Additional Comments:

Janne Lehti took over as Lions’ all-time top goalscorer during this match when he reached a total of 162 points, beating Ari Arvila’s 161. The other three in the top five were John Gordon (60), Alan Sandford (57) and Chris Leggatt (53). Chris edged out Bill Watson to gain fifth place with the goal he scored during this match, which came at 05:44.

Lions gave Colin Trew time between the pipes in this game when he replaced Vesa Pennanen at 48:28. Lions also scored the only Power Play goal of the match (Lehti, assisted by Virta and Williams at 43:55 and managed to play the whole 60 minutes without suffering a single penalty!

Officials were Harber, Moore and Price.

The match programme of 11/10/86 contained Geof Smith’s “Captain’s Column,” where he had this to say on the two defeats we suffered at Telford’s hands (this match and the previous day’s away game)…

“Last weekend saw us lose twice to Telford. I’m not going to say it was just our injuries, it was a big factor, but not the reason, although let me stay with injuries for a moment. Since the beginning of the season, when we beat Nottingham, since then you can read it like a list: Erskine broke his leg, Andy and Mark have been badly injured, that means that our first and second lines could not train together and have never trained together.

“Then Ali, Tari and myself were injured and we could not train, and that’s the way the past few weeks have gone, just one thing after another, and to cap it all at the game last week, for the first time, our fans were getting on our backs. You all have to remember that we are not professional players. Some of us finish work on a Saturday 1 hour before the game. I personally work 5 days a week and it’s physical work, then week in, week out I get punched, kicked and beaten up because I love the sport, not for any financial reward. The referee last week gave Telford a licence to kill, there were many incidents which should have been seen.

“I think the big reason for our lack of form is our lack of quality players. I had the chance to have a sneak preview of Ronnie Cee’s column (in the match programme). He asked me directly who GS was. Well, I will give Ronnie a list of the players who have shown an interest in Lee Valley: Glen Skidmore, Lee Whale, Jason Wright (Solihull), John Wolfe, Andy Steele (Telford) and the list goes on…

“But, like I said last week, finances at Lee Valley do not allow the club to pay and sponsor players so it all has to come from private sponsorship.”