Edgbaston FC 1–0 Brixton AFC: a timely blow

The floodlights blinked on early at Edgbaston on Tuesday 18 August, which felt right: this was a match that needed lighting. Dave the kit man had the towels laid out before either dugout had said a word, and by the time Arthur Coleridge shaped to take that corner on the half hour, most of the ground had settled for 0-0 and a draw to admire.

Then Max Foulkes rose. Thirty minutes gone, Coleridge's delivery dropping onto the six-yard line, and the centre-half got there ahead of a Brixton defence that has spent the season making everybody else look small. 1-0. It mattered because Brixton had arrived top of the table on 45 points to Edgbaston's 35, red-hot and comfortable, and because the earlier meeting between these two had also finished 1-0. This one was against the run of play. Nobody inside the ground asked for their money back.

The lead held at the break, and the second half became a lesson in holding what you have. Brixton pushed, Edgbaston stood, and the nearest the leaders came was a scramble that ended with the ball pinballing off three bodies and out for a goal kick. A 1-0 against the leaders does not happen by accident. It happens because a defence stays honest, and because the one save that needed making got made.

Foulkes had scored a week earlier against Crookes on 9 August, in a 1-1 that had felt like a moral victory at the time. Tonight he improved on it: one header, three points, and a small dent in that immaculate Brixton record. The dressing room will smell of liniment and quiet satisfaction, and rightly so.

Tomorrow brings the next fixture and no room to admire any of it. That is the way of things. Edgbaston will have the towels out again before the kettle has boiled, and Foulkes will be expected to do it all over again. He looked up for it on Tuesday night. He looked up for it from the moment those floodlights came on.