By Roger Vincent

Fans (Nearly) Lose the hirts Off Their Backs

An hour before kick-off and high drama: a phone call to the local hostelry where some of our fans had repaired to do their pre-match stretching exercises. "Caddsie here, how many supporters are wearing replica shirts?" 20 middle-aged stomachs swelled with excitement and 20 befuddled minds briefly dreamt of running out onto the pitch and notching the winner for their team.

"We might want your shirts for the team." Brakes had only brought the away colours, the same as Droitwich, and the officials had agreed, but as a last resort because they were unnumbered, to allow the team to play in the replica shirts. Fortunately, for it was a cold day, Droitwich rustled up some reserve kit and Brakes ran out in red and black stripes.

A jinxing run from Josh Blake round their keeper put us 1 up but an equaliser from Droitwich crept in to level the scores at half time. An adjacent women's hockey match helped relieve the tension during the break with some lusty (?) support for the team in yellow and black. I was only there, you understand, to keep an eye on some of our younger supporters. We mused on the several advantages of asking the yellow and blacks to swap their kit with our lads but, in retrospect, the little black skirt looked better on their blonde, pony-tailed striker than it would have done on Josh. However, I digress.

Brakes always looked on top, had a hatful of chances and even missed a penalty. It was beginning to look like it wasn't to be. Their goalkeeper, whom we were told later back in the pub had league experience, seemed unbeatable until a last minute pile-driver from Guy Rippon, his first for the club, brought us all 3 points. I'd tell you their goalie's name but, despite a phone call from Dave Hucker warning them of the size of our support, they'd only printed 25 programmes.

Back at the pub the happy, noisy supporters sang their songs, and not a few bared their yellow shirts and dreamt of what might have been. It was all too much for at least 1 supporter who fell asleep on the train going home and ended up in Stratford.

Leamington Richard Morris; Ian Billington; Barry Shearsby (Jon Burgess 77m); Will Payne; Kevin Ariss; Stuart Hepburn; Liam McGovern; Simon Wickson (Guy Rippon 45m); Josh Blake; Brian Agar (captain); Steve Thompson
Unused sub: Adam Ball