Northern Transvaal 0 - 2 Aberdeen

SOUTH AFRICAN STRAUSS HAS HAND IN BOTH VISITORS' GOALS

N. TRANSVAAL'S INABILITY TO FORCE PLAY SPOILS GAME AS SPECTACLE

Pretoria, Monday.

Aberdeen showed themselves superior in all departments when they beat Northern Transvaal by two goals to nil here to-day, making their record for their South African tour four matches played and four won.

The match was not an outstanding exhibition of football, falling away from good display in the first half, when Aberdeen scored both their goals, to scrappy play in the second half, when the visitors seemed content to rest on their oars.
Transvaal's defence was good, but they showed little initiative in attack. The Governor-General of South Africa, Sir Patrick Duncan, shook hands with the members of both teams, who were piped on to the field. The Minister for Defence, Mr O. Pirow, was also present.
Six thousand spectators turned up in sunny weather to see a match played on excellent turf.

DONS ATTACK

Aberdeen won the toss and set the home team to kick off with the sun in their faces. From the start Aberdeen attacked, repeatedly pressing on the Transvaal goal and forcing the defence to concede five corners in the first ten minutes. None of the corners was turned to account, but the game was only eleven minutes old when Aberdeen opened the scoring, Scott, who repeated his form of Saturday, sending in a well-timed header from a pass by the South African-born winger Strauss.
Aberdeen continued to have matters more or less their own way and in the 38th minute Mills scored their second goal with a powerful shot again from pass by Strauss.

SCRAPPY PLAY

The second half opened with scrappy play devoid of incident, Aberdeen feeling their superiority and making little effort to increase their lead and the home side being unable to make any progress. When Transvaal did get into a scoring position in the fifteenth minute, Bell, the centre forward, missed an easy opening. Again Transvaal attacked and Aberdeen conceded two corners.
In the closing stages of the game the visitors seemed lethargic and the end found Transvaal pressing hard though the score remained unchanged. Temple, Beynon, Armstrong, Lang and Devine stood down from the Scottish side.

Source: Press & Journal, 1st June 1937