaby team being off through injury) one expected a real cup tie tussle.

Instead the football was to say the least of it, tame. There were times when the amount of fumbling by the forwards in front of goal became monotonous

there were several changes in the Denaby side. Secretary manager Matt Taylor turned out at left back in place of Leek to shows that his period on the touchline has not robbed him of one of the finest clearance kicks of Midland league football. Sykes was moved to centre forward was replaced at centre half by young, a tall halfback who has been impressing with Mazzarella’s in the Doncaster Thursday League. Another interesting junior on trial was E Smith who replaced Fleetwood.

Stemming the Tide

In spite of the fact that Sykes won the toss and give Denaby the advantage of a brilliant sun and fairly strong wind, the early pressure came entirely from the Vics. Almost from the kick-off Mace put the ball out to Highland, who made a good run down the wing before putting the ball over to Plant. The inside right turn the ball well with his head Earnshaw was sighted and cleared cleanly. It appeared only a matter of time before the Vics scored. Time and again this swept down the field, only for the movement to fade out in front of the goal. About 20 minutes from the start the Vics were unfortunate to lose Goulding, their centre forward who hurt his arm when he collided with Earnshaw in the Denaby goalmouth. He was attended by Dr McArthur was off for a quarter of an hour. This appeared to take the bite out of the Thurnscoe attack and Denaby began to tighten their grip on the game. Young, were not impressed in defence, opened up the attack fairly frequently. Smith was played soundly at left off. On one occasion he worked the ball forward nicely and then put guest in possession with a well-placed pass. Taylor put over a good centre but Sykes fumbled the shot.

A Veterans Part

Sykes was not happy as leader of the attack. His size appeared to be all against him when he was in front of goal. It seemed to hamper him prevented him from shooting quickly and accurately. There were occasions on Saturday when a sharpshooting centre forward might have snapped goals for Denaby. On the other hand, I was convinced that on this showing Sykes was a much better centre half than Young. Sykes always gives a feeling of security that was lacking on Saturday stop the best on the field before the interval was veteran Sid Mace, the Vics centre half. He did great work both in attack and defence.

In the second half Denaby were definitely superior. Their mistakes in front of goal were hardly less numerous, but it feel that almost complete mastery. Beadman came more into the picture and for the first time in the match Fearnley got a fair share of the passes. Guest scored the first goal after 10 minutes. He sent in a hard drive through a bunch of players after the ball been bouncing about within 10 yards of the Thurnscoe goal for some time, with none of the Denaby forwards able to send in a scoring shot, and completed the scoring 20 minutes later with a good shot from a difficult angle which gave Rose no chance. As before it was a lone effort and Guest had to pass Bennison and Chappell before he was within shooting distance.