Erith & Belvedere   9          Paris 28, 43, 51, 65, 75, Stather 59, 90, Parker 70, Davies 83 

Uxbridge                   1          Stapleton 23               

Corinthian League Memorial Shield 1st round 2nd replay, 26 January 1952

 

Continuing the series counting down the 100 most memorable games in our history.  Today, the cup tie that took 20 weeks to resolve!

 

The Deres did pretty well in the newly-formed Corinthian League after the war, usually finishing high up the league but never winning it.  With only 14 teams there was plenty of space for cup competitions, but sometimes the fixture list did get crowded.  A case in point was the league cup competition, known as the Corinthian League Memorial Shield.  In 1951-52 we were drawn away to Uxbridge in the first round, and earned a 1-1 draw on 8 September, Tim Davies scoring.  The replay didn’t take place until 24 November at Park View, resulting in another 1-1 draw, although bad light stopped play after the first half of extra time (we were still 11 years away from floodlights).  The second replay took another two months to fit into the schedules.  So the question is: how many cup ties have taken 20 weeks to sort out?

 

Mind you when we did get around to that second replay we made sure of it.  This is the Kentish Times report:

 

NO MISTAKE THIRD TIME – DERES SCORE NINE AGAINST UXBRIDGE

 

Although Gurr missed a penalty for Deres at Park View on Saturday, they beat Uxbridge 9-1, thus bringing to an end their first round struggle in the Corinthian League Memorial Shield.  This was Deres’ third encounter with Uxbridge.

 

The visitors scored first, after 23 minutes, a good header by J Stapleton (inside-left) just lobbing in under the cross-bar and beating Dodds, who deputised for Collins.  Uxbridge were unfortunate in losing N Tillyer (outside-left) at an early stage and although they tried hard, Deres had things much their own way.

 

The game opened with a good deal of thrusting by Uxbridge, which brought out some good defensive work by Gurr, McCullough and Penney.  Five minutes after Uxbridge’s goal, Paris intercepted a pass from K Cack (centre-half) and raced through to score.

 

For the rest of the first half Uxbridge had some hair-raising escapes as shots from Paris, Stather, Parker and Davies trickled across the goalmouth, hit the goalpost, rebounded off or skimmed over the cross-bar, in fact did everything but go in.  They were not so lucky in the 43rd minute for Paris scored again with a good shot.

 

Liberally supplied by Gurr, McCullough and Penney, in the second half the forwards piled on the score, the only response from Uxbridge being a spasmodic attack, each time the tally mounted.  After six minutes Paris got his “hat-trick”, heading in a ball that dropped vertically down, almost onto the cross-bar.

 

Eight minutes later Stather scored; 20 minutes after the interval he passed to Paris, who sent Deres further ahead.  Five minutes later it was Parker’s turn to contribute and five minutes after that Paris marked up his fifth after a clever movement.

 

Davies made a clever solo run after 38 minutes and scored.  This was followed by a good shot from Clarkson, but the ball went just over.  Almost on full time, Stather put another in.

 

Erith and Belvedere: Denis Dodds; Bob Penney, Bill Bower; Vic Parker, Harold Gurr, John McCullough; Tim Davies, Billy Reay, Jim Paris, Reg Stather, Bert Clarkson.

 

And wouldn’t you know it, four weeks later we went out of the Memorial Shield in the next round, 4-1 at Slough.  We finished 4th in the league, although a long way behind the top three (Uxbridge were 11th), and reached the final of the Kent Amateur Cup – more about that later in the series.  And those five goals helped Jim Paris to finish as Deres’ top scorer for the second season running, both times with 31 goals.