LaticsPete

Then someone will say he’s been gone too long..,

Bradford City 2 Latics 2 Ht 1-1 Nepomuceno 15457

Why tell the opposition whether he is fit to play or not?

"It will take a lot to remove a bitter taste from the mouth of many fans who once sported the team's colours". A sentence from the Latics' programme editorial of December 9th 1969, very nearly 50 years go. It was written at a dire time, probably worse than now, when , in a run of ten matches without a win (including an 8-1 drubbing at Peterborough) , the club was in grave danger of going under. Down in the basement slots of Div 4, Latics were , and again a quote from the programme, "under the hammer of auctioneeers, liquidators - and various other people who might have been called on to act on behalf of former chairman Ken Bates, who had a strong and understandable desire to get back his loan money". The programme was for a game that pretty much summed up the plight of the club. It was a FA Cup Second Replay against South Shields from the Northern Premier League. After a struggling 0-0 draw in the first match, Latics were humiliated at home, losing 2-1. The club was saved, mainly due to John Lowe, a director who came on board at about this time and took the "chance to check the files and weigh up a policy which the public are going to believe is sincere and in the right direction". Ironically, given current goings on at Gigg Lane, John Lowe had been on the Board at Bury but resigned in Oct ober 1969 because of "a disagreement over policy" and "Bury's domestic difficulties". Anyway he gradually righted the ship off the pitch and the appointment of Jimmy Frizzell as Manager did the same iin playing matters, keeping us out of the bottom four and gaining promotion the season after. I post this not out of a sense of "don't worry everything will turn out ok like it did before". Those of us who were around at the time know it was a really depressing period and the future was very bleak. It did work out alright - and from a worse position than we are now in - but I don't know if there are lessons to be learned. Maybe we need a new John Lowe, a man who didn't get into publlc wrangling, and who stabilised us for years to come. Could the FLG assume that mantle? I don't know .

As has already been said, Mboro did it with Downing last season. And it, under Steve Gibson, is an extremely well run club.

FG 1 Oldham 1 ht 1-0 Hamer 2654

Thanks 59 - at least I can let him continue the search!

This match was postponed on the morning it was scheduled to take place. Has anyone got a copy of the programme (or has heard of one in circulation) ? A York supporter has asked me to help in getting hold of one. Programmes for the rearranged match are easy to get hold of ( I seem to have three!) but not for the Dec game. Thanks

No, it’s not Steve Whitehall (Probably not a pun that’s appreciated by young people)

Bloody Southerners Spencer Vignes Biteback Publishing 2018 Softback 303pp £12.99 The legend of “Old Big Head” and his once seemingly inseparable right-hand man, Peter Taylor, is a rich one, a story that can polarise opinion. In 1973 one of the most amazing facets of it took place. Brian Clough, who had led Derby County to become English champions and European Cup semi-finalists, spoken of as England manager, joined Brighton & Hove Albion, skirting around relegation from the third tier. The period was certainly one of the most turbulent in Clough’s career. Sacked by Derby after being charged by the FA (for calling Leeds “one of the dirtiest teams in Britain”) and giving too much time to his media work, he was a hot potato. Someone who got results, but who was increasingly carrying a lot of baggage. An early Mourinho maybe, attracting a range of opinion and owning an abrasive persona. Down on the South Coast, Albion had never significantly troubled the honours board in their 72 years. They had, however, recently got a new chairman, Mike Bamber, a nightclub owner, property developer and with a fondness for celebrity. The lure of publicity and a genuine desire to create a successful club ensured that he pushed out the boat for Clough and Taylor, even knowing that a guilty verdict from the FA could lead to the former getting a long ban. So it was that the two signed five-year contracts on 31 October 1973. Was Halloween an omen? Nobody concerned thought it to to be with Bamber hoping for a bump in attendances and the managerial duo significantly increasing their salaries and being promised money for signings. Initially, results were decent (for a team sixth from the bottom of the division) but a horror story began. Dumped out of the FA Cup 4-0 by non-league Walton & Hersham, there then followed an infamous tv-covered game against Bristol Rovers at the Goldstone Ground. Simply outplayed they were beaten 8-2. The Clough “bounce” was truly over, probably not helped by with public and private withering assessment of his players. His style was not appreciated by many, neither was his absence from the club. Rarely at training, never travelling on the team bus, and zooming up to his home in Derby straight after matches. At the end of the season this distancing translated into not telling players they were being released, leaving them to find out via newspapers. And it was newspaper headlines when Clough himself left the South. Less than a year after his appointment, Clough was named manager of Leeds, the team he had branded dirty. The shock and ramifications, ending up with a mere 44 days in charge are well told elsewhere He didn’t take Peter Taylor with him, and this book suggests that money, always one of Clough’s interests, was a factor. But Taylor, always more hands on, took over as manager with the backing of Mike Bamber (whom Clough described as “the finest chairman” he’d ever had) and remained there until 1976, narrowly missing out on promotion. He died in 1990, he and Clough not having spoken for seven years. Clough, of course, led Nottingham Forest to European glory and his success and persona will mean that he will continue to be talked about for years. The author is not uncritical of him and he will always be regarded honestly as a genius with flaws. The book is open about this but it’s also a fine chronicle of those years in the 70s when Brighton dreamed big. If Mike Bamber was alive to witness more recent success, he may well have thought that it was all worth it.

Indeed Bristol. "These are the times that try men's souls".

It was a joke....

The ever reliable (though Prediction League jammy beggar) MilnrowLatic collected his ST this morning. Sales are, according to the gentleman serving him, just about 100 down on last year. Yes, the extended reductions will have affected income, however if appears that there is still a significant proportion of supporters who have signed up again. Obviously KIG’s demographic analysis has underplayed the number of us over 50s that there are.

In. Prepared for promotion.

I’m a big traditionalist, and strongly dislike the trend to switch kick offs for tv purposes but wonder if Latics consistently starting at 2pm on a Saturday would have either a positive or negative impact

Re kick off times, I've got a 1952/3 Season Ticket that has the following info in it: Aug 23 to Oct 4 3.0 ko Oct 11 - Nov 1 2.45 Nov 8 - Nov 22 2.30 Nov 29 - Dec 27 2.15 Jan 3 - Jan 17 2.30 Jan 24 - Jan 31 2.45 Feb 7 - May 2 3.0 I wonder how many people turned up late (or early).

No you’re right. In the 50s certainly we had 2.15 and 2.30 Saturday matches. Evening games in Aug/ Sept were 6.30 Midweek Cup replays were afternoons - I remember going to the 2nd Round Replay against Chesterfield in 1960 ( end of November) so before floodlights. Tuesday afternoon and over 13000 there!

3-3 actually BP. Right number of goals though! Just over 14700 there

Not floodlights Andy. In fact we were the last League club in Lancashire to install them.

The Amazing Journey Matthew Watson-Broughton TechTo Sports, 2019 Hardback 274pp £19.99 Fifty years ago, two amazing events happened. There was, of course, the first manned Moon landing. An intrepid, courageous and thrilling journey that travelled somewhere that no human had been before. Just a month earlier, however, there was the culmination of a very similar trip into the unknown, and one that took people (from Tyneside at least) to previously unreached locations. Newcastle United won the Inter-Cities Fairs Cup in their first European competition. It remains the last major trophy they have won. Briefly, for our younger readers, this was the predecessor to the UEFA Cup which itself transmuted into the Europa League. At the time, and this was its eleventh year, it was behind the European Cup and Cup-Winners Cup in terms of status but still had the glamour of international competition and had only been won once previously by a British club, Leeds United the year before. Newcastle had finished 10th in the First Division and it was only due to the expansion of the competition from 48 to 64 clubs that it got in as England’s fourth representative. It’s true to say that any emphasis on success by the club was a slow burn. Compared with the detailed planning and preparation that teams that nowadays carry out, it was almost a “turn up on the day and play” approach in the early rounds. Away to Sporting Lisbon in the first leg of the 2nd Round, there’s been no scouting of the opponents. At the airport on the way out Coach Dave Smith picked up a magazine that had a two-page feature on Sporting and reading that on the flight over was the extent of knowledge as to what to expect. Manager Joe Harvey was a great man-manager but not a tactician and would generally, when asked about the opponents by his players, tell them not to worry and play to their own strengths. It obviously worked as Newcastle disposed of Feyenoord, Sporting Lisbon, Real Zaragoza, Vitoria Setubal, Glasgow Rangers, and, in the two-legged final, Ujpesti Dosza to bring home the club’s first, and only, piece of European silverware. The book is written in a distinctive manner. The words are those of players, fans, journalists, and other were present for some or all of this “amazing journey”. The Newcastle side is set in a fictional recreation of the club’s celebration banquet whilst there are also similar get-togethers of players and others associated from other clubs in the competition. The style is of conversations amongst the participants and nearly all the words can apparently be attributed to those quoted, although they may have been said in written articles, other interviews and so on. There are wonderful anecdotes and recollections although, for me, the supposed conversations do come across at times as a little awkward. Notwithstanding that, this is a very good record of, and tribute to, the club’s triumph and an insightful look at a different and distinct period of European football.

A la Nepomuceno for Lang at Fulham

When did we sign Lang and Surridge last season? Was it at start of training? genuinely can’t recall.

A man who has done more for the club than you are ever likely to contribute.But whatevs.

Dickie Down Ray Treacy

Neither did I but apparently McCann has gone to Hull. The fixation on Premier news (and women’s World Cup) seems to have banished football league news from the media.