In March 1974 ‘AP Leamington’s defeat of bottom-of-the-table Dunstable was one of the less impressive of their 14 Southern League victories this season. Enjoying overwhelming midfield mastery, Brakes spent the greater part of the game in their opponents’ half, but on a lively pitch their forwards seemed strangely out of touch. Few really testing shots were directed at the Dunstable goal and in the end it took goals from a couple of defenders to settle the issue.
Brakes’ centre half Tony Bowden opened the scoring with a
header from an opener in the 43rd minute, but five minutes into the
second half Dunstable broke away to
equalise through Alan Davies who was unmarked in the penalty area. AP kept pushing forward but they were
condemned to a frustrating 20 minutes as they sought to break through a packed
Dunstable defence, whose spoiling tactics included the frequent exploitation of
the offside trap.
Adrian Stewart finally broke the deadlock in the 72nd
minute when he sprinted away on the left and centred the ball to Norman Foster,
who back-headed into the net. Five
minutes from the end, Stewart was again in the picture when he slipped the
Dunstable defence and passed inside to Ernie Wilkinson, a back four defender
who had raced upfield. Wilkinson found
himself with no one to beat but the goalkeeper and took full advantage of the opportunity
to score with a well-placed 15-yard drive.
Brakes were next away to Bury Town: AP were fifth in the
table and their opponent s fifth from bottom.
‘King’s Road on Saturday was no place for goalkeepers. Right from the start, Bury’s Davies – so
impressive for most of the season – showed that, for him, it was going to be
one of those days. He jumped about like
a cat on hot bricks, scarcely gathered a shot cleanly, mistimed numerous dashes
from his goal line, and altogether conveyed an air of impending disaster.
Leamington almost
grabbed the lead after nine minutes.
Davies came out from a cross to Lee and completely missed his punch. Luckily for him, Turner was on hand to charge
down a shot from Talbot. Generally
Leamington looked the more impressive side.
Stewart was the live wire in the Leamington attack and he had a number
of intriguing tussles with Bury’s big centre half Tony Smith. It was no surprise when Leamington finally
went ahead after 30 minutes. From a
right wing cross by Goodfellow, centre half Bowden headed the ball to the far
post and Talbot pushed it home from close range.’
‘Strangely enough it was Davies’ opposite number Dave Jones
who made the most serious error of the afternoon. With 20 minutes left, Jones advanced from
his goal to cut off David Smith’s cross from the right, missed the ball
completely, and Barry Gray coolly took advantage to score. Until then Leamington had been the more
impressive of two ordinary looking sides.
Now it was Bury’s turn to pile on the pressure and they had
a couple of chances to record their first win since January 5th. But overall a draw was a fair result. Leamington surprisingly relegated 27-goal
striker Norman Foster to substitute.
Lee missed three good chances and had his name taken for a foul on Tony
Smith.’
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