Young Brakes Lack the Assassin's Touch

A perfect night for football, the pitch a little damp and a coolness in the air but no wind with a reasonable crowd of 63 souls striving to be heard above the vocal encouragement of the Quorn 'keeper whose throat should be as sore as my ears this morning if there's any justice in the world ...

Which, of course, there isn't because young Brakes went down, again, by a single goal after dominating most of the game. But, forget the football-speak, the reality of course is that this was a just result. Brakes' defence, once again, was outstanding and there were some excellent individual performances with Ashley Powell making a promising debut. Much of the approach play was direct, decisive and a pleasure to watch.

But the team needs a mean, bristly, loud-mouthed striker who is in and out of the shower in 2 minutes (3 minutes if he finds the soap) and doesn't wear hair gel or jewellery. We have a nice bunch of lads who say please and thank-you but that should stop when they get on the pitch.

It was a promising start with Crowley looking most likely to cure Brakes' goal drought when he turned the defence in the 7th then had two shots on target in the 9th, the first bouncing back to him and the second stopped by the 'keeper. Quorn could have scored minutes later when the ball passed agonisingly along the Brakes' goalline but Brakes were creating more chances and first Cromwell then Leaver displayed good skills, but shot wide, in the 16th and 18th.

Although McKinley cleared up beautifully at the back in the 21st, robbing an attacker and setting up another Brakes' attack, and made an excellent recovery after slipping in the 29th, it was mostly Brakes making the running. Coleman joined in the fun running up the wing and both Cromwell and Harri shot over. The Quorn 'keeper's running commentary announced to his team after half an hour that it was "too easy" for Leamington and so it seemed. Goodall, who had another impressive game, got to the byeline and, with half-time looming, Brakes had the ball in the net after good work by Leaver but it was disallowed for offside.

Perhaps inevitably, for such is the way of these things, Quorn notched an unlikely goal on the break in the 54th when a cross was nodded home with the defence pushing up, 0-1. Minutes later the Quorn 'keeper shouted that it was his ball from a corner and missed it, for the first time, but everyone was so shocked that it passed harmlessly across a gaping goalmouth. Oh for an assassin, a predator, who would have been hustling there all match waiting for just such an opportunity.

Brakes continued to come forward and Kitchen added some spark coming off the bench. Powell strove to make his debut a better occasion to remember but as time wore on Brakes looked less and less likely to actually score. A good defence is not a bad starting platform on which to build a winning team but it will count for nothing if we don't score; time to scour the bars, low dives and ditches for a touch of evil.

Leamington Youth: Richard Morgan; Simon Goodall; Jamie Coleman; Alex Harri; Andy McKinley [Capt]; Dave Ward; Ashley Powell (Dave Callaghan 88); Masango Mwetaminwa (Ashley Kitchen 63); Will Cromwell; Kyle Crowley; Tom Leaver
Sub(s) Not Used (2 From 5 Used): James Lockyer; Vinny Thiara; Paramdeep Bhangal

Team News: Kevin McGarvey missed through week's suspension incurred by shirt-lifting incident at Kiddie; Chris Lewis at match and walking so not as bad as feared (by me) - "couple of weeks".