The Bay were in a confident mood ahead of this game, despite the pre-match scathing and highly critical comments from certain Barking officials. Barking had gone eighteen games without defeat.
Barking kicked off and Ramshaw had to concede a corner following a misunderstanding with Goundry. From the kick Fox headed just over the bar. Then from the goal-kick Beynon sent in a powerful shot and the return was picked up by Gatens who cut in from the wing and fired into the arms of Howard.
After seven minutes Gatens kept up his early determination and scored from the edge of the box, and the cheers had hardly settled before he netted again from an almost identical position. 2-0.
Barking were bewildered!
Fox once again headed over the bar but Goundry had it well covered. After twenty minutes Wright cleverly side-stepped two men and took the ball up to Howard before pushing it round him and into an empty net.
Then ten minutes later, with Jones and Howard hesitating, Wright almost made it four, racing through to beat them both to a high ball and head just over the bar.
O’Hara, on the right wing, was also bemusing the Barking defence with cleverly placed crosses, while Beynon was snuffing out all the mid-field play before it reached the half-backs.
The pace slackened a little after the interval, with the heavy mud beginning to take its toll. But it was still all Whitley Bay!
After sixty-eight minutes Beynon rubbed it in with a cleverly taken goal, lobbing the ball calmly over the head of the advancing goalkeeper.
With ten minutes to go, Goundry accidently dropped the ball and Wilsonham tapped it home. Then Gatens sent in a fierce drive that bounced off the keeper.
Almost on time Wright took on the Barking defence single-handed and nearly scored, but from the clearance Walton scored with a great thirty yard shot that had Howard beaten all the way.
COMMENT: “If this match had been played under the Marquis of Queensberry rules it would have been stopped.” – National Paper.