50 years ?

[Summerdeep]

Tony Bailey came to us on loan from Derby early in 1974 before signing fulltime. He replaced Dick Mulvaney in the centre of the defence, and made a big difference. He had excellent anticipation and positional awareness, and was a sort of minor Bobby Moore type. For some reason he didn't manage to establish himself in the 1974-75 season, and was offloaded to Bury after a few months, if memory serves.

 

One interesting side-effect of Bailey's displacing Mulvaney was that Andy Lochhead became acting club captain and played a key role in geeing up the players on the pitch and generally boosting morale. I remember quite a lot of fans commenting on this at the time - take a look at the footage of the away game at York City (available on YouTube) and look at his reaction after York took the lead.

 

Didn't realize until I read the posts here that Andy had died, by the way. Tony Hateley can also be added to the list of departed ex-Latics as well.

 

 

[Ogdenwoodwhittle]

5 hours ago, Summerdeep said:

Tony Bailey came to us on loan from Derby early in 1974 before signing fulltime. He replaced Dick Mulvaney in the centre of the defence, and made a big difference. He had excellent anticipation and positional awareness, and was a sort of minor Bobby Moore type. For some reason he didn't manage to establish himself in the 1974-75 season, and was offloaded to Bury after a few months, if memory serves.

 

One interesting side-effect of Bailey's displacing Mulvaney was that Andy Lochhead became acting club captain and played a key role in geeing up the players on the pitch and generally boosting morale. I remember quite a lot of fans commenting on this at the time - take a look at the footage of the away game at York City (available on YouTube) and look at his reaction after York took the lead.

 

Didn't realize until I read the posts here that Andy had died, by the way. Tony Hateley can also be added to the list of departed ex-Latics as well.

 

 

Was described at the time as cultured, a different type of centre back than Dick Mullvaney or Bill Cranston, which lead the following season to us picking up John Hurst, who was my favourite defender in those mid to late 70s days when we were establishing ourselves in the second division.

[Inspectormorose.]

16 hours ago, Ogdenwoodwhittle said:

Yes, remember being part of the pitch invasion at the end of that match, and Jimy Friz coming out and said we still have matches to come to win the league  and he was right, KTF

I may be misremembering here as I was 9 then but I think one of our title rivals were playing that night and were winning at half time when they read the HT scores out over the tannoy which would have put a large dent in our title ambitions. People waited at full time for the final score to come through and they'd ended up losing hence the pitch invasion.  Just looked it up and it was York City they played Halifax that night and were 1-0 up at HT and lost 2-1 which would have put them 2 points behind us had they won

Edited July 23, 2023 by Inspectormorose.

[Summerdeep]

When longtime Latics fans think of the 1973-74 season, perhaps the first thing that comes to mind is that incredible run of ten straight wins from the New Year onwards that set us up for the promotion challenge. However, the run-in over the last five weeks of the season was pretty amazing as well.

 

From 30 March, we went on a seven match unbeaten run, dropping just one point, culminating in four straight wins over the Easter period (sixteen goals for, one against). After the 6-0 home win against Huddersfield on 20 April, promotion was assured and everyone expected that clinching the divisional title would be a formality. As it turned out, just one win from the final four fixtures would have done the trick, but in fact we didn't even come close to winning any of them. Maybe the pressure and effort of the previous few months had caught up with the team and they began to run out of petrol, or maybe there was some easing off, who knows?

 

Anyway, the side was comprehensively outplayed at Grimsby on 24 April, only a late consolation goal from Garwood making the game look to have been a lot closer than it was. At promotion rivals York on the following Saturday, we competed really well in a tight encounter, but didn't create one decent goalscoring chance from open play, as I recall, but there was that amazing Whittle free kick equalizer of course. Then there was the home game against Charlton three days later, when we should have clinched the title (a draw would have done it). There was a crowd of almost 19,000 and a carnival atmosphere, and the Latics piled on the pressure attacking the Chaddy end in the opening quarter of an hour, but thereafter we seemed to run out of ideas and momentum, as Charlton cruised to a 2-0 victory. They were our bogey side in this division from 1972 to 74, and won all four fixtures during this period. A guy called Arthur Horsfield always seemed to score against us!

 

That left us needing one point from the final game at Plymouth on a Friday night to take the title on the eve of the FA Cup final. Most hardcore fans probably listened to the frequent reports by Jim Williams live on Piccadilly Radio, and my recollection from those is that it was a grim backs-to-the-wall affair for the most part, but of course we survived for a 0-0 draw.

 

The Latics finished that season with the best ever away record by a Third Division side under the old 2 points for a win system (won 12, drew 6, lost 5), but the following season in Div 2 we couldn't notch a single away win....

 

 

 

Edited July 23, 2023 by Summerdeep

[andy_b_100]

From 30 March, we went on a seven match unbeaten run, dropping just one point, culminating in four straight wins over the Easter period (sixteen goals for, one against). After the 6-0 home win against Huddersfield on 20 April

 

That was my first ever Latics game, my sister took me as an 8 year old. I didnt go again until 11 years later, hardly missed a game then apart from the long haul away games (couldnt afford em) for and age then my best frieng and Latics partner buggered off to the states to work. Two of my 4 boys are season ticket holders now along with my Grandson. 

[Dave_Og]

27 minutes ago, andy_b_100 said:

From 30 March, we went on a seven match unbeaten run, dropping just one point, culminating in four straight wins over the Easter period (sixteen goals for, one against). After the 6-0 home win against Huddersfield on 20 April

 

That was my first ever Latics game, my sister took me as an 8 year old. I didnt go again until 11 years later, hardly missed a game then apart from the long haul away games (couldnt afford em) for and age then my best frieng and Latics partner buggered off to the states to work. Two of my 4 boys are season ticket holders now along with my Grandson. 

 

 

Sound like you were disappointed we only got 6!   

[Worcester Owl]

That 6-0 in v Huddersfield was such a great performance. Groves was on fire that day. Les Chapman was on the wrong side that day! 

 

Speaking of Les, I never realised that his daughter played Rachel Jordache in Brookside, Anna Friel's sister. Another bit of useless information!

[Summerdeep]

Jim Williams in his match report reckoned that Huddersfield played really well that day, just that nothing went right for them. I can recall Gowling missing a penalty for them in front of the Chaddy End - it came back off the inside of the post.

 

Jim Williams, by the way, also thought that the Latics played well in their 8-1 defeat at Peterborough in 1969-70 : he felt that 9-6 would have been a better reflection of the play!

 

Edited July 24, 2023 by Summerdeep