Mexborough & Swinton Times – Friday 04 November 1932
Mastery In The Mud
Star Turns By Siddall
Exhilarating Afternoon At Tickhill Square
Adams and Black Find Their Sea Legs
Denaby 4, Worksop 0
The change from light to heavy going on Saturday emphasised the power of the team Denaby have got together this season. Worksop, full of dash and go, and enjoying the superiority complex of an unbeaten side, were scientifically but firmly put in their place: a bad second to a side which used the heavy ball to demonstrate their craft and all-round strength. Worksop were out-stayed, out-generalled, out-placed and. though gallant to the end, out-played. Denaby changed gear in the last quarter hour and eased down the gruelling pace of an entertaining match—or, the score would never have stopped at four
Worksop proved a good side, direct in method and with a sound sense of ball distributioni and with weight and pace into the bargain. But it took King and company just ten minutes to weigh them up—ten minutes full of shocks and trepidation for Denaby followers, be it said: after that there was little real doubt about the issue. As Seth King became his usual dominant self in the middle of the field, the dangerous looking Moore who the Worksop attack steadily faded out. The Denaby halves got their customary grip on the game: a grip which became a stranglehold in the second half, when Worksop found the pace they themselves had set, too much for them.
The second half gave us Denaby’s best forward display of the season. This was largely accounted for by the fifty per cent. appreciation of the stock of Adams, and another notable improvement in the play of Black. Both made mudlarks look the jolliest game on earth and the attack had more punch consequence. Yet the outstanding player of the line was Siddall (picture). The slim but strong young right winger got fairly going in the second half and gave the smartest exhibition of wing play we have seen on local Midland League grounds since Jack Slicer showed his paces at Hampden Road. Without frills or over-exertion, Siddall got Curtis and Shenton floundering every time he took the ball through, and his centres were put across with the coolness that produces deadly accuracy.
One of these centres brought the best goal of the match, a real “picture goal,” the ball going into the net from Adams’s head as if centre and header had all been worked out on paper and there was no opposition. And one of the most thrilling memories of a match rich in incident is that of Siddall taking up one of Black’s most artistic passes, beating man after man with a coolness that made all look ridiculously simple , and deliberately working his way right in front of Hemstock. As it happened the ball hit Hemstock, so a glorious effort was not fittingly crowned with goal that would have been talked about in seasons to come. But it drew an ovation that was good to hear. We have had too much lukewarm “support” of local football in the last season or two. There is every justification for a revival of the old enthusiasm at Tickhill Square.
On the other wing Haggar, too had a good day He had his lion’s share of the limelight in the first half, when he defied the heavy handicap of size against him, as represented by the hefty Hunt and Jones, and was the veritable box of tricks with head and foot. The astonishing thing about this small but hardy winger is the way he beats a bigger fellow for the ball in the air.
Denaby are served by first-rate wingers: it remains for the inside trio to use the mind to develop their opportunism. They made a promising start on Saturday; for Walker, the worker, was no whit behind the others is effectiveness.
Matt. Taylor had a great day, too. His sudden dashes into an advancing forward line completely upset the Moore brigade again and again; and with Mountney doing some remarkable first-time kicking on the other side, Gale was well covered. He had a fair amount to do, nevertheless—Worksop were “no mugs at it”—and anyway, no goalkeeper can have a really easy time with a heavy ball shooting all over the place. Gale fielding was a model of sureness.
The game gave us some particularly good wing half play. We saw two exceptionally good right halves: exceptional, that is, in this grade of football. Barrow consistently maintains the form which, we have reiterated week after week, marks him a “coming” man. And for once he had a rival. The outstanding footballer on the Worksop side was Jones, another right-half with a future. He like Barrow, showed a determination whenever he got the ball to do something with it —and similar ability to carry out his determination. Smith was a grand worker, as usual. In the middle Seth King completed the best half-back line South Yorkshire Midland League football has produced—since the war at any rate.
It was King who first got the measure of Worksop’s tactics and dictated the appropriate counter-tactics; King, who, by judicious ball distribution, got his team running in their customary smooth combination; King who set his side on the way to victory with the first goal; King who saved the one shot that had Gale beaten; King who held the eye throughout, a general tactician and virile player yet. How much of Denaby’s success this season is due to the , club’s acquisition of a born captain who is still a grand player?
Worksop were well served by their backs, for they had a hard 90 minutes of it. The steadiness and experience of the veteran Hunt were invaluable, and Shenton did some good work against his old club. He had a thin time in the second half against Siddall, but he had some consolation in that he put in the best non-scoring shot of the game: a full-blooded long kick that shook the Denaby crossbar. The rest of the side were all hard workers and real triers—a good side no means disgraced by a four-goal margin. Higher reputations than theirs will fall at Tickhill Square this nelson. The play was always interesting even after Worksop had clearly shot their bolt. The first half went at a hot pace for such conditions, and the eager Worksop lot took a bit of holding. Denaby’s mastery in craft and ball control were self-evident, but the forwards, with all their cleverness, did not find a way through a stout defence till after KING had set the example with his free kick. ADAMS neatly turned the ball in for the second goal and Denaby retired in comfortable frame of mind with a lead that just about represented their superiority on the half.
After the interval Denaby dominated the game and only the conditions prevented their getting a lot of goals. BLACK snapped a chance from a rebound and ADAMS got that “star” goal of the game, but had the ball run true Hemstock must have picked the hall out of the net several more times. It was a game in which “class” told in defiance of the “cup tie tradition.” Given similar weather on cup tie days, there is no knowing where Denaby might finish up—perhaps even emulate that historic feat of Saturday’s opponents in happier days.