Author Topic: On this day  (Read 984 times)

Roger Averill

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On this day
« on: April 03, 2020, 05:48:04 pm »
Just thought I'd post a few random "On this day" posts about Cobblers games in the last 58 years, that's how long I've been watching them, so here goes.

On Saturday 2nd April 1966 the Cobblers recorded their 2nd away win in Division 1 with a 2-1 victory over Aston Villa at Villa Park, with goals from John Mackin and Graham Moore. The crowd was just 10,438 of which, it seemed half were from Northampton. Mackin's goal was a free kick from 50 yards which the Villa keeper completely misjudged. We were stood in the Holte End to keep out of the driving rain which turned to snow in the second half. The opposite end was, at that time, was an open terrace and was deserted. This win gave us the double over Villa and set us up for the easy game the following Saturday, at home to top of the table Liverpool.
  The Cobblers team that day was Bryan Harvey, John Mackin, Mike Everitt, John Kurila, Terry Branston, Joe Kiernan, Harry Walden, Graham Moore, George Hudson, Don Martin and Barry Lines

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Roger Averill

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Re: On this day
« Reply #1 on: April 03, 2020, 05:49:02 pm »
On the 3rd April 2004, 9th place Cobblers kept up their promotion chase with a 2-1 victory over 6th place Oxford, who were in fact, the best team in the League that year  ;D   Current Prem ref Kevin Friend was in charge as a crowd of 6799 saw the Cobblers go behind to a 22nd minute Steve Basham goal, Marc Richards equalised in the 63rd minute and 10 minutes later Paul Trollope scored a well deserved winner
  The Cobblers team was Lee Harper, Des Lyttle. Rob Ullathorne, Paul Reid, Ian Sampson, Paul Trollope, Chris Hargreaves, Josh Low, Marc Richards, Martin Smith and John Taylor. Oxford included 3 players with Cobblers connections, Chris Hackett, Richard Walker and "Banana Man" Julian Allsop.
« Last Edit: April 03, 2020, 08:18:06 pm by Roger Averill »

Andy Roberts

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Re: On this day
« Reply #2 on: April 04, 2020, 09:46:06 am »
We have a 100 per cent league record against the Villa. They did beat us in the FA Cup in 1983 but needed a worldie from Mark Walters to do so. And they were champions of Europe at the time!

Roger Averill

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Re: On this day
« Reply #3 on: April 04, 2020, 03:37:12 pm »
Saturday 4th April 1992 was a glorious day, pretty much like today only with people around ! An estimated 1,500 Cobblers fans headed down the M1 to Underhill at Barnet for what was, possibly, the last game for NTFC having sacked 10 players and Manager Theo Foley, the previous day. Senior players Phil Chard and Stuart Beavon took over as Manager and Assistant Manager and the team was made up of the remaining professionals and youth team players. On the terrace before the match, word got out that the administrators had got rid of Chairman Michael McRitchie and a consortium of local business men had got together with the newly formed Trust to run the club. Brian Lomax and Phil Frost were the first Trust representatives on the board of NTFC and that was a first for British football.
            At this time, Barnet had a bit of a hoodoo over the Cobblers and our young team went down to a 3-0 defeat, but on the final whistle, the players came over to the fans and it was handshakes and hugs all-round with the future of the club uncertain.
            As we now know, Brian Lomax went on to be a leading figure in fan involvement in football and it all started at Northampton Town FC
The Cobblers team that day was Barry Richardson, Mark Parsons, Steve Terry, Sean Parker, Terry Angus, Jason Burnham, Stuart Beavon, Micky Bell, Danny Kiernan, Steve Brown and Phil Chard. Subs: Martin Aldridge and Ricky Bulzis  Attendance 2816.

Andy Roberts

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Re: On this day
« Reply #4 on: April 04, 2020, 10:14:22 pm »
That was an emotional afternoon at Barnet! Two years later and an Easter Monday draw at Preston, Darren Harmon the Cobblers goalscorer, en route to finishing bottom of the league.

Roger Averill

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Re: On this day
« Reply #5 on: April 05, 2020, 02:51:48 pm »
Saturday 5th April 2014 saw the Cobblers head North to take on Accrington Stanley. The Crown Inn was as welcoming as ever as 410 Cobblers fans swelled the gate to 1616. The Cobblers kicked down the hill towards our fans on the open end and took a 3rd minute lead through Chris Hackett who beat the Stanley keeper to a through ball and scored from a very acute angle. The Cobblers more than held their own against a Stanley side who were well placed in the League, and went close to doubling their lead when a John Marquis header came back off the post but, in injury time, it needed a good save from Matt Duke to keep out a deflected shot and give us the 3 points.
    The Cobblers team was Matt Duke, Evan Horwood, Zander Diamond, Mathius Kouo-Doumbe, Leon McSweeney, Ian Morris, Darren Carter, Ricky Ravenhill, Chris Hackett(Ben Tozer 79 min), Emile Sinclair(Alan Connell 70min) and John Marquis. Unused subs: Dean Snedker, Gregor Robertson, Gary Deegan, Brennan Dickenson and Ivan Toney.     The ref was Fred Graham.

Roger Averill

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Re: On this day
« Reply #6 on: April 06, 2020, 01:27:42 pm »
The 6th April last year, 2019, saw a large group of Barton based Cobblers fans get the train from Wellingborough up to Nottingham for our game against Notts County. We all like a day out on the train and after hours of midweek searching through split tickets, group saves and the like,we found the best deal and we caught the train around 10.00. Nottingham is always a popular trip with loads of good pubs to visit.
   Notts were fighting for their lives at the bottom of the League whilst the Cobblers were, unusually for us, safe in mid table. County took the lead on 27 minutes only for Daniel Powell to equalise just before half time. An explosive start to the 2nd half saw County keeper, Ryan Scofield, sent off for bringing down Powell who was through on a one on one. Sam Hoskins scored from the resulting free kick and we thought that was that. But this is the Cobblers, and 2 minute later Notts equalised. The Cobblers piled on the pressure but despite having 66% possession, couldn't find a winner.
   The Cobblers team was David Cornell, Dave Buchanan, Aaron Pierre, Ash Taylor, Charlie Goode, Jack Bridge (Dean Bowditch 57), Jordan Turnbull (Andy Williams 57), Timi Elsnik (Marvin Sordell 71), Sam Foley, Sam Hoskins and Daniel Powell.
Unused subs: Luke Coddington, Junior Morias, JJOT and Joe Powell. the ref was Ben Toner and the attendance 7,129 with 934 Cobblers fans.

Roger Averill

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Re: On this day
« Reply #7 on: April 07, 2020, 02:20:05 pm »
1972/3 saw us in a re-election battle and on 7th April 1973 we welcomed promotion chasing Aldershot to the County Ground. The season had started quite well with 3 wins in the first 4 games but by the time the 'Shots rolled up we were 8 games without a win, which soon became 9 following a 0-2 defeat.
          Dave Bowen was the Manager at the start of the season but he stood down in October, becoming General Manager, and summer signing, Bill Baxter, took over as player-manager. Reading between the lines, he wasn't very popular amongst the players after fining 4 of the younger players for something trivial. The season finished with Aldershot gaining promotion, after finishing 4th, and we finished 23rd with only Darlington below us. Never the less we were comfortably re-elected with 43 votes, Yeovil being the highest non-league team with 14 votes.
          The Cobblers team was John Roberts, Dietmar Bruck, Jim Burt, Trevor Gould, Billy Hurrell, Barry Tucker, Bobby Park, John McGleish, Gordon Riddick, Phil Neal and Peter Hawkins. Sub : John Hold       The attendance was 1877 !!!
          John Roberts was an Australian keeper, not to be confused with the Welsh centre half of the same name. Young Centre Half Billy Hurrell was making his debut.

Roger Averill

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Re: On this day
« Reply #8 on: April 08, 2020, 01:49:34 pm »
On the 8th April 1963 the Cobblers hammered Bristol City 5-1 at the County Ground, on their way to becoming 3rd Division Champions. Frank Large (2), Ray Smith (2) and Roly Mills were the goal scorers in front of a 12,366 crowd. This was the 4th game in a run of 7 games in 18 days, this was mainly due to the very harsh winter where we only played 2 games between Boxing Day and the start of March !
   That season the Cobblers scored 109 League goals and 5 players, Alec Ashworth (25 goals in 30 appearances), Cliff Holton (14  in 21 games), Frank Large (18 in 20 games), John Read (11 in 41 games) and Barry Lines (16 in 46 games) all got into double figures.
   The crowds that season were really good with the lowest gate , all season, was just under 8,000 and nearly 19,000 crammed in for the game against Coventry on 2nd March, our first home game for just over 3 months!
 The Cobblers team that took Bristol City apart was Chic Brodie, Theo Foley, Mike Everitt, Big John Kurila, Terry Branston, Roly Mills, Billy Hails, Ray Smith, Frank Large, John Reid and Barry Lines.

Roger Averill

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Re: On this day
« Reply #9 on: April 10, 2020, 11:17:04 am »
On 10th April 2020 we SHOULD have been at home to Colchester Utd. Games against Col U always mean something to me as most of my in laws live down that way, just over the border in Suffolk. The football fans amongst them, though, are Ipswich fans which is lucky for me, as our record at Colchester is pretty poor. I've attended virtually every game down there since the mid 70's and can only remember a 2-0 win in 85/6 (Phil Chard & Adi Mann), 1-0 in 94/5 (Darren Harmon pen), 2-0 in 2000/01 (Jamie Forrester and Steve Howard) and last season's 2-1 victory (Matt Crookes & Sam Hoskins), the rest of the time we usually lost.
      Strangely enough our record at home to Colchester is pretty good, with only 5 League defeats in 70 years and only 2 of those coming in the last 36 years. The last few times we've played Colchester it has been really hot, like today, it was a scorcher last August when we lost 1-0 down there in a game where, I thought, both teams looked poor but both teams are now in the play off push, whenever we start again !

Andy Roberts

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Re: On this day
« Reply #10 on: April 11, 2020, 10:20:07 am »
I have a brother in Essex so have seen plenty of games against Colchester. They are rarely of high quality and the old Layer Road was never a happy hunting ground. We went down there Easter 1987, sweeping all before us in Division Four, and lost 3-1. Dave Logan scored our goal. Other Layer Road memories... Andy Woodman getting told off by the groundsman at an evening match, Darren Harmon's penalty winner in 1994 (John Barnwell was sacked three days later!) and Chris Wilder's only appearance for the Cobblers.
« Last Edit: April 19, 2020, 09:52:44 am by Andy Roberts »

Roger Averill

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Re: On this day
« Reply #11 on: April 12, 2020, 12:21:24 pm »
Tuesday 12th April 1966 saw the Cobblers take on Stoke City at the County Ground with 20,680 packed inside. The Cobblers were looking for revenge following a 2-6 defeat at the Victoria Ground in February, which followed a 2-6 defeat at Man Utd. This MUST have been the only time we've lost successive games 2-6 surely ? In our defeat in February, Kettering born striker John Ritchie scored 4 goals and he, eventually, became Stoke's all time record scorer with 176 goals in 347 matches. It's a mystery why we didn't sign him from Kettering, Dave Bowen didn't miss many good players.
      We were still desperate for points in our battle with Fulham at the bottom, with Fulham getting some "unexpected" results against fellow London clubs, especially the mid table ones  ;)   
      A Don Martin goal gave us the 1-0 win we deserved, which is our only victory over Stoke in 14 matches, and set us up for a visit to Tottenham the following Saturday.
      The Cobblers team was Bryan Harvey, John Mackin, Mike Everitt, John Kurila, Terry Branston, Joe Kiernan, Harry Walden, Graham Moore, George Hudson, Don Martin and Barry Lines.

Roger Averill

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Re: On this day
« Reply #12 on: April 13, 2020, 05:28:26 pm »
Saturday 13th April 1996 saw Northampton Town travel up to Lancashire to take on Preston North End at Deepdale. Preston were top of the League and needed 3 points to guarantee promotion whilst the Cobblers were upper mid table, eventually finishing 11th.
This was a memorable day for our bus load of Earls Barton Cobblers starting with a lunchtime stop at one of our favourite places, the Ford Sport & Social Club in Halewood, Merseyside.
On to Deepdale and a crowd of 11,774 were there to watch the Lilywhites clinch promotion, or so they thought. But Ian Atkins team had other ideas and a hattrick from Neil "Larry" Grayson put Preston's celebrations on hold, with a 3-0 Cobblers victory, which is our only win at Deepdale. The PNE fans were not too happy and we had a police escort out of Preston, whilst all the other coaches got on the M6 we headed up the A59 across the Pennines for a night out in Masham, North Yorkshire which is the home of the Theakston's and Black Sheep breweries. Masham was a regular destination for us, for a few years, whenever we were "up north". We stayed in Masham till closing time, arriving back in Barton around 3.30 a.m. a great day out!!
The Cobblers team that day was Andy Woodman, Dave Norton, Ray Warburton, Ian Sampson, Danny O'Shea, Chris Burns, Roy Hunter, Dean Peer, Gareth Williams, Jason White and Neil Grayson.

Roger Averill

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Re: On this day
« Reply #13 on: April 14, 2020, 01:25:28 pm »
Continuing the Lancashire theme, on Saturday 14th April 2018 the Cobblers once again headed North, this time to Gigg Lane, Bury. We were fighting relegation, under Dean Austin, whilst Bury were bottom of League One. A guy I used to work with is a big Bury fan so I met up with him for a couple of beers before the game, he assured me it was a nailed on victory for the Cobblers, but I was not convinced.
    After Ash Taylor gave us a 6th minute lead, I got a text from him saying "I told you so", 5 minutes later I returned his text as Bury equalised. On 31 minutes Kevin van Veen, who was in form for us, went off injured to be replaced by "Super Sammy" Hoskins. "Why on Earth have we bought him on" with Matt Crookes and Chris Long on the bench said the bloke next to me, 2 minutes later Sam put us 2-1 up !
    With 16 minutes to go Bury got their second equaliser only for Ash Taylor to get the winner with 2 minutes to go. According to the website I looked at, Bury had 66% possession but it didn't seem like that, I think that some statistics are not always correct as it also said that Bury only had one shot on target !
    The Cobblers team that day was Richard O'Donnell, Shay Facey, Dave Buchanan, Leon Barnett, Ash Taylor, Shaun McWilliams (Long 81), JJOT, Matt Grimes, Jack Bridge (Crookes 67), Daniel Powell and Kevin van Veen (Hoskins 31) Unused subs: D.Cornell, S.Foley, S.Whaler, J.Turnbull.
The ref was Trevor Kettle and the attendance was 3117

Roger Averill

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Re: On this day
« Reply #14 on: April 16, 2020, 11:07:38 am »
Returning to our only season in the First Division, Saturday 16th April saw us head down to London for our only visit to White Hart Lane in the last 95 years, to play Spurs. We had lost 0-2 at home to them, back in November 1965, in what was a very poor performance and we desperately needed something out of the game.
   As I recall, it was raining heavily as we got to London and I remember I was standing right against the front wall behind one of the goals and saw George Hudson give us the lead. Unfortunately our keeper Bryan Harvey had to go off injured and, in the days when only one substitute was allowed, who was forward Jim Hall, so full back John Mackin went in goal. Mackin had previously been a goalkeeper and produced an outstanding display but, when Spurs were awarded a penalty, he was beaten by Jimmy Greaves. Before the game, we were the only team in Division One that Greaves hadn't scored against, so he was always going to snap up the opportunity of a penalty.
   So it finished 1-1, not a bad score line, but the following Saturday was the big one, Fulham at home. The Spurs team featured 3 players with Cobblers connections, keeper Bill Brown who joined us about 1 year later, centre half Laurie Brown and centre forward Alan Gilzean, who's son Ian later played for us. The attendance that day was 29,749.
The Cobblers team at White Hart Lane was Bryan Harvey, John Mackin, Mike Everitt, John Kurila, Terry Branston, Joe Kiernan, Harry Walden, Don Martin, George Hudson, Graham Moore and Barry Lines, sub: Jim Hall.