The lost of our unbeaten record was a great disappointment to us though it was not entirely unexpected bearing in mind the wonderful form the Casual's have been showing and the fact that we had three key players out of the team.

It was unfortunate we had to play this important fixture when England had called on our players, but Hendon's loss was England's gain and we are pleased both John Swannell and Dave Hyde played such an important part in the National XI victory.

The Casuals played attractive football throughout the match and it would have been a tragedy had they lost, but our boys did enough to at least have earned a draw.

With a strong wind in our favour it was thought we would have to cross over with at least a two goal lead and though we scored a brilliant goal with a terrific 25 yard drive from Keith Mills, bad marking allowed the visitors to equalise close on half time as the result of a Geoff Hunt header.

On the resumption we had a let-off when an effort from centre forward Joyce struck the bar. Then followed a period of intensive pressure from our boys when the Casuals defence was penned in the goal area for over twenty minutes.

Efforts by Quail, Lakey, Churchill and Mills were luckily scrambled away before Ron Whittaker brought off the save of the match going full length to hold a full blooded drive from Hugh Pratt.

Then came the winning goal in the 34th minute a remarkable drive from right half Richardson from thirty yards out. Though we lost our unbeaten record a pleasing feature was the spirit our boys put into their play in the second period. Dan Lakey in particular showing the form that made him so dangers last season. Roy Sleap was a tower of strength deputising for Geoff Riddy at centre half, his fourth position.