Leabrooks Panthers emerged from a physical battle with their heads held high over Shirebrook Rangers, It was a bruising encounter at Cavendish Park that ended in a footballing victory by Leabrooks Panthers 5-3.
The game started at a blistering pace with tackles flying in from Shirebrook in an attempt to establish a moral high ground over their Panthers counterparts, unphased the Leabrooks team continued to play football in the right way, although after 2 minutes the defence was caught asleep when a low drive found its way into the bottom corner to make the score line a surprise 1-0 to Shirebrook.
This sparked Leabrooks into action, on 4 minutes a free kick was awarded for a foul 5 yards outside the penalty box, Joe Selby from the left of the box lined up and hit an unstoppable left foot strike into the goal to bring the game back level, 1 – 1.
The game then at times was on the edge of boiling over on several occasions, an ankle tap in the box on Sam Parkin went unnoticed by the referee for a potential penalty and a deliberate aggressive tackle on Joe Selby amounted in the referee having stern words.
The game finished at half time 1 – 1.
The tactics of Shirebrook continued into the second half as they broke up the footballing play of Leabrooks with some aggressive tacking, but on 25 minutes a Joe Selby corner came off their No. 10 who edged into his own goal for a 2-1 Leabrooks advantage.
2 minutes later Bekir Ozdemir entered the box and struck a powerful strike into the goal to give Leabrooks a 3-1 advantage, with confidence high and Shirebook deflated Leabrooks pressed on and after some good work by Owen Spensley on the touch line he cut back a pass for Sam Parkin to poach the 4th on 32 minutes to make the score line an impressive 4 – 1.
Shirebrook however had not done, they pressed and scored on 35 & 37 minutes to set up a tense finale with the score at 4 – 3 with only 3 minutes of play remaining.
Time for a late Leabrooks substitution, the rested Bekir Ozdemir arrived on the field of play, and with seconds remaining secured the game for Leabrooks with a smart finish to end the game Leabrooks Panthers 5 – 3 Shirebrook Rangers.
