Pre Season Friendly
Your Co-op Community Stadium
Saturday 3rd August 2024

Brakes suffered their only defeat of their pre season schedule as they entertained Halesowen Town at Your Co-op Community Stadium, but they went down to a goal that should really have been ruled out.

Jack Edwards partnered George Ward in central defence with Rob Evans and Theo Streete unavailable, while Teddy Rowe and Marvellous Onabirekhanlen again took their places on the substitutes bench, with a couple of spots in the squad still potentially up for grabs.

The first half was a real ding dong affair, the kind of game you want to see a week before the season begins. The only disappointment from a Leamington perspective was that they did not capitalise on the chances they created.

Halesowen won a string of corners in the opening ten minutes from which they had a couple of efforts at goal. Ryan Wollcott headed straight at Callum Hawkins, while Dan Meredith’s header out from another fell to Jak Hickman, whose swerving effort dropped wide of the target.

Brakes’ first half chance of the afternoon came from a superb diagonal ball out of defence by Josh Quaynor to Henry Landers on the right. He was just unable to get it under control, but won a throw-in from which skipper Adam Walker was set up for a strike at goal which was cut out by a defender.

Tim Berridge then met a right wing cross from Meredith with a header which was off target.

Another decent delivery from the Leamington right back was met by Caine Elliott, who was also off beam with his headed attempt.

On the 20 minute mark the visitors were awarded a penalty. Halesowen’s trialist number 9 went down a little too easily for this writer, but if you feel any contact from behind you are going to do just that so it is difficult to criticise him. Former Brakes midfield man and recent Halesowen signing Reece Flanagan stepped up to take the spot kick, but was denied by a fine save down to his right by Hawkins. Unfortunately the officials had not spotted that the number 9 was already inside the box before Flanagan struck the ball, and he rolled it into the net much to the frustration of the Brakes players, who were led in their protests by Hawkins, who was no doubt doubly frustrated to concede in that fashion given that his goal had not been breached during pre season, but their calls fell on deaf ears.

Leamington almost constructed an immediate response. Some good passing and movement saw them into the Halesowen penalty area, where Berridge fed Cally Stewart, who got his shot off between two defenders to win a corner on the left, which Ewan Williams almost connected with at the far post.

Elliott was then played in on goal by a peach of a pass, but his former Yeltz team mate Dan Platt blocked the shot bravely.

Henry Landers had a brace of chances from a similar area before half time; the first a thunderous strike that flew across goal and just past the far post. The second came as a result of neat build up play involving Stewart and Berridge, who set up Landers for a low strike which zipped across goal and behind.

Hawkins reacted quickly after parrying a long range strike from Macaulay Manning to claim the ball, and was quickly down again to save another effort on his goal.

The second half did not live up to the first in terms of chances until the closing minutes, but the game continued to be a good solid workout for both teams.

Landers bent an inviting free kick into the box that nobody in Gold and Black could get on the end of, while the same player fed Williams in behind the Halesowen defence on the right, but he could only find Platt with his cross.

Berridge saw his shot deflected through to Platt by a defender, before a spate of late substitutions for both sides. One of Halesowen’s; Adi Yussuf, linked well with Conor Tee for the latter to thump a low strike across goal and just wide. That had been the most clear cut effort of the second 45 minutes for either side, before Brakes were superbly denied a late leveller by Reece Mitchell. Brakes substitute Jiah Medrano put the ball into the six yard box and it was met by Stewart, but his goalbound effort was superbly hooked off the line by Mitchell, despite some in the vicinity claiming the ball had crossed it.

Walker quickly drove a low effort inches wide, but Brakes were left to reflect on chances not taken as they slipped to their only defeat of pre-season. Results are obviously secondary to fitness and momentum in these fixtures, and going into the new campaign on the back of six straight wins would have undoubtedly provided Paul Holleran’s men with something to build on, but they played their toughest fixture of their warm ups against a good side who will no doubt be in and around the promotion chasers this season in the Southern League Central, and it will stand them in good stead for when the action kicks off for real next Saturday at Buxton.

Speaking to Brian Halford of BBC CWR afterwards, the manager said ‘You come into pre season and the plan is you want to try and get the right balance in games. We’ve done that, I think. You want to try and get through them without any injuries, and we’ve done that. You want to come through and bed a few players in - we’ve done that. Performances have been pretty steady. I think today felt like a last pre season game - hot day, sticky pitch. It probably lacked a little bit of tempo.

‘I think when we switched the play in our combinations going wide we looked good - we created a lot of chances today, remember. We haven’t taken any, which is disappointing. We’ve ticked a lot of boxes in pre season though, and the players have got the right amount of minutes. Performances have been pretty consistent; we’ve looked pretty solid in all the games, so there’s a platform there for us. Today was probably a reminder for us. There were times in the game where we were a little bit sloppy and lost control of the game. You don’t want to do too well all the time - we’ll start thinking we’ve cracked it!!’

‘I’m pleased with the way pre pre-season has gone. I’m pleased with our recruitment. From where we are and what we’ve got on the pitch it’s been good. We could do with a little bit more here and there but we’ll see how we get on. We’re just about to embark on what is a really tough league. I think it’ll be tougher than it was last year because one or two clubs had a bit of an off year, but we look forward to the challenge.

‘We’ve shown enough in pre pre-season to be able to cope with that, and we’ve shown enough to make me think that we will cause teams problems. It’s a great opportunity for some of the young players at the club to play in the National League, and they’ve got to go up against their opposite number and compete.

‘It’s one of the biggest steps up in football, I think. We haven’t quite got everything I’d like, but we’ve got most of it. We’ve gone young, for reasons, and some of the players that did so well for us last year deserve an opportunity to play in that division. I just hope we go in there and have a good go at it. We’ve got quite a few players around the place who have pace and can score goals, so I'm just hoping we can do that.

‘We’re looking forward to it. It will be tough. Like you said, last year was just, immense. Probably with everything that was going on in my life it was difficult to enjoy the day, but I knew what was coming, but when I look back and reflect it was amazing really, probably the run the players went on in the second half of the season, they overachieved really, but we did it, and now we’ve had to get ready for Step 2 again, but we’re looking forward to it, and it’s a great opportunity for some of these young boys. If you can go and play well in that league, who knows where it could take you to?’

Attendance: 306

Leamington: Callum Hawkins, Dan Meredith, Josh Quanyor (15 Jiah Medrano, 82), Ewan Williams (16 Teddy Rowe, 79), Jack Edwards, George Ward, Callum Stewart, Adam Walker ©, Tim Berridge (17 Marvellous Onabirekhanlen, 71), Caine Elliott (12 Joe Doyle-Charles, 54), Henry Landers (14 Will Shorrock, 71).

Subs not used: 13 Ethan Pheasey.

Halesowen Town: Dan Platt, Jak Hickman, Trialist, Todd Parker, Ryan Wynter © (12 Tom Taylor, 82), Ryan Wollacott, Reece Flanagan (14 Reece Mitchell, 59), Conor Tee (17 Patrick Wood, 90), Trialist (16 Adi Yussuf, 71), McKauley Manning (15 Luke Postle, 71), Ben Cassidy.

Subs not used: 13 Lewis Solly.

Referee: Mr Tom Durno.

Assistant Referees: Mr Matt Joyce & Mr Joe Larkin.

Photos: Chris Simpson ©