DYNAMO LEAMINGTON FOOTBALL CLUB

Hampton Magna 3 – 1 Dynamo Leamington
League – Divison Four

After the impressive performance the previous week, it was an uncharacteristic Dynamo display against a poor Hampton Magna team.  Dynamo got off to the worst possible start, gifting Magna a goal in the opening minutes after a dreadful mix-up at the back, and never really recovered.

Unlike the previous week, although there was no lack of effort, Dynamo failed to control the middle of the park, and as a result were not able to create many attacking chances.

The second-half did see an improvement, and Alex Haffner, pushing up from centre-half, scored Dynamo’s only goal with a strong header from a corner.  Ray and Seb in the middle of the park continued to give their all and both put in an excellent shift, but Magna managed to put the game out of sight with a late third goal.

Sadly, in his first game back since slicing his knee back in February, Burney re-opened the wound in the second-half, and is not expected to play any more this season.

Holly Bush Inn 0 – 1 Dynamo Leamington
League – Divison Four

A disciplined and gritty performance from Dynamo earned the second league win in succession, although this was a completely different type of game compared to the previous win against 9-man Antelope.

Holly Bush were an organized and physical side, but with strong performances from the midfield and the defence, Dynamo were more than a match.  Ray and Reno (later replaced by Alex) won the midfield battle, and as Holly Bush were forced to resort to a long-ball game, the Dynamo defence stood strong – Gary Vella in particular winning every long ball in the air.  Jason Knight in goal handled the long-range shots and crosses well, and a well-disciplined defensive performance provided the foundation for Dynamo to create their chances.

Dynamo’s only goal came from an excellent Mark Saunders strike, although Ray’s left-foot shot into the side-netting towards the end of the game had Nick Tiday howling in anguish as he screamed for the ball to be cut-back to him.  Fortunately this miss didn’t prove to be costly as Holly Bush exerted some pressure towards the end of the game, but the whole team worked tirelessly, with Saunders, Holland and even Tiday tracking back to help out!

Bishops Itchington 8 – 2 Dynamo Leamington
Andy Campbell Cup – Semi-Final

Dynamo’s progress in this cup competition was abruptly and emphatically halted by a strong Bishops Itchington side from Division Two.  Despite, at times, competing well in open-play, Dynamo’s “Achilles Heel” turned out to be set pieces, conceding several goals from corners and long-throws.

Dynamo matched Bishops for the most part in open play and the midfield trio of Rich Davis, Ray Nsemwa and Seb Burion were in no way overshadowed by their Division Two counterparts.  Although Dynamo created chances including hitting the cross-bar, having a shot cleared off the line and a penalty won by Ray and converted expertly by Nick Tiday, much of the damage had been done by half-time as Dynamo failed to deal with three corners in succession.

The second-half followed a similar pattern, with most of the damage being done by set-pieces – in almost every occasion Bishops were quicker to the second ball dropping in the 6-yard box and seemed to manage to always get a boot to the loose ball.  As the game petered out, Bishops pacy striker beat the offside trap to score at the second attempt past the unlucky Jason Knight, and at the other end, Dynamo were awarded a second penalty, for which Richard Heath demanded the ball to double his season tally.

So, to use the old cliché, with six remaining games in a tough run-in, Dynamo can concentrate on consolidating a strong league finish!

Antelope 1 – 2 Dynamo Leamington
League – Divison Four

Considering Antelope started, and played most of the first-half, with only nine men, an extremely underwhelming and lacklustre Dynamo failed to take advantage of their numerical advantage.  In fact, to the casual observer, it may have been hard to tell which team had the extra men as the Antelope midfield seemed to find space at will, and were able to create a number of chances against an out-of-sorts Dynamo defence.  By contrast, Dynamo looked ineffectual going forward, and frustration at a pretty abject first-half performance was apparent.

A change of formation and some hard words at half-time did see a marked improvement in the second-half.  Skinny was unlucky to be sacrificed to accommodate the change in shape, as he had been one of the harder-working players in the first-half, but changes needed to be made.  Reverting to a traditional 4-4-2 formation enabled Dynamo to get hold of the ball in the middle of the park, and start to exert their numerical advantage against a tiring Antelope team.  The introduction of Nick Tiday at half-time also meant there was a more obvious target man, and he had some success in holding the ball up and bringing other players into the attack.  The deadlock was broken fifteen minutes into the second half with a delightful lob from Seb Burion after the Antelope keeper had pulled off a number of excellent saves, but any thoughts that Dynamo would then go on to wrap-up the game were soon quashed when Antelope equalised from a quick break following a Dynamo corner.

The remainder of the second-half followed a pattern – Dynamo created a number of chances, but always looked vulnerable on the break.  Nick, Adam McLean, Matt Holland and Seb all came close, but were thwarted by the frame of the goal and the goalkeeper on numerous occasions, and at the other end, Rob Dent came out on top three times against the Antelope centre-forward in one-on-one breaks.

Dynamo’s blushes were eventually spared when Dan Blohm won the ball in the air in the penalty area and provided Nick Tiday with an opportunity to squeeze a close-range shot past the Antelope ‘keeper.

An unconvincing performance that nonetheless resulted in Dynamo climbing three places in the League out of the relegation zone!

Dynamo Leamington 3 – 2 Hobsons Choice
League – Divison Four

Lying at the foot of the league table, Dynamo went into this game knowing that a win was desperately needed.  With everyone’s favourite ref in charge, the pre-match team-talk emphasized the need to retain composure, and let the opposition react to the inevitable bad decisions.

The intial pressure all came from Dynamo, with the midfield trio of Ray Nsemwa, Seb Burion and Chris Spiers holding their own against a packed Hobsons midfield, andthe defence coping without too much difficulty.  Matt Holland caused the Hobsons full-back some worries, but few clear-cut chances were created.

The first twist in the game occurred when Jason Knight came to catch a fairly innocuous Hobsons cross from the right, but was as surprised as everyone else when Gary Vella took matters into his own hands, and headed the cross bullet-like into his own goal past the stranded ‘keeper.

This gave Hobsons some encouragement, but the half-time team-talk summed it up  – despite having more of the ball, Dynamo were coasting and a greater urgency was needed against a physical, but unspectacular Hobsons side.

As Dynamo started the second-half with a greater urgency, the turning-point of the game occurred when Matt Holland chased a lost cause and was bundled over – and the referee awarded an (arguably soft) penalty.  This was the cue for Hobsons to start to lose their heads, as had been predicted before the game.  Nick Tiday calmly converted the penalty, and Dynamo looked like a team with a new sense of purpose.

As Hobsons lost their tempers, and the ref continued to award more and more bizarre decisions in Dynamo’s favour, the tide turned noticably.

As Dynamo pushed forward, more chances were being created, and the effort was rewarded when Mark Saunders delivered a pin-point cross from a Chris Spiers throw, and a late run from a jubilant Richard Heath saw him arrive at just the right time to head home for his first goal of the season.

Nick Tiday soon turned provider – after some excellent work on the bye-line he dropped a cross onto the head of Matt Holland who gladly headed home to put Dynamo into a 3-1 lead.

Hobsons showed good spirit and rallied – the last ten minutes saw Dynamo pushed back as Hobsons fought to get back into the game.  With Gary Vella and Rob Dent marshalling the defence, and really good resilience being shown from the whole team, Hobsons failed to make much progress.  Even Nick Tiday worked back and put in his shift, and with substitue Paul Dudgeon providing the outlet, it looked like Dynamo would hold out for a memorable victory.  There was still a final turn to be had in the last few minutes when the ref finally gave a decision to Hobsons by awarding a free-kick on the edge of the area.  To cap the fluke of the first-half goal, Jason Knight was calmly watching the wayward shot from the free-kick sailing harmlessly wide when their centre-half managed to throw himself at the shot and deflect it into the goal.

It was too little too late, and Dynamo held on for a well-earned victory – the first since the opening game of the season.  The interest continued after the game as the ref was again the centre of some controversy when he was marked with a score of 0/100 by Hobsons for his match performance!

This was a thoroughly well-deserved victory after a much-improved second-half performance.  The whole team played extremely well, and showed real character and resilience, although mention should be made of another new position for Mark Clayton who had an excellent game at right-back, once again giving the Caretaker Gaffer some difficult selection decisions for the coming weeks!