1946
Saturday, 21 December 1946
Isthmian League
 
Wycombe Wanderers
?
4 - 3
Wimbledon
Pat Edelston, Ron Head, Frank Lemmer

Douglas returned to the half-back line in place of Magill, with Head moving over to his usual inside-left position, allowing Edelston to resume at centre-forward, but Laker was missing and Finch took his place at outside-left. Only 40 minutes each way was played due to the state of the pitch.

Right from the kick-off the visitors adapted themselves to the conditions and gave the crowd a real exhibition of football. The forwards produced some extremely clever approach work, but it was the old story of poor finishing. All the forwards were to blame, Stannard in particular missing an easy chance when clean through. At last Wimbledon managed to score; Finch broke away and centred the ball to Head, who scored a nice goal. For the whole of this half Wycombe did not come into the picture, one or two spasmodic attacks being quickly broken up by a strong defence.

Whatever was said in the Wycombe dressing room during the break had its effect. Straight from the resumption the home team got on top and it was hard to believe they were the same side that had been playing in the first half. Swinging the ball about from wing to wing they soon had the Dons’ defence in trouble and it came as no surprise when they equalised. Haydock went up to reach a high ball, but was nudged away with the referee unsighted and the ball finished up in the back of the net. This goal caused Wimbledon’s defence to go all to pieces and three more goals quickly followed from the home side, Hunt helping himself to a hat-trick. Within twenty minutes of turning around Wycombe had rattled in four goals. Wimbledon regrouped and with ten minutes to go mounted a fight-back, but could only manage two goals, through Edelston and a Lemmer penalty.

The Amateur Footballer (from where this report was culled) commented; “On this display Wimbledon will seriously have to consider several changes. Their defence still show that they are liable to panic under pressure, while the forwards, although showing good approach work, are weak in front of goal.”