Our second Continental visitors of the 1957-58 season provided 19,500 spectators with some clever soccer last Monday evening, but the L.K.S. Club of Lodz had to finally admit defeat by a 4-1 margin against a Hammers' team that proved their superiors.
During the first half-hour or so our Polish opponents had appeared likely to keep us at full stretch throughout, but although they succeeded in keeping the scores level at the interval they could not hold u$ in the latter stages.
A Dick-Keeble move ended with our inside-left bundling the half into the net in the 24th minute, but a close-in header by Soporck a couple of minutes afterwards put his side on even terms.
However, we again took the lead five minutes after the resumption, Grice placed a corner-kick to the edge of the penalty-area for Lansdowne to head it forward, and a header by Dick completed the move.
Then came two penalty-kicks. These were awarded for a foul and a handling offence respectively in the 76th and 81st minutes, and although Bond made no mistake with his spot shot. Brown had to follow up and net at the second attempt after the goalkeeper had parried his initial power-drive.
L.K.S. may have considered themselves a little unfortunate to be beaten by such a wide margin, but there was no denying the fact that they found the defence generally too strong for them, and our half-back line often turned defence into attack in a fashion which caught the visitors at a disadvantage.
Nevertheless it was a most enjoyable evening, and it marked our century of games against foreign opposition since we first played in Madrid 36 years ago.