Pre Season Friendly
Arden Garages Stadium
Saturday 30th July 2022

By Paul Edwards 

Brakes edged a closely fought but somewhat subdued final pre season outing at near neighbours Stratford Town before the new Vanarama National League North season kicks off at home to Farsley Celtic next Saturday, thanks to a goal in each half from Jack Lane and Kieran Cook.

With Stephan Morley and Theo Streete nursing knocks a Trialist and James Mace, making his first appearance of pre season, stepped into the starting eleven.

Leamington started brightly enough, a left wing centre from Adam Walker was unfortunately not anticipated by anyone in blue, and Ben Usher-Shipway eventually put a shot over the bar. The latter then forced the first corner of the afternoon, which led to Dan Turner seeing a shot blocked. Usher-Shipway’s follow up effort was charged down at the expense of another corner.

Stratford’s first attack resulted in Jamie Molyneux being played through on goal by Will Grocutt, only to be brought down in a dangerous position just outside the box. Former Brakes man Jack Storer curled the resulting free kick over the crossbar.

Storer’s low centre from the right then saw a fine block from a blue shirt as Grocutt hit a powerful goalbound strike. Storer himself then forced a save from Callum Hawkins with a half volley as the Bards built from a free kick into the Leamington box.

Usher-Shipway demonstrated that his powerful long throw will be a useful addition to Brakes attacking artillery this season as he propelled the ball high into the Stratford penalty area on more than one occasion despite not having the space for any kind of run up. It was from the first of these throws that the ball was only half cleared to Dan Meredith on just outside the area; his half volley flashing wide of the target.

The hosts had enjoyed the lion's share of the ball since the opening five minutes or so, but as the half hour approached Leamington began to move out of their own half more, and they took the lead when Jack Edwards connected with another searching throw in from Usher-Shipway, before seeing a shot blocked. The ball ran perfectly for Jack Lane to strike firmly beyond Liam O’Brien into the bottom corner.

Usher’Shipway’s delivery from the touchline provided another opportunity for Edwards soon after the goal, but his looping header was held under the crossbar by O’Brien.

Storer was at the centre of much of Stratford’s best work, and he fired straight at Hawkins after cutting in from the right wing. A fairly even first half ended with the Brakes keeper doing well to claim a dangerous ball into the box ahead of striker Curvin Ellis.

An early second half shot from the home side was deflected into the arms of Hawkins, while Usher-Shipway was forced off with a knock, to be replaced by Kieran Cook. The substitute did not take long to get involved, sending an inviting ball in from the left which Turner looked to get on the end of, only to be denied by Josh Endall. Turner was then adjudged to be offside as he looked to clip the ball over O’Brien having broken through - one of a number of such decisions over the 90 minutes which the travelling support vociferously disagreed with.

Simeon Maye fired a first time effort wide from Cook’s lay off, before Walker fired high over the bar following a corner.

Brakes doubled their lead on 71 minutes when Cook was played in on goal, nimbly sidestepping the onrushing O’Brien before placing the ball into an empty net.

With thirteen minutes remaining Storer scored what Paul Holleran described as ‘a goal of the season winner in July’ with a stunning strike from distance, but Stratford were unable to create any further chances to find a leveller as time ticked away.

‘The last couple of games have been perfect - they’ve been competitive while being played in a good pre season spirit,’ said the manager afterwards. ‘When you get towards the end of pre season you want to make sure that the players all have minutes in them, but the biggest thing is that you’re hoping you avoid any injuries.

‘We’ve all got something out of the last two games. They’ve been competitive - some periods would resemble league games. We’ve been patchy in spells, there have been spells where we could have done better. I think the players have got that on their minds too - as a player during pre season you want to do everything right - but it’s been nice to get everyone involved.

‘We scored a couple of good goals - the first one is something we’ve been working on from that sort of set play - and we had a good spell then in the second half and scored a really good goal. It was a really good game. You can see that Stratord have some really good technical players and they’ve got the potential to do really well this season. We were really solid throughout to be fair, we have been throughout pre-season really in all the games, apart from little periods where we’ve made changes. You can’t do much about that goal today because that’s sort of goal of the season in July isn’t it? But we know he’s capable of that, Jack (Storer).

‘I thought Kieran (Cook) did really well when he came on. He’s still a young boy but it’s really important when you’re coming off the bench to make an impact. He got straight into the game, picked up some great pockets and was really good with the ball, so that was another good plus to be fair.’

Attendance: 349

Stratford Town: Liam O’Brien, Dan Vann, Kynan Isaac, Dan Lafferty, Jack Turner, Josh Endall, Jack Storer, Trialist, Curvin Ellis, Will Grocutt, Jamie Molyneux.

Substitutes: 12 Max Johnstone, 13 Trialist, 14 Trialist, 15 Trialist, 16 Trialist, 17 Trialist, 18 Trialist, 19 Trialist, 20 Trialist.

Leamington: Callum Hawkins, Dan Meredith, Trialist A (16 Connor Taylor, 73), Simeon Maye (14 Joe Clarke, 73), James Mace (15 Junior English, 81), Jack Lane, Ben Usher-Shipway (17 Kieran Cook, 50), Adam Walker (12 Alex Prosser, 76), Dan Turner (18 Trialist B, 81), Jack Edwards ©, Devon Kelly-Evans.

Referee: Mr Neil Pratt

Assistant Referees: Mr Dan Robinson & Mr Lewis Mansfield-King

Photographs © Glenn Alcock - See more of Glenn's photos from the afternoon here