Lancaster City 1 King's Lynn 0
23rd August 1980
Linnets boss Keith Rudd moved himself out of the front attacking line for the first 75 minutes of this Northern Premier League game on Saturday - and later admitted that it was probably a tactical error.
He switched himself to a midfield role on the flanks to cover for the injured Clive Adams.
This left Duncan Wiles and Paul Chapman to battle away up front and they seemed to miss the guidance that Rudd gives when he is in an attacking role.
Only after Lancaster had taken a 70th minute lead through Dave Kerkham did Rudd change the balance and push himself into the front.
The improvement in Lynn's play was soon there to be seen and five chances were created around the Lancaster goalmouth in the last 15 minutes, but an equaliser would not come.
Rudd said afterwards: "If I had been up front for the entire 90 minutes I think we could have won it, but it's easy to see it that way in hindsight.
"Lancaster were probably the poorest of the three sides we have met, yet they had three good front men who battled hard and held the ball up.
"Our back four men did well to restrict them around our box, but our midfield did not get going and our front two did not get enough good possession. We did not have any pattern or rhythm to our play and our running off the ball as all too stereotyped." Although disappointed at this defeat Rudd can still look back at the first week in the Northern Premier League with a fair measure of satisfaction the side having taken four points from three games and scoring five goals with only two against.
Overall the game against Lancaster was such that Lynn keeper Phil Ringwood had few dangerous shots on target to deal with until he was beaten late on.
The first shot of the game was from Lancaster's Brindle, the ball going over the bar and when Lynn winger Pinkowski dashed into the penalty area he lobbed a shot over keeper Hudson and the home side's defence did a good covering job to clear off the line.
Two shots from Gary Rowbottom went wide and a long shot from Ian Innes was well saved by Ringwood.
Further pressure in the second half ended with another long shot, this time from Kevin Wright, going close. Finally Lancaster got the breakthrough when their tricky winger Dave Kirkham blasted the ball past Ringwood after Lynn had failed to make a good clearance from his centre.
In the closing stages, after Lynn's team switches, there were chances for Wright and Chapman which went wide. Chapman had the clearest opportunity from a Moyes-Rudd move but he stabbed the ball wide as the goal opened up before him.
Lancaster: Hudson, Shaw, Cox, Williams, Carter, Bunford, Brindle, Wright, Innes, Rowbottom, Kirkham, sub: Elliot.
Lynn: Ringwood, Moyes, Wright, M Wiles, Wilson, Pinkowski, Bailey, Watts, Rudd, Chapman, D Wiles, sub Ward.