Harriers Swoop to Conquer

Brakes against Harriers is a fixture to conjure up old memories. Although this was only the two clubs' youth teams, there was the added bonus of meeting former favourite Ian Britton, who still looks back fondly on his days at the club.

Harriers won the Midland Floodlit Youth League Premier Division last season by an impressive six points from West Bromwich Albion and the difference between the two teams' ability and experience showed throughout.

Brakes found themselves two goals down in the first fifteen minutes (both missed by your reporter who was retrieving a ball from a muddy adjoining field) and never really got into the game. A fine solo run by Neil Stacey in the twentieth minute ended with him being fouled just outside the penalty area. Mark Rowland drove the free kick low to the right of the goalkeeper to make it 2-1. Three further goals, including a penalty on the stroke of half-time, saw Brakes go into the interval trailing 1-5.

The second half started much the same as the first with only some smart goalkeeping from Lee Van Der Heyden keeping the score down. However, four goals came in a five minute spell with three of them for the visitors and Shane Peterson scoring for the home side, making it 2-8. If we thought that it was all over, we were wrong as another strike on 80 minutes saw Harriers score their ninth. The crowd of 60, including Richard Morris, Harj Dehsi, Baz Shearsby and Paul Eden certainly had their money's worth.

With storm clouds gathering over Harbury Lane (hopefully not an omen for the future) the referee called time a few minutes early. The electric storm duly arrived causing a floodlight failure which hopefully has not done permanent damage either to my nerves or the system.

Leamington Starters: Lee van der Heyden; Mark Rowland; Lee Scott; Tim Green; James Mellings; Mark Beezley; Ben Laing; Ryan Howell; Neil Stacey; Nik Kyriacou; Josh Tolley
Subs: Richard Sutton; Alex Shaw; Adam Butcher; Harj Johal; Stuart Poole; Shane Peterson; Ben Halstead-Smyth; Nick Collen; Gary Moore