Thetownend.com

Well today we should have been celebrating winning the league with the last game home of the season having supposed to have taken place yesterday, seems a bit weird even thinking about football at the moment TBH.

But the original point of the post.....

On this day 34 years ago Town win their first ever league championship title after drawing 1-1 away at Mansfield.

Well over 2,000 and probably nearer 3,000 Swindon fans celebrated as they have never celebrated before as we got our first ever football league title after Leigh Barnyard scored an equalizer to take the title with 4 games still left to play.

An amazing day out in difficult circumstances with the "edgy" Police pressence there, so absolutely memorable, the Old Bill being the only blot on the day.

Mansfield at the final whistle playing "We are the champions" for us, just as Aldershot did the week after as our players came onto the pitch for kick off, still gives me goosebumps.

Trying to post a bit more "happy and positive feeling" threads to take our mind off the crap going on at the moment.

Lifetime away. Sobering thought that it’s highly unlikely I’ll get to see the next 30 years - or 20 come to that.

The one constant in all that time being STFC. 2 wives ago, son on the way, just started my business.

Fuck. Where has all that time gone?

The result was 1-1, hence how we managed to score an equaliser.

The OB didn't help things by pulling over all vehicles outside of Mansfield before th game to nick all booze unless it was drunk on the spot. Consequently there was one mass beer swill.

Could we seek a copper from that day to explain their policy. Maybe they could do a plodcast.

Yes it was a slip of the fingers, sorry to offend you.

I’ve used that excuse in very differing circumstances!

Not just the fingers I bet! :D

I believe the Notts police had honed their skills during the miners strike. Incredibly heavy handed. We were treated in the same manner as they’d been dealing with ‘flying pickets’, as the Notts mines had returned to work earlier than other parts of the country.
Anybody know why there was a tv ban, resulting in no actual video footage of this immense day for Town?

http://www.swindon-town-fc.co.uk/MatchCentre.asp?Tab=Video&MatchID=19860142

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33149689

There’s, thankfully, footage of the promotion sealing classic under lights against Chester from earlier that month though? Any idea how that filming was permitted?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KOwXa8DDMJM

It was only a handful of weekends that season that weren't filmed at all, it wasn't a whole season that went missing. Just most of it, and not that much was filmed in Div 4 at the time anyway only on HTV news or Points West.

with........... Roger Malone, Roger Malone, we know you're ..........................

On this day 30 years ago...

https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/footballs-biggest-punishments-7248403.html

https://youtu.be/IZKvZ_HdJHs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhJqNH5JDcU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOPFhLl7g7U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ouwnuLisTPE

This was the day I became a Town fan, and I'm sure I wasn't alone.  Riled me up no end.  My first game was 3 months later.  I still have all my teenage press clippings detailing the whole sorry saga.

I still remember it very well, I worked at the club at the time and it truly sent shock waves through the whole club, players, managers, staff and office staff which took a couple of years to get over, many of us fans have never got over this fully and never will.

Being one of one last to leave the holding area in Faringdon Road Park for the protest march, and turning right into Milton Road, the head of the march was turning back into Commercial Road from Fleming Way. That stretched all the way up Milton Road, Commercial Road, Princes Street & Fleming Way. One of the largest protest matches in Britain outside of London was a description in a national rag. About 15,000 I recall?

The planned concert afterwards in FR Park was cancelled due to safety concerns.

Thanks for posting videos and I honestly couldn't remember Jimmy greaves backing STFC or Atkinson whinging about Wednesday being hard done by!

there
Them there protest marches are all well and good but has there ever been one that has actually changed anything ?

Weirdly today I was putting some of the old kids VHS videos onto my PC so I can finally get rid of all the old video tapes and came accross a few highlights of Swindon matched from the late 80s and early 90s plus the whole Swindon v Bristol City live game on Sky when Fallon scored the cracker.

On another tape I had written "Swindon 90" and played it and it had a 30 minute HTV football special dedicated to our demotion called "Swindons nightmare".

Going itno all the details etc with Roger Malone.

I will try and copy it off tomorrow and put it onto YouTube.

One got Lou Macari reinstated!

You can imagine the uproar now if the winner of the Championship playoffs was denied promotion. Or that the chairmen of clubs in the division you were going into decided the outcome.

Unfortunately in 1990 there wasn't much reaction outside Swindon/Wiltshire. I am sure the petition from Swindon fans got dumped in the bins at the FL office.

The other thing was it happened during the 1990 World Cup do there was a news story with Alan Mac in the Ireland team but as England progressed the story moved on.

Media was different back then.  And no social media, or course, for every self-appointed expert to discuss it to death.  But as an avid collector of news clippings (mentioned above) on this story, I can confirm that the national newspapers were carrying the STFC story all summer...or at least until the demotion was reduced, on appeal, to one division.  I'm sure that having Ossie as Manager raised the profile of the story a few notches.  And football was big news anyway while all that was happening with the World Cup in Italy.

I am currently recording to Youtube all the news reports surrounding this and the national news it made, from breakfast news through to the reactions at Swindon and the HTV program going into details I will post the link up tomorrow of them all, I am glad I recorded everything I could back then!

Lovely bit of curation there JJ, documenting the most defining time in Town's history I'd say.

Can't say for certain but I genuinely think that at that time, Town would've cemented themselves as a top tier club. Especially with the squad we had. I know Glenda got us there a little while after but the format had changed and the PL was already incarnated. Had we "got in" beforehand when we should've, I think we'd still be there or thereabouts.

Are you taking the piss ?

No not at all. Not in this instance. So you're certain that had Town been promoted to the top flight when they should've been, they wouldn't have sustained it or be thereabouts today?

It was clearly a defining moment in the clubs history.

Are you taking the piss?

Wasn't it a year or two later that the FA or FL published a report on the views of fans into football in general? Rather unthoughtfully the cover of the report had a background photo of fans at a game - they were Swindon fans at Wembley in 1990.

It's a stretch to stay we would have sustained until now given the turnover of clubs in the top flight over the last 30 years

However, it is the Sliding Doors moment in our history.

That 89/90 team was at it's peak and could have lasted 2 or 3 years until the PL money came along. The club would have been more financially sustainable and maybe built up the supporter base and redeveloped the CG.

The club's financial problems of the 90s really started from there. We paid that squad good money, as they had proved themselves, to chase the dream and ran up debts chasing the dream which were paid off by breaking up the squad. That played a big factor in Hoddle going.

When this all happened I was working in Lincoln's Inn in London and I went to watch in the High Court in my lunch break.
Suffice to say it was all legal jargon etc etc and could really have been about anything !
Ardiles was there but I think he was a trained lawyer ?
All I can remember was the barrister for the FL was a typical Eton, Oxbridge, type who sucked up to the judge at every opportunity. The STFC lawyer was a specialist sport lawyer and was a grammar school boy done good and a real bundle of fun & energy.
I remember they spent ages arguing about fees, with our lawyer claiming that the FL had score an own goal, which probably went right over the judge & FL lawyers heads  :D

I used to have every Swindon highlight from 1980 to 1996 recorded but my ex wife decided to destroy almost all of them except the couple I have just found.

I am having problems with sound quality of my video capture using Arcsoft Showbiz so I am trying to find a better quality usb video recording software, as soon as I have found one I will share the results via youtube on here.

Get a thread set up PV.

I found a folder full of videos I'd hoarded yesterday that I should probably do something with. A few full-matches (Huddersfield and Wigan FA Cup games, Sheffield United play-offs), 2009/10 highlights of every game, 2011/12 season review, Soccer AM crossbar challenges, Six Days to Saturday, and a clip of Simon Cox's wonder goal in the friendly vs. Fenerbahce.

What a brava indigo tango charlie hotel!

Nice, look forward to seeing them mate  :)


Agree, do it PV.

Didn't he then go on to almost replicate that goal in the season proper versus Walsall? I'm sure I remember watching that back over and over

This is the HTV Swindon Town special I have just uploaded, goes into some detail about the charges etc.

http://youtu.be/B5ZJWYqlcLw

I remember watching that at the time and being very disappointed that the program had no answers - Very strange times indeed!

Here are various news reports about our demotion, not in any order and badly put together on my VHS recorder at the time, the quality is not good but its an insight into how things were.

Sorry about the minute of Thatcher on the news that I didn't manage to cut out!

http://youtu.be/XIc3j0y8tqs

Just to say that for the particularly masochistic, there are 34 videos on my YouTube channel relating to the 1990 demotion... hours and hours of it...

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLNHcuaKYqYsNNoRJOn-cc9x3qtTldaJey