By David Hucker

Drapes Brings Down Curtain on Police

Another fine Brakes performance was capped by an eighty-fifth minute goal from Director of Football Dave Draper, making his first appearance for the club in nearly twenty years. This win maintains Brakes challenge at the top of the ICIS MIdlands Combination Premier Division and, with five matches to go, they remain the team to catch.

Former West Brom player Jamie Ball, in only his second appearance, partnered the excellent Nick Mcfarlane in defence. Darren Timms took over the captaincy in the absence of Steve Thompson and Andy Ellis returned on the bench.

The visitors set out their stall early on, packing the defence and relying on two strikers in breakaways. It all looked plain sailing for Brakes after twelve minutes when Baz Shearsby's shot came back off the post into the path of the reliable Brian Agar who made no mistake. There were hopes for a penalty on nineteen minutes when Josh Blake tumbled in the area but, instead of increasing their lead, Brakes fell to a counter-punch from Mark Delaney who broke away to level the scores.

Leading scorer Paul Nicholls thought that he had restored the advantage in the twenty-fifth minute but his thunderbolt shot was brilliantly stopped by Police 'keeper Anthony Workman. Ten minutes later, Nick McFarlane met a corner from Nick Mort but Workman was on hand to save the Brakes defender's header. Then, Nicholls stole in on the blind side to head an Agar cross just wide. Just when it looked as if the teams would go into the interval all square, Mort was tripped in the penalty area and Nicholls stepped up to put the spot kick away and give Brakes a 2-1 lead.

The second half saw an improved performance by Brakes who had most of the play. When the Police did break out, James Gettings again looked assured in the home goal. On fifty eight minutes, the industrious Nicholls harried a defender into a mistake and took the ball through to score his second of the match. He followed this up with a fine glancing header from a cross by man-of-the-match Shearsby to secure a well-deserved hat-trick. Agar gave way to Draper who showed the crowd of 453 that he still has the ability to play at this level running on to a through ball from that man Shearsby again to slot home the fifth.

Co-manager Jason Cadden was understandably pleased with the result but added "we were slow to get going and were fortunate to go in at the break in front. We gave the team a rocket at half-time and they controlled the second period, getting the result that we deserved. Paul Nicholls' hat-trick was superb and Dave Draper took his goal well."

Leamington: James Gettings, Ben Adams (Jonny Burgess 66), Harj Dhesi, Nick McFarlane, Jamie Ball, Barry Shearsby, Nick Mort (Andy Ellis 70), Darren Timms [Capt.], Brian Agar (Dave Draper 70), Paul Nicholls, Josh Blake

Team News: Steve Thompson and Chris Hanrahan rested.