Leamington Left in the Dark

No playing stats count for abandoned matches, except bookings of which Brakes had none and Cradley, a yellow. But this match survived until the second floodlights’ failure three minutes from normal time, with another three, at least, to be added, and the 10,000th supporter, in cup and league games this season, stands. He is Bernard Palmer, a Brakes supporter of many years, who will receive a presentation on the pitch at the next home game on Saturday 18 February.

A strong wind had already spoilt the game as a spectacle, leading directly to at least two of the goals, and driving rain at the start of the second half made matters worse before a fuse blew and the lights went out in the 48th minute. They weren’t restored for nearly half-an-hour necessitating a further delay while the players warmed up.

With three minutes of the 90 remaining the lights failed again, this time, worryingly, without the emergency lighting. The referee had been prepared for a total 45 minutes outage but as the fault this time was in an electricity board box that couldn’t be accessed the match had to be abandoned anyway.

Lowly Cradley have had a mini-revival of late, winning two out of their last three games and drawing the other with only one goal conceded. And they appeared a much-improved outfit from the side Brakes beat 4-0 at their place in September.

But Brakes, playing with a strong wind towards the North Bank, scored twice in the first half through Richard Adams, the first a stooping header from brother Jon’s raking free kick in the 26th then when he “made sure” by getting a touch to goalkeeper Morris’s wind assisted free kick from well inside the Brakes’ half in the 39th.

However, the wind also prevented another goal between these two when, after a superb run by Blake, the ball blew under McKay’s foot as he was about to side-foot home from Blake’s cross in the 35th and Jon Adams hit a post from a McKay cross a minute later.

Soon after the restart, with driving rain adding to the crowd’s discomfort, a speculative long shot from Cradley was carried by the wind and only just tipped over by Morris in the 47th. Before the corner could be taken the lights failed and were not restored for 27 minutes.

Another Cradley long shot in the 61st was turned round the post by Morris in what was clearly becoming a bit of a lottery and the wind played a part again when Tank’s back-header to Morris allowed Whyte to steal a goal in the 67th after his headed backpass was under-hit because of the danger of it wafting over Morris’s head.

Brakes had some chances but this had become just a case of hanging on for the three points when the lights failed again in the 88th. Many fans decided that enough was enough and the car-park was a swirl of lights with people leaving to join those who’d already left to catch trains or who needed to be up early in the morning. With those remaining piercing the darkness of the cold, wet stand with a new-found use for the flash on mobile phones (this year the NWG, next year Glastonbury) the final announcement that the match was abandoned came as some relief.

Leamington: Richard Morris; Jon Adams; Darran Tank; Ryan Parisi; Andy Crabtree; Morton Titterton; Stuart Herlihy; Leon Morgan [Capt]; Richard Adams; Jody McKay; Josh Blake
Subs Not Used: David Care; Ryan Howell; Kristian Kelsall; Neil Stacey; Paul Shepherd

Cradley Town: Tim Beech; Carl Martin; Luke Bradley; Patrick Power (Ben Store 62); Richard Oakley [Capt]; Mark Smith; Thomas Millington; Steve Chatterley (Donald Bailey 62); Colin Tandy; Arron Lloyd (Andrew Millington 72); Andre Whyte
Subs Not Used: Robert Hopkins; Thomas Jennings

Attendance: 337