This 3-2 Verdict was Not One Of Denaby’s Best

Denaby United 3 King’s Lynn 2

Denaby United’s verdict over King’s Lynn at Tickhill Square on Saturday, was not one of their “finest hours”. It was a patchy, largely lethargic game, a state of affairs engineer perhaps by the warm sunshine of October’s little summer. The keener edge of United’s marksmanship earned them the point, but it was not until the second half that Kings Lynn came into the shooting game at all.

I counted three shots from visiting forwards in the first half – from Grant and Todd. Two of them only just came into the “shot” category and the other was very safely handled by young Smethhurst.

Lambert was twice unlucky with acrobatic hooks and Martin fairly raised a shimmering cloud of whitewash as he crashed the ball against the King’s Lynn post. Then again, Henderson all but turned the ball into his own net, so that by and large King’s Lynn were lucky to reach half-time only one goal down – scored by Lambert after one of his typical energetic drives after 26 minutes.

The second half got away to a lively enough start. Within four minutes Martin had scrambled the ball through in and all forward sorted, within 60 seconds the advantage of being wiped out, for Todd and Edwards between them took the ball downfield and when Smethurst raced out of goal in an attempt to kill the move, he lost the ball and Edwards had easiest job in the world to cross it into the empty space.

A Simple Task

for five minutes the old storming Denaby produced two smashing shots from Martin and Lambert, and it looked as though the siege was on, but as so often happens, Heagren got possession on the King’s Lynn left-wing and from well out he sent in a shot come centre. As the ball dipped dangerously into the goalmouth Smethurst leaped to fist it out, but alas for him, it fell at Edward’s feet and the King’s Lynn centre forward had a simple task. Now it was two all and the hunt was really on.

There were phases when King’s Lynn looks likely to snatch a winner and other phases when United gave that promise, and so it went to the final minute. Then Ron Duggan, on his way through, was unfairly tackled – a fate which has happened to him so often before this season. Bobby Southall, who is fast becoming United’s penalty king converted the award to make it 3-2.

Skipper Southall played a “blinder” on Saturday and it was good to see Hague and Egan after their injury absence. With Duggan back in the forward line there was a good deal more balance and Hague lent solidarity to the defence.