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Saturday 22nd March 2025

Brakes marked captain Adam Walker’s 150th appearance for the club with their fifteenth home win of the season in all competitions, as they close in on their target of overhauling their highest points tally in the National League North. 

Visitors South Shields did not look to be quite the same side that Leamington had come up against in the North East earlier in the campaign, but nevertheless posed plenty of the problems for the hosts. However, they came up against a Brakes side that are a different animal on their own turf, and had it not been for a string of fine saves from their young goalkeeper Kyle Seymour they could have been returning home on the end of a similar scoreline to the one they had suffered at home to Kidderminster Harriers seven days earlier. 

There was a single change to the line up which started last Saturday’s game at Chester - Matt Richards replacing Jack Edwards. 

There was an early shout for a penalty as Henry Landers got his first opportunity to go at the visitors’ defence on the right, but Referee Said Ouchene immediately signalled that he disagreed. Tim Berridge then won a corner as he attempted to turn and shoot inside the box. Goalkeeper Seymour was unable to claim, and George Ward hooked the ball back over his head onto the roof of the net. 

The young Shields’ keeper was then put under some unnecessary pressure by his defence, with Owen Farmer closing him down as he fielded a back pass. 

He may have looked shaky in the opening exchanges, but Seymour did very well to save shots from Ewan Williams and Tim Berridge - the second one superbly - but the offside flag had been raised. However, he was beaten at his near post on twenty minutes by a deft header from George Ward, who guided his fifth goal of the season and his second in successive home games into the back of the net from a Rob Evans long throw out on the left. The visitors were adamant that the throw in should have been awarded to them, but the goal stood. 

Rocked back on their heels, South Shields then troubled Callum Hawkins for the first time with a shot from Will Jenkins, but it was straight at the Brakes keeper.

Seymour was certainly the busier of the two custodians, saving from Berridge after he had manufactured an effort from a tight angle. Henry Landers' follow up shot was superbly blocked by a defender. 

David Carson gave away a free kick from a tight angle out on the left from which Landers curled the dead ball towards the near post, but it was held by Seymour. Leamington increased their lead on 41 minutes however, when Josh Quaynor picked up a loose pass from South Shields front man Paul Blackett, and launched one of his trademark diagonal balls from left to right, finding Landers perfectly He stabbed the ball into the path of Berridge, who lapped up the service and crashed home a rising first time drive in off the left hand post for his sixth goal of the season. The striker has really come into his own in recent weeks, and is showing exactly why the manager snapped him up from Coalville Town last summer. 

Blackett is not among the division’s top scorers for no reason, and he almost dragged his team back into the game before half time when he collected Kyle Crossley’s backheel inside the box and clipped the upright with his shot before the rebound was fired high over the crossbar. 

The visitors could have retreated to their dressing room further behind had it not been for the heroics of Seymour, who was in action once more as Landers’ left wing corner was headed back into the centre by Ward for Evans to head towards goal. The ball was pushed out as far as Landers, who followed up with a bouncing half volley into the turf which was parried by the young stopper. Owen Farmer was then played in down the left, and sent a vicious cross-shot rocketing across goal and just past the far post. 

The visitors certainly began to play more of the game in the Leamington half after the restart, and Hawkins was forced to make a spectacular save as Blackett headed Dylan Stephenson’s cross on target. Jenkins then completely miskicked as the ball ran across to him inside the six yard box with the goal seemingly at his mercy. 

Brakes were revelling in being in command of this contest meanwhile, and a couple of beautiful crossfield passes from Meredith to Farmer, who then pinged the ball across to Landers; had the home support applauding in appreciation. Seymour produced two more great saves to deny Williams and Ward, before Hawkins denied Blackett as he looked to pounce on a through ball; calmly sidestepping the striker outside his penalty area before making his clearance - a manoeuvre that former Leamington keeper Tony Breeden would have approved of. 

The Leamington number one was determined to hold on to his 40th clean sheet for the club, and left the visitors frustrated again as he pulled off another top drawer save to keep out a well struck half volley from substitute Ewan McGowan as Brakes didn’t quite clear their lines efficiently enough. 

There were further chances for substitute Will Shorrock and Landers as the game ticked towards a satisfactory conclusion. A neat exchange of passes between the former and the latter saw Shorrock round two defenders before seeing his shot well saved, while Landers looked to be in the right, but was unable to generate enough power in his shot to trouble the goalkeeper. 

‘I thought the first half performance was full of hard running, aggression,’ said the manager after the game when speaking to BBC CWR. ‘We got the ball in good areas and backed it up with second and third men. The first half was as good as it’s been for a bit, against another good full time outfit. Their results have been a bit up and down this year but when they’re good they’re good, but I thought it was about us first half, what we did really, so that was good. Second half they came after us a bit and probably the game was a little bit more open. They’ve had a couple of chances, we’ve had a couple of chances. I thought we could have managed that a little bit better, but I’m probably nit picking. On the back of the schedule we’ve been on, to come here today, on a difficult surface; the conditions were warm, so to put in a performance that was full of energy and hard running and that much graft and discipline was really pleasing. It was massively important for me, the message after the last week or two is that we want to keep improving on what we’re doing. You do smell it round the club that, oh, we’ve got so and so amount of points, we’ll be ok, but I think we’re more ambitious than that. We want to keep driving on, picking up more points, going toe to toe with some of these big clubs, and can we keep climbing the league? That’s the message. 

‘It’s probably the first time we have been at this stage of the season in this league and we’re not really looking over our shoulder. It’s lovely. Lovely to be coming out to these games, and the pressure I’m putting under the players is to keep pushing on. This is a nice kind of pressure. The pressure now is the pressure we are putting on each other, to keep improving, to try and keep picking up points - there’s 18 points up for grabs and we’ve got to try and get more on the board. We want to try and get to 60 points and it’s important that we don’t stand still.  

Whilst praising many of the young players and how they have adapted to playing at a higher level, Holleran highlighted another fine performance from Callum Hawkins. ‘He was excellent. Another clean sheet. He was starving of them for a bit there - before and after Christmas but the ten players in front of him are doing better. There were probably two key moments at 2-0 where he pulled off two great saves. His kicking was great today. You look at their keeper and he’s pulled off two or three great saves as well hasn’t he? 

‘We’ve created plenty of chances. It’s no coincidence that since Callum has come back our performances as a football club have improved. I think the answers are all there in black and white.’ 

Attendance: 748

Leamington: 1 Callum Hawkins, 2 Dan Meredith, 3 Josh Quaynor (16 Jiah Medrano, 79), 4 Matty Richards (21 Joe Clarke, 73), 6 Rob Evans, 7 Henry Landers, 8 Adam Walker ©, 11 Tim Berridge (12 Will Shorrock, 77), 14 George Ward, 17 Ewan Williams, 24 Owen Farmer (19 Ant Lynn, 82). 

Subs not used: 10 Jack Edwards. 

South Shields: 13 Kyle Seymour, 2 Iestyn Hughes, 3 Coleby Shepherd, 8 Robert Briggs, 19 Bryan Taylor, 30 David Carson, 6 Martin Smith, 10 William Jenkins, 35 Dylan Stephenson (31 Louis Burns, 86, 9 Paul Blackett, 11 Kyle Crossley (24 Ewan McGowan, 56). 

Subs not used: 1 Myles Boney, 16 Alfie Myers-Smith, 34 James Sloane. 

Referee: Mr Said Ouchene

Assistant Referees: Mr Daniel Clenton & Mr Minesh Gupta

Fourth Official: Mr Simon Kavanagh

Brakes Man of the Match: Tim Berridge.