South Yorkshire Times, September 5.
Denaby’s fifth defeat.
Denaby United 1 Lockheed Leamington 2
Although Denaby went down to their fifth successive defeat of the season on Monday night, they came so close to pulling off a draw, but as before they left their efforts too late in the day for it to be really effective.
They started slowly, and didn’t themselves any by the bad habits of the defence dropping back, almost in line (not the thin red line of last season, but nevertheless a line) in the face of an attack. One missed tackle or one man able to take the ball through on his own and the defence is in pieces and there isn’t a hope – if that’s the intention – of catching the opposing forwards offside.
Locke each strength was in a fluid halfback line, always ready to move up with the forwards, unable to switch defence to attack with a couple of passes.
Twice within a few minutes midway through the first of Lockwood could almost take the lead headers hitting the post and the bar.
Denaby retaliated, Foster, ending a long drawn in from the right wing with a shot which Thomson do well to get a hand up and put away for a corner. Thomson pulled a shot from Cox out of there. Soon afterwards, and when a corner from Belle completely beat the goalkeeper, have his diving header went just wide of the post.
But Denaby relaxed their pressure and a couple of minutes before the interval Lockheed went ahead, an end to end move sending Connelly away on his own to whip the ball past Staslukiewicz into the corner of the net.
‘Stats’ risked life and limb more than once early in the second half to pull the ball of the goalmouth scrambles, but in the 62nd minute he had no chance with a shot from Ward, who was able to breakthrough when the defence couldn’t get back fast enough to cut off the attack.
For the second time Denaby put the pressure on, and a couple of shots from Cox came near to show results, one scraping past the post, and the second speeding across the line, needing only a touch that didn’t come to put it in.
It was Cox, who gave Kelly the pass which brought Denaby goal in the 79th minute, the right winger cutting in to hit the ball over Thomson into the top of the net.
The equaliser almost came when Harvey got his head to a freekick from Newey and flicked it onto the bar. It bounced onto the line and came out.
This was probably Denaby’s best display so far, but they still need to be faster in moving the ball, although it is no good criticising players for holding it when there’s no one in support to pass to.
Team: Staslukiewicz 8 ; Wroe 7, New 7; Roberts 6, Bentley 6, Harvey 7; Kelly 6, Foster 6, Bell 6, Woodyer 6, Cox 7