Hmph. Critically for my footballing worldview, the season I saw the most games - 34 - living in Manchester, spending my Friday nights rattling through a vista of dimly defined, blasted landscapes, distorted through the rain-spattered windows of an under-lit British Rail DMU, to arrive in grime-encrusted outposts of dying industry and enter sparsely populated, ill-heated hostelries, scarf carefully tucked beneath donkey jacket, and settle down to study the scant two-colour programme over a comforting glass (handle not straight) of northern bitter, the print smudging under my touch.
On, through the vaguely menacing outlines of hunched, guttural UB40 claimants to a shallow, weed-strewn terrace, a nod to the sparse band of even more desperate souls who'd travelled much further than me to mourn the forlorn journeyman struggles of Baverstocks, Baillies and Battys against the lashing gale, and then to return, disconsolate and entirely alone in the threadbare, key-tagged pushmepullyou as it coughed terminally over dark, satanic hills back to Manchester Victoria, and thence to bed.
I liked that season as well...our crapness on the pitch and the scenario you so vividly outline, was reflecting the harsh eviscerating of British society undertaken by Thatcher. Highlights for me.....trying to find out the score of the game at Stockport on a Friday night....no local radio, no internet, no mobile phones, national radio and TV not interested, the only thing for it, barman of the Wheatsheaf, a Town fan rings the Adver.....3-1 win,
Return of Alan Mayes, would he be as good as before? Would the old Mayes/Rowland still work? Well not quite, but still decent as 17 goals in 34 games says....although Andy ended up half then season at centre back.
Reading away....
The FA Cup run, was fun, hard to believe, but we used to have an impressive record for a lower league side of being Cup battlers. First round Kettering, who had beaten us in the early 60's, felt the backlash when we put 7 on them without reply at Rockingham Road....have that you Poppies. Millwall next...winning at Cold Blow Lane, always a reason to be cheerful part 2, then Carlisle, who at the time were riding high in Div 2 on a 14 match unbeaten run, but despite the 3rd away game in a row, we held them and then turned them over in the replay, 3-1.
4th round v Blackburn....a valiant effort, and a decent crowd of 11,154, showed there was still a bit of life left in the club.
Chester away...a crowd of 880, lowest in my time for a Town league match, were you there Froggy?
Darlington home...1,681, lowest in my time for a home league match. Winner scored by Leigh Barnard, who that season scord 7 goals, the same as Jimmy Quinn.
