Vanarama National League North
Latimer Park
Monday 10th April 2023

Brakes made the short hop into Northamptonshire to take on a Kettering Town side sitting two places and one point in front of them in the table.

Everything was in place for this hugely important National League North clash, but the weather very nearly put the kybosh on proceedings. An hour and a half until kick off there were areas of standing water on the playing surface, but thanks to the sterling work of the Kettering staff and Referee Gareth Thomas and his assistants, along with the rain showers abating, the match was able to go ahead.

With Liam Cross unfortunately having been recalled 24 hours earlier by Northampton Town, Paul Holleran was forced into changes. Ollie Hulbert dropped back into the number seven shirt, while Kelsey Mooney started his first game of the season, his 50th appearance for the club. Joe Clarke replaced Sam Perry, who dropped to the bench, while Devon Kelly-Evans was absent.

Referee Thomas had taken charge of three Brakes games prior to this one this season, and all had ended in stalemates, so with both teams being low scorers all signs were pointing to a low scoring affair, and in the early stages it certainly seemed as though this would turn out to be the case.

Theo Streete was on hand to make a last ditch clearance from Ben Sault’s strike at goal, which was the only real clear cut opening for either side in the first half an hour of play. Mooney went down inside the Kettering penalty area, but the claims for a spot kick came more from the terraces than on the pitch.

The game hinged on the events in the 36th minute. Keaton Ward and Streete were in a foot race to win a long ball towards the Leamington box, and with Ted Cann deciding to stay on his line, Streete clumsily brought down the Poppies man. There was little debate about the award of a penalty, but with the ball in the air and the attacker not heading directly towards goal, the red card was not quite so clear cut. However, that was the decision, and Leamington were forced to play for the remaining hour or so with ten men, and found themselves behind as Jimmy Knowles sent Cann the wrong way from 12 yards to give Kettering the lead.

Brakes came close to forging a chance before half time when Jack Edwards, now forced into central defence to cover for Streete, helped a free kick into the six yard box, but Mooney was crowded out before he could attempt to get a shot off.

Cann saved a low effort from George Cooper seconds after the restart, but Leamington came close themselves when Owen Mason produced a flying save to push Dan Turner’s goalbound curler over his crossbar.

Cann pushed away a low strike from Poppies skipper Gary Stohrer as the heavens opened once more for a heavy shower, while Ollie Hulbert saw a shot deflected behind for a corner on the right, which Mason did well to hold under his crossbar as the ball swirled into his six yard box.

A Kettering man looked to be in on goal as Brakes contrived to give the ball away in their own half, but a combination of Jack Lane and Cann did enough to put him off, and a corner was the result.

With fifteen minutes remaining the game looked to be up as substitute Lewis White headed home from a corner to double Kettering’s advantage.

Brad Gascoigne fired over on the turn in the closing stages, while Hulbert attempted to set himself up for a bicycle kick at goal which unfortunately lacked the power to trouble Mason.

A determined piece of running from substitute Sam Perry saw him muscle his way into the Kettering penalty area and hit the touchline before attempting to pull the ball back, but the Poppies defenders were quick to nip in and clear.

The game was well and truly over in added time as substitute Sam Bennett was sent one on one with Cann, and finished low to seal the points and send the home fans out of Latimer Park believing their team had almost done enough to keep themselves up.

Paul Holleran was left to reflect on the moment that turned the contest afterwards, saying ‘It was always going to be a really difficult afternoon - you sort of work that out when you get here and there are twenty puddles on the pitch. It was difficult conditions, a difficult pitch. I thought for the first period of the game we dealt with that well, probably looked the most threatening, but then with just one long ball over the top, we’ve got ourselves in a muddle. We were a good distance away, but it looked like there was a coming together. I can accept that, but how you can send him (Streete) off for a clear goalscoring opportunity when the ball is ten foot up in the air and their player is on the angle I just don’t know; but when it was happening and you could see with the goalkeeper and Theo and their striker, I was looking at where the Ref was, and he was about 50 yards away. Possibly you couldn’t argue that it was a penalty but where the red card has come from I’m not so sure.

‘When you’ve played on the Friday and then you’ve got to come here and play on this pitch, the last thing you want to do is go down to ten men. Jack (Edwards) was quite effective in the middle of the park, you’ve got to move him back to centre half because you’re a man light in there; but again, I thought we competed and had a couple of good opportunities. The idea was probably we could keep like that until about 70 minutes and then maybe just look at it, but again, sadly it’s a set piece again; we haven’t won the first contact and it’s 2-0, and it’s game over then. We took a couple of players off then to protect them as they haven’t played a lot of football recently. So it was a disappointing afternoon. It was never going to be a classic but up until the red card I thought we were sort of in control of it, it was looking like possibly a 1-0 sort of game, but key moments - the red card and the set play - we haven’t dealt with them and we’ve been punished. It’s been a poor day for us.

‘I said it on Friday, if we can get a win then it’s a big help, but there are still 9 points to play for. We’ve got two games at home. What’s gone on today hasn’t helped us. The red card hasn’t helped us, the Liam Cross situation hasn’t helped us, but listen, we’ll get the boys back in this week, and try and set up to win the game on Saturday.

Attendance: 1,071

Kettering Town: 1 Owen Mason, 6 Brad Gascoinge, 8 Gary Stohrer ©, 9 Jimmy Knowles ( 7 Sam Bennett, 82), 10 Keaton Ward, 11 Rhys Sharpe, 12 George Cooper (4 Lewis White, 67), 15 Ellis Myles, 16 George Forsyth, 17 Decarrey Sheriff, 20 Ben Sault (14 Ethan Hill, 86).

Subs not used: 21 William Lakin (GK), 18 Tom Scott.

Leamington: Ted Cann, Dan Meredith, Louis Hall, Joe Clarke (12 Sam Perry, 76), Theo Streete, Jack Lane, Adam Walker, Ollie Hulbert, Kelsey Mooney (14 Ben Usher-Shipway, 72), Jack Edwards © (15 Junior English, 85), Dan Turner.

Subs not used: GK Dan Moore, 16 James Mace.

Referee: Mr Gareth Thomas

Assistant Referees: Mr Simon Kavanagh & Mr Michael Wright

Brakes Man of the Match: Adam Walker.