Leamington beat Bradford Park Avenue 2-1 at the Phillips 66 Community Stadium this afternoon to move to fourth from bottom in the table. They gave away an easy early goal from a corner, but then Dunbar caught the keeper out of his goal and made no mistake in getting past him for the equaliser. It was 1-1 at half time and the match could have gone either way, but two substitutes provided decisive. Clever work in the box by Kurtis Revan set up Ahmed Obeng to make it 2-1.
It was a balmy early autumn afternoon, but the early setback with the visitors given a free header by calamity defending caused gloom among Leamington supporters. However, as the Bloke Beside Me pointed out, it could be a blessing in disguise as it stopped us being defensive.
There were too many hopeless balls being punted forward to no one in particular when short passes on the ground were needed. The visitors were getting a lot of corners. Hood put in some good defensive work, his headers stopping potential danger. Bradford's No.11 was booked for kicking the ball away, but continued to protest and seemed to blame the lino who had not touched the ball. It was quite a physical encounter.
Leamington applied pressure in the second half, but could not find the back of the net. Breeden had to make more than one excellent save. On one occasion Hood and English let their centre forward through on goal. Joe Magunda, who put in a fighting performance, got booked for a bit of afters. Many of us thought that the Bradford player should have been booked as well. Rob Thompson-Brown hit the keeper's knees from distance. After we scored the goal, we managed to hang on despite one or two scares.
I would rate this as the best home performance I have seen this season and the win was well deserved. We should remember that Bradford are an in form team.
Attendance 502 and one dog.