Summerdeep

^ LOL, well spotted! I'm pretty sure it's him. Here he is sitting on the City bench alongside Malcolm Allison and Tony Book, presumably circa 1979-80.

Well, here's the recording, from a DVD version. Quality not great due to the number of transfers (Betamax > VHS > DVD > MP4), but watchable.

Been taking a look through the list for the earliest period, and noticed a couple of televised games which don't appear: Crystal Palace 1-0 Latics (23 Sept 1978, BBC Match of the Day). I recall Barry Davies commenting that 'Oldham haven't got off the coach yet', a reference to their disjointed play in the early stages of the game. Man City 0-0 Latics (4 May 1985, Granada). Latics thwarting Man City's promotion hopes, there's a very brief shot of an angry looking Jimmy Frizzell (City's assistant manager) leaving the pitch at the final whistle. City had a player sent off in a turbulent second half, and Darren McDonough had a headed goal disallowed for Latics. I recorded a ten-minute highlights version from 'The Big Match' on a Betamax tape when I lived in London. I may still have the tape, but don't have any machine to play it on. There's a possibility that it might have been transferred many years ago to VHS or DVD, so I'll have a good search for that!

LOL, I bought my first LP from Ma Dobbs in 1972. T Rex's 'Electric Warrior', she let me have it for £1.30. The only record shop I was familiar with in Manchester was Rare Records on John Dalton Street, between Cross Street and Deansgate. I bought just about every LP David Bowie released from 'Hunky Dory' to 'Station To Station' from there.

You've just got to love the variety of food available at the club's own restaurant.

Wow! Never thought I'd see that 1974 Bristol Rovers game again. Remembered all the action, except for the Whittle free kick at 2:40. He produced an even more impressive dead ball effort in the second half, firing a dipping 35-yarder just an inch or so over the crossbar, then two weeks later scored with that amazing curler at York.

Just wondering....was the home game v Sunderland in 1975-76 (on 20th March '76) televised by Granada? My Latics obsession from 1969-75 had peaked by then, and this was one of the relatively few games I attended in that season, which I only have a dim recollection of, but for some reason seem to recall the presence of TV cameras. One thing I do clearly remember was that it was an absolutely dreadful game (final score 1-1).

A five minute clip of the game was shown on LWT's 'The Big Match' programme, and this was on YouTube until about a year or so ago. The only other notable action it contains, aside from the Watford goals, is George Jones missing a good chance to make it 1-1 from six yards out, accompanied by an Anfield Kop type surge of fans in the Chaddy End. Oh for the great days of terracing, eh?

The mention of that 1974-75 match away to Man Utd reminded me of something which has probably been noted by others and maybe even mentioned on this site in the past, but anyway, here goes: The 1974-75 match at Old Trafford was played on Easter Monday, the final result being 3-2 to Man Utd, after they led 1-0 at half time. The sequence of goals was 1-0 to Man Utd, 1-1, 2-1 to Man Utd, 3-1, 3-2. Exactly 19 years later we played Man Utd at Old Trafford on Easter Monday 1994. Final score 3-2 to Man Utd, who led 1-0 at half time. Scoring sequence was 1-0 to Man Utd, 1-1, 2-1 to Man Utd, 3-1, 3-2. How darned spooky is that, huh? Talk about parallel universes...

Yeah, Utd did lose at Villa (2-0), and their other defeat was away at Hull. Aston Villa were easily the best side in the division over the second half of that season. They'd won nine and lost eight by the end of December, but from the New Year onwards they were pretty much unstoppable, losing only one more game (they also won the League Cup at Wembley). I think they were still adjusting to the style and expectations of their new manager, Ron Saunders, over the first few months, but if it hadn't been for that I reckon they'd have finished about ten points clear of Man Utd. At the away game at Old Trafford by the way, I remember the Stretford Enders singing "Jimmy, Jimmy Frizzell, Jimmy Frizzell selling pies!" (to the tune of their "Willie Morgan on the wing" song). We were looking odds-on for relegation at that point, and I think they were anticipating him picking up his P45!

LOL, just noticed this thread! Remember getting up before 4 am to catch the coach for the first game at Cambridge. It was an 11-30 am kick off, and definitely the first ever professional football match played on a Sunday in this country - there were three other FA Cup ties played on that day, but all with afternoon kick-offs. We were cruising at 2-0 up with about 15 minutes to go, when the home team sprang into life, scored a couple of quick goals, and had us clinging on with our backs to the wall at the end. In the Boundary Park replay, Cambridge went into a 2-0 lead with two goals at the Chaddy End in the opening quarter of an hour, we pulled one back before half-time and got a last minute equalizer in the second half to send the game into extra time. Both sides scored once more to take the tie to a second replay. The Boundary Park game was Harry Dowd's last appearance for the Latics - sadly he was probably at fault for the first two goals, being indecisive in coming for crosses, a problem that plagued him a fair bit in his last year at the club. Didn't go to the second replay - had to attend school that day.... Cambridge were formidable opponents throughout this cup tie, but when we played them at Boundary Park less than two months later we were on our unstoppable run of ten consecutive wins, and Cambridge were crumbling under the pressure of their relegation dogfight, which was largely caused by their dreadful away record. As a result, we blitzed them 6-1.

Some games from the distant past which I know were shown on TV, recordings of which may or may not still exist (if they do, I've never seen them, apart from the original transmissions): 19/11/66 FLD3 QPR 0-1 Latics (from the first year of the Bates-McIlroy era, when we briefly had a very decent side - Best, Kinnell, Johnston, Towers, Knighton, etc. QPR won the division and the League Cup at Wembley that season, so this was quite a result!) 27/11/71 FLD3 Latics 0-6 Aston Villa (Andy Lochhead scored a hat trick for Villa, Bruce Rioch also on target with two long range piledrivers). 29/12/73 FLD3 Latics 0-3 Watford (third in a run of four consecutive defeats over the Xmas-New Year period, followed by ten consecutive wins!). 06/04/74 FLD3 Latics 2-2 Tranmere (poor performance, late equalizer from Lochhead saved our blushes). 13/4/74 FLD3 Bristol Rovers 1-2 Latics (the result which enabled us to finish one point clear of Rovers to win the Div 3 championship). The QPR and Bristol games were on BBC Match Of The Day, the others were shown on Granada's Sunday programme. The goals from the Watford game can be seen on this review of the 73-74 season from the 07:45 mark:https://youtu.be/kbAIrk55ex4

^ The unbeaten run had come to an end earlier, when Dutch side FC Groningen won 1-0 at Boundary Park in 1972. If you count Scottish teams as foreign opposition, then we lost 4-2 at home to Airdrie in a pre-season friendly in 1970. They were a decent side in those days, and had Drew Jarvie, who went on to play under Alex Ferguson at Aberdeen at centre forward. Maybe someone should start a thread about Latics on tour abroad as well, though it might be difficult to find sources of information. I recall that they went on a tour of Spain after gaining promotion in 1971. There were two fixtures against Lloret de Mar, which we won 6-1 and 2-1. The second game turned into a minor bloodbath, with David Shaw being sent off and Jim Fryatt punching one of the Spanish players in the face. I think we also played Calella and won 2-0, but am not absolutely sure of that. For some reason or other we also had a game over there against Swansea City, which we lost 0-3.

Re previous post about the match against SC Internacional from Brazil on 25 February 1975. I'd never heard of them at the time, and didn't realize what a great side they were. They actually won the Campeonato Brasileiro Serie A (ie their 'Premier League') in both 1975 and 1976. In the side which played at Boundary Park were Valdomiro, who played in the 1974 World Cup, and a 21-year-old Paulo Roberto Falcão, who was one of Brazil's superstars in the 1982 World Cup, alongside the likes of Socrates, Zico and Eder. The Latics match was part of a 14 game European tour, of which they won 13 and drew 1. They scored fifty goals and conceded just one, though admittedly some of the opposition wasn't that great (it did include VFB Stuttgart and Newcastle Utd however). Here's a couple of web pages that are quite interesting, though obviously they're in Portuguese: https://legado.internacional.com.br/conteudo?modulo=2&setor=18&codigo=1411 https://terceirotempo.uol.com.br/noticias/achados-perdidos-a-invicta-excursao-do-inter-pela-europa-em-1975-com-fotos-maravilhosas

If anyone's still interested: the match against Groningen was a pre-season friendly in 1972. We lost 1-0, to a headed goal which went in off the crossbar in the first minute. Dutch sides dominated European football in the early 1970s, and we barely got a kick in this match, not surprising really as they were in the top division (Eredivisie), and we were in the old Div 3. There's also been some mention of the friendly against Brazilian side Internacional in February 1975. Night match on a cold evening in front of around 10,000 spectators. Internacional won 1-0 with a goal scored by a guy called Tovar Romaritz a few minutes from time, a typically Brazilian wickedly swerving effort. I think the visitors' manager singled out Alan Groves for particular praise, saying that he could've got into the Brazilian national side except for the fact that he couldn't cross the ball!