Brighton One Win From Soccer Championship

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31755, 12 August 1968, Page 15

Brighton One Win From Soccer Championship

Rangers and New Brighton continued their triumphant march towards winning the southern league soccer championships on Saturday. Rangers established a two-point lead at the head of the first division and Brighton now has only to win its last match to take the second division title and gain promotion.

Rangers hammered home the superiority of Canterbury clubs over their Dunedin counterparts by beating St Kilda in Dunedin.

Rangers now lead. City by two points, the clubs each having three more matches to play, including their own vital clash on August 31.

Rangers’ other matches are against Roslyn-Wakari (August 24) and Western (August 28), while City has to play Queen's Park (next Saturday) and Shamrock (August 24). Brighton’s victory over Ttmaru City and Caversham's win against Mosgiel left them on top of the second division, Caversham two points ahead of Brighton. However, Caversham has now completed its programme, Brighton has one match to play, against Shirley-Nomads on August 24. Victory will give Brighton the same number of points as Caversham, and as long as the seasiders do not concede too many goals in the process, the second division championship on goal average. Their present averages, determined by dividing tne goals against into the goals for, are: Brighton, 2.21; Caversham,

The biggest upset of the day was Northern’s defeat to Queen’s Park—a victory which will probably save the Invercargill club from relegation. The vital match at the bottom end of the first division will be played on August 24, when Queen’s Park meets its fellow candidate for relegation. Technical (Dunedin).

Shamrock narrowly beat Western at English Park, to retain an outside interest in the fourth place prize money. Results and tables:

First Division.—Shamrock 2, Western 1; St Kilda 1, Rangers 3; Queen’s Park 3, Northern 2. Second Division.—Caversham 3, Mosgiel 2; Timaru City 1, New Brighton 4.

On Top In Patches Rangers prospered in two 20minute spells against St Kilda. scoring their first goal in the first session immediately after the start of the match and adding two more in the second period after the interval. And, against the club’s bitter protests, St Kilda did not reply until the dying minutes when the Dunedin club was awarded a disputed penalty. During the two 20-minute spells Rangers played some of tneir greatest soccer of the season, but outside of these patches play quickly deteriorated, and St Kilda came more into the game.

Rangers began without their centre-forward. B. Hammond, who was found only last week to have *craeked two ribs in a match a fortnight previously. However, heavily bandaged, Hammond went on as a substitute in the second half when G. Adam suffered concussion. T. Haydon (2) and W. Robinson scored Rangers' goals, Haydon’s second following a brilliant movement which began

with C. Pickrill at left-back and ended after five Rangers* players had touched the Dall.

Brighton Recovers Brighton took a long time to settle down at Timaru and conceded the first goal before taking control of the match in the second half. Timaru began very confidently, taking the lead through D. Lally, but Brighton slowly fought back, to be on level terms, with a goal from G. Spiers, at half-time.

Brighton gained the initiative in a scoring burst which brought goals from W. Quirke. K. Burke and K. Morgan, and afterwards never looked in danger of defeat.

Shamrock Held On Shamrock, gaining an early lead through A. Marshall after

• fine run by J. Killlck and adding to it when S. McAlpine took his chance splendidly, held on to beat Western, 2-1, in the early game at English Park. P. Frost, coming on as a second half replacement, scored for Western, and the best football of the match followed as Western strove to equalise and Shamrock to clinch victory. In the end. Shamrock well deserved Its win, both sides missing chances to score. Outstanding for Shamrock were T. Mann and P. Yates, in defence, and A. Marshall, in attack. Frost made a great difference to the Western attack in the second half and had he been there for the whole 90 minutes, the result might have been different.

First Division P W D L Goals F A Pts Rangers 15 12 3 0 53 9 27 City 15 12 1 2 87 13 25 Tech (Ch) 13 8 1 4 30 18 17 St Kilda 15 8 1 6 39 34 17 Northern 15 7 2 6 43 33 16 Roslyn 15 5 4 6 41 34 14 Shamrock 14 6 1 7 31 44 13 Western 15 6 0 9 23 27 12 Q. Park 15 2 0 13 22 84 4 Tech (Dn) 14 0 1 18 19 74 1 Second Division Goals P W D y, F A Pts Caver’m 14 9 4 1 51 26 22 Brighton 13 9 2 2 42 19 20 Mosgiel 14 9 2 3 32 22 20 Thistle 14 9 1 4 32 18 19 Shirley 13 3 2 8 18 29 8 Maori H. 14 4 0 10 21 38 8 Timaru 14 3 1 10 21 44 7 H.S.O.B. 14 2 2 10 22 43 6