Report
Vanarama National League North
Your Co-op Community Stadium
Tuesday 11th February 2025
Leamington welcomed Warrington Town to Harbury Lane for the first time as they began a run of three important home games in the National League North, and they built on their away win at Oxford City on Saturday with a solid three points here.
There were two changes to the starting line up from Saturday’s game at Oxford City; Jack Edwards and Will Shorrock coming in for Tim Berridge and Owen Farmer. Edwards took the captain's armband in the continued absence of Adam Walker. Freddie Robinson, signed on dual registration from Harborough Town during the day, took squad number 22, and came on for his debut in the second half.
Brakes engineered the first opportunity of the evening inside the opening ten minutes. Edwards flicked on a Rob Evans long throw for Dan Turner to control and get a shot in which was saved by Wire keeper Dan Atherton. The visitors quickly responded with two quick efforts of their own; the first being blocked, the second saved by Callum Hawkins. Joe Rodwell-Grant then showed neat control before his shot was deflected behind for a corner.
Both sides were playing with some urgency and commitment, but with the pitch still sticky due to the winter weather, neither were really able to take control of the game.
After a neat move which saw Henry Landers’ shot deflected behind for a corner, Edwards’ header down towards goal was flicked over the bar by Turner.
Atherton, who had plenty to say to the Brakes fans in the reverse fixture, was fully involved, leaving the home support exasperated with his apparent time consuming tactics, but he was beaten five minutes before half time when some good work down the right from Dan Meredith and Shorrock saw the latter play the ball in, and Turner helped it on to Edwards, who calmly steered a volley back past the goalkeeper with his right boot to send his side into the dressing room a goal to the good at the end of an entertaining first half.
Warrington danger man Rodwell-Grant forced another save from Hawkins early in the second half as the visitors probed for a leveller, but Leamington came close to a second goal as Edwards intelligently dummied for Shorrock to drive just past the upright.
Turner worked hard throughout, and doubled Leamington’s advantage with seventeen minutes to play when he collected a flick on from another long throw by Evans and turned sharply to fire into the bottom corner of the Warrington net.
There was a worrying sight in added time as Meredith was forced off injured after being floored on one of his lung busting runs, but the points had been sealed, moving Brakes ten points clear of the bottom four with at least two games in hand on all of the clubs below the dreaded dotted line.
‘What pleased me the most was we were nice and solid tonight, nice and compact,’ said Paul Holleran after the game. The way pitches are at the moment, if your work ethic and your distances are right, you defend your box well, it’s hard for teams to score because it’s hard to get the quality, so we did all that in abundance tonight. And then we’ve just found moments - set plays, second and third phases, which is really good play again, so I was really pleased with our discipline, our focus, our energy and our power tonight. It was right back to where it needed to be. The thing that’s pleased me the most is that we’ve gone and got a good result on Saturday and we’ve come and backed it up.’
‘We’ve just got to concentrate on getting points on the board now at this stage of the season, so that gives us a little bit of breathing space.’
Attendance: 335
Leamington: 1 Callum Hawkins, 2 Dan Meredith (5 Theo Streete, 90+1), 3 Josh Quaynor, 6 Rob Evans, 7 Henry Landers (16 Jiah Medrano, 86), 10 Jack Edwards ©, 12 Will Shorrock (24 Owen Farmer, 65), 14 George Ward, 17 Ewan Williams, 21 Joe Clarke ( 22 Freddie Robinson, 74), 23 Dan Turner (11 Tim Berridge, 81).
Warrington Town: 1 Dan Atherton, 4 Hamish Douglas, 6 Jay Harris (17 Bohan Dixon, 81), 7 Lee Williams (2 Craig Noone, 81), 8 Mikey O’Neill, 10 Matty McDonald, 11 Joe Rodwell-Grant, 18 Aaron James, 19 Elliott Morris (12 Mo Doro, 68), 21 Ollie Southern, 24 Jack Hont.
Subs not used: 14 Murphy Bennett, 15 Dana Amaral.
Referee: Mr Chay Hathaway
Assistant Referees: Mr Craig Thompson & Mr Matthew Joyce
Fourth Official: Mr Daniel Ellis
Brakes Man of the Match: Jack Edwards.
