Ten man Brakes out of cup

Leamington went down to a third home defeat at the New Windmill Ground when they went out of the Red Insure Cup 1-2 to Aresley Town, but it was an honourable defeat after they had played with ten men for most of the match and battled away for the tie. We had the company of the Aresley manager in the Sheepside for most of the match as he directed a string of expletives at his players.

Brakes had gone 1-0 ahead in the first minute after Storey had burst through in impressive fashion to put the ball in the net. However, playing towards the Harbury Lane end, Aresley then started to pile on the pressure with a succession of corners. The turning point in the match came after 14 minutes with the sending off of James Mace. He went in with a two footed tackle in the box and although the referee seemed to hesitate at first and might have gone for a yellow, he flourished the red card after five Aresley players had surrounded him. Aresley then converted from the spot to make it 1-1.

Brakes worked hard to contain the visitors for the rest of the half. Cooper had to make a good reaction save at short range. There was a blow when Owen went down and had to be helped off the pitch, we have enough injury problems with the crucial game at Gosport coming up. Batchelor came on in his place.

Naylor was brought on in place of Stefan Moore after the break. Aresley stepped up the pressure and Cooper had to make some good saves. We also created some good chances, one out of nothing when Stephan Morley put in a shot from near the half way line which their keeper had to tip over the bar. But the failure to take the chances from corners counted against us and on 74 minutes Aresley went ahead. In the meantime, the officious referee had booked Daly for dissent after he complained about the failure to give a penalty. The referee said it was a yard and a half outside the box, but some thought he needed to go to Specsavers.Hood got a yellow for a clash of heads.

We continued to battle away with Morley putting in another of his long range speculative efforts and there was a flurry of corners and free kicks in the closing minutes, but to no avail. It was a good, open game, relatively sparsely attended (the attendance was not announced). As the Sheepside wags said at the end, 'That's half of the double gone' and 'We won't be going to Wembley this year.' Now we can focus on the league and one good piece of news was that Hemel Hempstead went down 6-1 at St.Neots.