Isuzu FA Trophy Third Round
CR MOT Centre Community Stadium at The Lamb
Saturday 17th December 2022

By Paul Edwards 

Brakes returned to action after a weather enforced ten day break to take on Southern League Premier Division Central leaders Tamworth in the FA Trophy, with a late goal for The Lambs unfortunately meaning that Paul Holleran’s men have now exited all three cup competitions to lower division opposition this season.

The Staffordshire side’s artificial pitch meant that there were few concerns about the game going ahead despite recent freezing temperatures, and by kick off there was a healthy crowd inside the stadium, with the majority hoping they would see Tamworth knock out another National League North side after they had defeated Boston United on penalties in the previous round.

Jack Edwards saw a deflected shot held by Jasbir Singh in the opening minutes, while former Brakes midfielder Gift Mussa struck the first effort on goal for the home side, but curled it straight at Callum Hawkins.

An ambitious overhead effort from Dan Turner dropped over the Tamworth crossbar, but it was the hosts who drew first blood on 18 minutes when a free kick into the Leamington box was nodded down by Dan Creaney into the path of Callum Cockerill-Mollett, whose low drive looked to have taken a deflection on its way past Hawkins into the net.

Turner had an opportunity to potentially level things up just prior to the half hour mark when he latched onto a ball out of defence from Jack Lane, but couldn’t quite get it out of his feet properly under pressure from a defender, and lifted his attempt well wide of goal.

Brakes finally began to impose themselves on the game more as half time approached; Devon Kelly-Evans heading wide from Dan Meredith’s right wing centre, before slamming a shot against the bar after Edwards had gone in with a defender to meet Turner’s low driven cross from the same side. However, the assistant referee’s flag was already raised for offside.

Edwards was horribly off beam with a header from a free kick, and as the half time whistle sounded several of the home players appeared to be at odds with the match officials over something or other, having seen two players booked.

As Leamington kicked up the slope in the second half, Kelly-Evans drove another strike into the terrace behind the goal.

Brakes almost shot themselves in the foot by not having a man on the edge of the box from a right wing corner, allowing Tamworth to counter with ease, the ball being played in from the right and headed back across the box for goalscorer Cockerill-Mollett to fire a shot off target.

Singh, who denied Brakes on many occasions with fantastic performances while at Gloucester City, pulled off a fantastic reaction save to deny Turner’s instinctive first time strike from Meredith’s right wing cross, but he was beaten on 65 minutes when Leamington won possession on half way, Liam Cross feeding Meredith down the right to centre for Turner to head home inside the near post despite the best effort of the goalkeeper.

Hawkins got just enough on Ben Milnes’ low strike to keep away from goal as Tamworth responded, and the same player fired across goal and just wide minutes later.

Substitute Rackeem Reid smashed the outside of the post with a shot from almost on the dead ball line to win a corner, from which Lane headed inches wide at the far post.

Turner then turned the ball back to Reid inside the Tamworth penalty area, and he did well to turn under pressure and poke the ball out to Kelly-Evans, who fired over the bar.

While Brakes managed to keep Tamworth’s top scorer Creaney off the scoresheet he was heavily involved in both of their goals, and nodded down for Milnes to strike low past an unsighted Hawkins for what turned out to be the winner with seven minutes remaining.

Leamington were only able to fashion one more opportunity in the time that remained, but when Reid fed Turner on the left he could only roll his shot into the arms of Singh at the near post, much to his frustration.

The manager felt that the surface played a big part in proceedings. ‘We’re very disappointed to be out of the competition. Unfortunately it’s taken a number of players quite a while this afternoon to get used to the surface, and I think one or two of our players, certainly our older players, have struggled all afternoon with it. It’s the kind of surface that you need to wear trainers on. When they first came on the scene ten/fifteen years ago, that’s what they were like. It’s horrendous. And you can then logically look at it and see why their home record is so good, because it’s like us today - it’s probably taken us 30 minutes to try and get a grip of it. Whereas they played well, but that doesn’t excuse the first goal, where we’ve got to do better on first and second contacts, but then we’ve found a way into the game. We’ve had two great chances before half time, we’ve taken neither. We’ve then had a good spell in the second half, we were braver, got the full backs further up the pitch.

‘Either side of the goal we’ve had good chances, we haven’t taken them. We’ve got the goal, then the game was probably a little bit too open for our liking really. It’s a good finish from the boy (Milnes) with seven or eight minutes to go but we’ll be disappointed when we look back at the goals; we’ll be disappointed with the opportunities that we’ve missed; but I do honestly believe that a big factor today was the playing surface. That’s made it really really difficult for us, and as I said, you can see why their home record is so good, because it’s something that if you play on it more, you get used to it. We’ve trained on 4G this week to try get ready for this game and for the Gloucester game, and the 4G’s that are around now are not like this one, and that’s made our mission much more difficult today.

‘It’s bitterly disappointing though, as if we’d defended key moments better and been more ruthless at the other end I think it would have been a different outcome, but it was not to be.

‘Massive thank you to the travelling support today. We’re going through a sticky patch at the moment, but stick with us, and as we’ve shown over the years, we’ll come back fighting, and that’s what we will aim to do over Christmas.’

Providing an update on Kelsey Mooney, he said: ‘Kelsey is back in training - not full training - but he has his last visit to St Georges Park just after Christmas. We’re hoping that will be his last visit and that he will then be able to resume full training with a view then at the back end of January for him to get back involved with the first team.

‘Another plus today was that Dan Turner got his first goal after his injury, and we were able to get another 70 minutes into Liam Cross. You can see the potential in the boy; so there’s plusses there. It would have been a little boost for us to go into Christmas with a win, but it wasn’t to be, so we’ll deal with it and move on.’

Attendance: 769

Tamworth: 13 Jas Singh, 2 Matt Curley, Callum Cockerill-Mollett, 4 Gift Mussa, 5 Alex Collard, 6 Liam Dolman, 7 Kyle Finn (12 Eoin McKeown, 73), 8 Ben Milnes, 9 Dan Creaney, 10 Alex Bradley, 11 Luke Fairlamb (16 A J George, 89).

Subs not used: 1 Keelan Fallows, 14 Ben Hart, 15 Ty Deacon, 17 Abel Alabi, 18 Jordan Clement.

Leamington: Callum Hawkins, Dan Meredith, Louis Hall, Joe Clarke, Theo Streete, Jack Lane, Liam Cross (12 Rackeem Reid, 73), Adam Walker (18 Morgan Owen, 86), Dan Turner, Jack Edwards, Devon Kelly-Evans.

Subs not used: 14 Junior English, 15 Connor Taylor, 16 James Mace, 17 Jack Sang.

Referee: Mr Richard Holmes

Assistant Referees: Mr Brandon Scaife & Mr Harley Hetherington

Fourth Official: Mr Harry Hudson

Brakes Man of the Match: Devon Kelly-Evans.