By The Malverner

Awfully Brilliant

Living near Malvern, and playing on the pitches where Malvern Athletic play, I said to myself at the start of this season that 'I would not miss this game'. And miss it I didn't! The ground has a lovely setting with a backdrop of the Malvern Hills. There is also the controversial and wicked Skate Boarding Park right next to it.

As for the game (I will stop talking about random things now!) Leamington started very badly against a Malvern side, who had only won 4 leagues games in the last season and a half. It was not the performance I was expecting after reading such scorelines as 5-1 and 7-2 against Rugby Town in the Malvern Gazette. Even Leamington Hibernian managed to come here and win 7-1! I really thought Leamington would wipe the floor with Malvern, but it was not to be! Malvern took the lead through another long ball over the top of the Brakes defence (too many goals are given away like this!) and the Malvern striker went in bravely with the keeper. Need I say the Malvern player got there first and that was that! 1-0 down and playing very badly, I wondered if this was the same Brakes side I saw win 9-2 only a few weeks earlier!

Malvern should have got 2 more goals, but they showed why they do not win many games by missing both chances! One bright point was when Josh Blake missed a header from close range, the build up being quite brilliant with a series of quick passes which saw the ball out on the left and a beauty of a cross was placed on to Blake's head. How he missed I do not know! A goal down at the interval meant that this was shaping up to be the biggest shock-result of the season! The 2nd half however saw the Brakes take advantage of the slope, which had helped Malvern in the 1st half. And what an incredible transformation the second half proved to be.

The visitors thus scored with their second attack of the half when Darren Timms stabbed the ball home from close in. This was followed quickly by another close range effort from Ian Billington and within 15 minutes of the restart Leamington were 3-1 to the good, when Timms poked in his second of an increasingly Brakes-dominated half. The travelling crowd of about 100 from Leamington was much happier now and the team was displaying some more confident approach play. Leamington really should have added a lot more to the score than Ariss' goal towards the end of the game, but the final score of 4-1 still looks pretty good when viewed from the perspective of the first half non-performance and half time score of 0-1. In the end it's another 3 points towards the cause!

Leamington Paul O'Keeffe; Kevin Ariss; Guy Rippon; Will Payne; Liam McGovern; Adam Ball; Stuart Hepburn (captain); Darren Timms; Josh Blake (Simon Wickson 75m); Ian Billington (Barry Shearsby 72m); Steve Thompson (Brian Agar 75m)