The meeting of these teams at St Albans on Saturday afternoon in the above competition attracted a large crowd, numbering over 1,200.
The United had out their strongest available team, which included Jimmy Valiant, whilst the homesters made one change from the side that beat Stockton in the Amateur Cup, Palmer taking the place of Wiggs at centre half.
The game was keenly contested throughout, but was greatly interfered with by a strong wind that was blowing down the field, many times spoiling some good combined movements by the forwards on either side.
The United were the first to score and kept their lead until ten minutes before the close, when the homesters equalised from a melee in front of goal.
Reprinted from the “Cambridge Daily News” 17th March 1913.
Although they had much more of the game at Clarence Park than did their opponents St Albans City dropped a valuable league point on Saturday. Cambridge United forcing a draw of one goal each.
St Albans had the advantage of kicking off in their favourite direction and with the wind and sun assisting them they kept the play in the Cambridge United half of the pitch for a period following the kick off. Suddenly
Cambridge United managed to break away but Meagher managed to halt them with a fine challenge.
The home rearguard managed to deal with the visitors breakaway chances and whenever the St Albans forward line threatened they were equally dealt with. George Edmonds once got within shooting range and fired he ball just over the bar. Shortly after this another Citizens forward tried a shot an Wheeler just managed to clear his lines. Hosier and Clark were both prominent on the flanks and a cross from the latter was hooked just over the bar by Edmonds. A little later saw Edmonds dribble through and set himself up for a shot but the strike just flew past the post.
Suddenly Cambridge broke away and Driscoll latched onto a ball that was cleared from defence and took a shot from twenty yards. The ball seemed to be flying over the bar but the wind caught it and the ball dipped into the net with Smith well beaten.
Recovering from this reverse City had the best of some very ragged play just before the interval. Leslie Hosier had a shot that was saved well by Wheeler. Palmer had another shot which was blocked and the follow up shot from Hosier was also blocked. Cambridge United led at half time 1 goal to nil.
City were in a desperate hurry to turn the tables and as a consequence the second half was more of a lively affair. Clark, Hosier and Marsh were more prominent in attack from now on. Meagher headed towards the ball from a corner but Wheeler just managed to clear his lines.
From another corner Marsh was unlucky not to get the ball on target. The Cambridge forwards broke away after a time and thankfully the safe hands of Smith stopped a second Cambridge goal.
City scored their equalising goal from another corner. The ball coming to the feet of Hearn who placed it through a crowd of players well between the posts. City made every effort to secure the winning goal with chances from Hammond, Edmonds and Hosier. Palmer received a knock and hobbled off the field with Hearn moving to centre-half.
TEAM. H Smith, T Hearn, E Grimsdell, J Brandham, F Palmer, G Meagher, L Hosier, W Marsh, G Edmonds, H Hammond and W Clark |
