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Post by hatter_in_macc on Mar 10, 2018 13:50:06 GMT
Here is today's programme's piece. No interview on this occasion, and a slightly different format. Enjoy (... hopefully)!
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GUEST INFORMANT: BRACKLEY TOWN
Hatter in Macc dons his Shakin’ Stevens double-denim, whilst a-gettin’ ready to meet the Saints… AGAIN!
We might not have got to know this afternoon’s visitors until first making their acquaintance in the National League North five years ago - but, following that, meet them with an ever-increasing frequency, in spite of the not-inconsiderable 140-mile distance that separates our two clubs!
So, what are the Brack-facts? There are a few that elevate the ‘Saints’ above the rest…
1. The Hatters have played Brackley competitively more often than they have any other club since 2013.
This one may not come as a huge shock, given our battles in the FA Trophy - and with each requiring a replay - in the current season and last term. But the realisation that today’s match will be our FOURTEENTH with each other in such a relatively short space of time still takes some believing. And for a team that County had never met before dropping into the NLN, Brackley are certainly making up for lost time - leading our ‘most frequent opponents’ table for the last quinquennium by three fixtures, ahead of Harrogate Town.
The Trophy-ties have seen us pack our meetings into short timescales over the winters of 2017 and 2018, too. During January, we played each other thrice in 17 days, while this year’s schedule has been even more tightly concentrated - involving three encounters within a fortnight!
2. Brackley are now the only NLN club located below the Watford Gap.
And, of course, it follows that the Saints are the league’s southernmost club - although they have been waiting a while for the accolade, after playing second string to Gloucester City last term… as well as third string to Gloucester and Oxford City until three seasons ago, and fourth string during their inaugural campaign of 2012/13 in non-league’s restructured second tier, when Bishop’s Stortford were also in the mix as part of a notable southerly-northern vanguard.
The other three members of the quartet have since moved across to the National League South - with Gloucester’s transfer this summer (in spite of that club’s temporary Evesham home being further north than Brackley!) leaving the Saints as the sole NLN outfit located within the lower half of the map.
3. Brackley share both their nickname and ground-name with professional League clubs.
Easy one, right? They are dubbed the Saints, and have, since 1974, plied their trade at St James Park. So, they must follow the respective leads of Southampton and Newcastle…
Except they don’t quite. For Newcastle, substitute Exeter, whose own St James Park, like Brackley’s but unlike that on Tyneside, has no apostrophe after the ’s’. A small difference, granted - but one worth knowing in the event of an especially pedantic pub quiz!
4. Brackley are the only current NLN club to have won the Northamptonshire Senior Cup, but have never competed in a Northamptonshire County League.
The first statement here is probably not a surprising one - given that the ‘Rose of the Shires’ is sufficiently far south to border the home counties, and that, consequently, National League North outfits are almost always located way beyond the catchment-area of the NSC. The Saints have lifted the trophy on three occasions - all within the last seven seasons and most recently in 2014/15 - although a couple of former NLN participants, Kettering Town and Corby Town, are also among its past winners (and, in fact, contested last season’s Final, which Kettering edged to become current holders).
But the Saints have gone beyond their own county boundaries to play in league competitions from the get-go. Following the club’s formation in 1890, they started off in the Oxfordshire Senior League, where they remained until the First World War - whereafter their time was divided for more than half a century, until 1977, between leagues covering Banbury (again, in Oxfordshire) and North Buckinghamshire and their respective districts, before the club progressed up to higher-level, multi-county set-ups within the Non-League Pyramid.
5. There actually exists one player who has turned out for both County and Brackley.
Given our respective locations and only a very recent shared history, the odds should have been against this - but Simon Travis, a Hatter who played on an occasional basis from 1997-99, turned out for Brackley in the Southern League Premier Division during 2009/10.
The right-sided midfielder is perhaps best remembered at Edgeley Park for scoring a Boxing Day brace here as part of a three-goal hammering of Port Vale in today’s equivalent of the Championship, and with over 10,000 in attendance. Heady days… sigh.
And, finally, by way of belated tribute to the band whose 1988 track gave this column its title…
6. If Brackley were a Fall song, they would be:
Hit the North - a trek that the Saints find themselves having to make every other Saturday from Northants. [Find it: Beggars Banquet single, 1987.]
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Post by hatter_in_macc on Mar 20, 2018 18:53:40 GMT
Continuing with the new format, tonight's programme-piece is below:
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GUEST INFORMANT: BOSTON UNITED
Hatter in Macc throws a Tea Party, before preparing for this evening’s visit of the Pilgrims
County-Boston links do go a little further than sharing a title between the greatest-ever football fanzine, as peddled on the Streets of Stockport during the 1990s, and the famed act of American colonial defiance that, nearly 250 years ago, saw chests from British tea ships dumped into the harbour of the Massachusetts settlement that had taken its name from the Lincolnshire town.
But it is far from a bad place to start, for anyone wondering from whence the ‘Pilgrims’ nickname for tonight’s visitors came - and what… erm, progress they have made since!
1. Like Saturday’s guests from Brackley, Boston share their nickname with a professional League club.
Plymouth Argyle are also dubbed the Pilgrims - and for much the same reason, too, as it was from the Devon port that the ‘Mayflower’ set sail in 1620 to transport early European Puritan settlers across the Atlantic to New England. Among those ‘Pilgrim Fathers’ were Protestant non-conformists who, 13 years earlier, had first fled Boston - a town heavily influenced by Calvinist teaching from the continent - to settle around the Dutch city of Leiden with a view to escaping religious persecution in England. Both the Massachusetts capital of Boston and ‘America’s Hometown’ of Plymouth are named after the English places of the Mayflower passengers’ origin.
2. There are two clubs in Boston, because today’s visitors once came close to extinction.
Boston Town, who ply their trade in the United Counties League Premier Division - three non-league tiers below the Pilgrims and under two miles up the road from their York Street ground (or the Jakemans Stadium, if you will) - were formed in 1964 (in the first instance, simply as ‘Boston’), because of fears that the town’s existing United club, which had been in business for just over three decades, would go to the wall. Financial difficulties had forced the Pilgrims to resign from the Midland League, and their future looked sufficiently bleak to inspire the creation of a new outfit that could ensure Boston was not left without a football club.
And yet, both Town and, of course, United survive to this day. The Pilgrims, against the odds, kept their name alive during 1964/65 by operating as a local amateur side in the Boston and District League - and, within four seasons, were establishing themselves as a proper powerhouse in the world of non-league, as founder members of the Northern Premier League…
3. The Pilgrims have some NPL, and other non-league, records of which they can be proud.
Back in the 1970s, the NPL, alongside the Southern League, represented non-league’s top tier - albeit without the automatic right for end-of-season table-toppers to enjoy promotion to the Football League. A pity for the Pilgrims, who took their new league-home by storm in its early years - establishing an NPL record that still stands by becoming champions four times between 1972 and 1978. They also became, in 1973/74, the first club to achieve the NPL ‘treble’ of League, League Cup and Shield - as well as, rather mind-bogglingly, conceding a record-low three (that’s 3!) goals at home during the 1969/70 campaign… while only finishing third!
Earlier in their life, during 1955/56, they set an FA Cup record - which, again, has yet to be beaten - for an away-win by a non-league side against Football League hosts. The 6-1 thrashing dealt out by Boston to that season’s Third Division North champions, Derby County, came courtesy of a team managed by ex-Derby goalkeeper Ray Middleton and featuring six former ‘Rams’.
4. They have, however, also made some unwanted history as a Football League club.
Boston competed in the FL’s fourth tier from 2002 to 2007 - but, in both years, got the club’s name in the record books for the wrong reasons. As a prelude to their League debut, the Pilgrims became the first FL club to begin a campaign with negative points - having been docked four of them, for breaking FA rules over the registration of players, before a ball was kicked. And they left League Two five years later to face the first (and, to date, only) double-demotion, after entering a Company Voluntary Arrangement at a late stage of their final match in the hope it might avoid a points-deduction at the start of 2007/08.
5. Today will see their first National League North visit here outside British Summer Time.
Boston are one of an ever-dwindling handful of clubs (now numbering five) that have annually rubbed shoulders with County in the NLN since the Hatters dropped to this level five years ago - although, by the quirks of fixture-scheduling, the Pilgrims have previously been handed sunny afternoon trips to Edgeley Park in the early BST-stages of the campaign - with two having taken place on seasons’ opening days, and the other couple in the first half of September.
Their record in SK3 during this time amounts to a win, a draw and a couple of defeats - so who knows what, if any, difference the unfamiliarity of a latter-stages-of-the-campaign EP at night will make? But of two things they can be assured: the hallowed turf will appear rather a tad less lush; and their headlights will need to be switched on for the schlep home afterwards!
6. If Boston were a Fall song, they would be:
New Puritan, in honour of the town’s religious separatist forefathers! [Find it: Totale’s Turns, Rough Trade album, 1980.]
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Post by hatter_in_macc on Mar 24, 2018 13:40:37 GMT
Here is this afternoon's article on Leamington. Many thanks again to the Gazz-man for reformatting this thread for ease of reading! ***************************************************************************************************** GUEST INFORMANT: LEAMINGTONHatter in Macc steps on the gas before discovering braking and… erm, wind!Having received the National League North’s most southerly club, Brackley Town, a fortnight ago - and the last time we played at Edgeley Park on a Saturday - we welcome this afternoon the second-southernmost, from Royal Leamington Spa… or, more precisely these days, from near the neighbouring Warwickshire village of Bishop’s Tachbrook. The ‘Brakes’ of Leamington, like the ‘Saints’ of Brackley, did not find their path crossing with that of County before we dropped into our current division five years ago - when today’s opponents also took their bow at this level, albeit from the other, more positive direction, after gaining promotion as Southern League champions. From earlier times, they are one of only two NLN clubs - along with the most recent scheduled visitors to EP, Boston United - who, in their present form, were founder members of non-league’s top tier (the National League, in today’s money) as it came into being for 1979/80. So, there is much to discover under the bonnet! Let us take a closer look… 1. The Brakes owe their nickname to their links with a manufacturing company.The club, in its current guise, and Leamington’s unusual nickname originate from the Lockheed/Borg and Beck brake manufacturing company works team that began playing in local leagues from 1933 - before turning semi-professional once the Second World War was over. The original Windmill Ground (of which more later) where the Brakes plied their trade was situated on Tachbrook Road, and handily close to the company’s factory. 2. There have been more club name-changes for Leamington than any other NLN outfit.Five in all, actually - with the current, simple title representing a return to the very first one! The origins of the outfit, as Leamington Association Football Club, can be traced back to 1891 - although, within a year and for the following 45, it operated under the name of Leamington Town. Name number three was that of the works side that provided its town with a team after the ‘Magpies’ of Leamington Town folded for financial reasons in 1937. And ‘Lockheed Borg & Beck’ developed into Lockheed Leamington a decade later, before being re-designated AP Leamington in 1973 when Lockheed became the Automative Products Group. The Brakes reverted to being simply Leamington in 1985, a couple of years following AP’s announcement of plans to sell the Windmill Ground - and almost a century after the forerunner club had started life with the name. 3. Their successive grounds have been drawn to locations occupied by windmills.The original Windmill Ground was sited adjacent to the Windmill pub, which remains in use today - and which, until 1968, contained in its car park an actual windmill (although this had not operated for many years before its demolition). Leamington Town played at the ground first - and while the Magpies and Brakes were, strictly speaking, different clubs, they did become linked through their ownership of the Windmill. Following Town’s demise, the ground was sold off to Coventry City for the princely sum of £1,739, six shillings and eightpence (ask your pre-decimal parents/grandparents), so that the ‘Sky Blues’ could stage ‘A’ team matches there - before the Windmill came back into more local use when the Lockheed team purchased it following World War Two. By contrast, the current New Windmill Ground, as well as being named in tribute to its predecessor, happens still to be overlooked by the Chesterton Windmill that was last used in 1910 - some 90 years before the NWG formally opened its doors on land, along a country lane three miles out of town, bought by supporters from local farmer Bob Wright. 4. The club unusually went into more than a decade of hibernation 20 years ago.Having attempted to buy their original ground on Tachbrook Road from AP, but lost it to a building company for housing, and been left with nowhere to call home, the Brakes, despite the gravity of their predicament, did not die in the way that many similarly-affected clubs before and since have done. Rather, they ‘hibernated’ for 12 years of footballing inactivity, while Farmer Wright’s six acres were acquired and developed, using money raised by the committed group of fans who also continued to pay Leamington’s registration fee to the Birmingham County Football Association with a view to keeping the club technically in existence, but without playing a competitive match, between 1988 and 2000. 5. There is a wonderfully-named real ale specific to the club.The New Windmill sells a bespoke, bottled real ale, ‘Brakes Fluid’, brewed originally on the back of Leamington’s FA Cup run, as a ninth-level Midland Alliance outfit, to the First Round proper in 2005. The Brakes ended up bowing out of the competition with a 9-1 thrashing at Colchester United - but, no matter, they had beaten five sets of opponents to get there, and successfully negotiated two replays and penalty shoot-outs along the way, too. So, it was a journey and achievement worthy of commemoration. And, more to the point, the beer is very palatable! 6. If Leamington were a Fall song, they would be:A Lot of Wind, which did much to assist Chris Churchman’s 25-yard swirler of a goal for County at the New Windmill in 2014! [ Find it: Shift-Work, Phonogram album, 1991.]
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Post by hatter_in_macc on Apr 3, 2018 17:34:46 GMT
A day later than scheduled - but here is my piece for what is now tonight's programme:
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GUEST INFORMANT: TAMWORTH
Hatter in Macc c-rams into the next two pages all ewe really need to know about the ‘Lambs’!
Our visitors today are currently Staffordshire’s sole representatives in the National League North - following Hednesford Town’s relegation two seasons ago - although they do share some uncanny links with the last two clubs to have made the trip up to Edgeley Park.
They also, rather unusually, use the same word to describe their ground and collective nickname, although any connections between the ‘Lambs’ who play at ‘The Lamb’ and animal husbandry are purely coincidental. In fact, the origins of the site housing Tamworth’s stadium - now officiallyknown, for sponsorship purposes, as the (deep breath…) EST Electrical Services Stadium at The Lamb - are porcine rather than ovine, as the land’s first recorded purpose, in the early 19th Century, was for pig farming!
Instead - and probably just as well - the ground takes its title from ‘The Lamb Inn’ that once stood at the entrance to what is now the club’s car-park.
More of the pub anon. But, without further ado, let us step into spring with the Lambs…
1. They share their year of birth with both Boston United and Leamington.
By something of a quirky coincidence, Tamworth complete a hat-trick of visitors to SK3 whose clubs, in their current guises, originated in 1933. Boston United, who were here just a day shy of a fortnight ago, were formed that year from the ashes of the defunct Boston FC. And our most recent Saturday afternoon guests, Leamington, evolved from the Lockheed/Borg and Beck factory works team that began playing in local leagues during the same year (as well as comprising automotive-product manufacturing staff on whose business the club’s ‘Brakes’ nickname was based), before proceeding to come to prominence in the Spa after Leamington Town FC folded for financial reasons during 1937.
Tamworth, meanwhile, also filled a void left by other clubs in the town going to the wall. London businessman Michael Flowers, on relocating to Staffordshire, wrote to the Tamworth Herald, asking why his new home had no football team to call its own. Such was his timing in 1933, immediately following the demise of Tamworth Castle FC, Flowers’ enquiry provoked a strong response - and a new club was born, with him as its inaugural Secretary.
2. The three clubs also have pubs at the heart of their towns’ footballing histories.
Tamworth have played at The Lamb since 1934, although, for a season after the club’s formation the previous year, home was a ground on the other side of the River Tame - and behind the also-now-demolished ‘Jolly Sailor Hotel’. For good measure, both playing fields, with relevant brewery backing, had earlier hosted other teams from the town - with Kettlebrook Oakfield and Tamworth Castle having plied their respective trades at The Lamb and Jolly Sailor. The Lamb Inn actually had an active supporting function in the early days - providing changing facilities for the players, who, once kitted up, ran out of the pub and directly on to the pitch.
Similarly, two forerunner clubs in Boston - namely, the pre-Great War Swifts and Town - used separate pubs adjacent to the current ground (known as Shodfriars Lane in its pre-York Street days) for changing rooms. And Leamington’s original Windmill Ground took its name from the adjacent Windmill pub which is still trading today.
3. The grass at The Lamb has now given way to a 3G pitch.
Together with Harrogate Town, Tamworth opened a new chapter for the NLN by replacing traditional turf with an artificial playing surface at the beginning of the 2016/17 campaign. So, no grazing possibilities there for lambs, or any other animals, in the close season nowadays - unless, of course, the club finds itself atop of the tier above and needing to ditch the plastic for grass in order not to fall foul of the Football League’s present entry requirements!
4. Tamworth used a whopping 55 players one season.
Not a campaign that the club will recall with any fondness - but it still knocks into a cocked hat County’s pretty substantial roster of 46 Hatters who entered the EP revolving door during 2015/16!
Tamworth’s players were very much Lambs to the slaughter in 1983/84 - finishing at the foot of the Southern League Midland Division, with 13 points. Having scored just 25 times during the year, and let 118 in, it may be a fair bet, too, that relatively few of the 55 were strikers or goalkeepers… or, at least, halfway-decent ones!
5. One former Hatter had, prior to last summer, scored precisely one third of his career goals for Tamworth… against County!
Step forward, right-back Javan Vidal, who was at EP during the dying stages of the 2012/13 season that saw us drop to our current level. He came back to haunt us two years later by scoring here with - would you credit it - his only-ever goal in a Tamworth shirt, before netting a couple for Wrexham and joining County’s Good Friday hosts, Bradford Park Avenue, ahead of this season.
6. If Tamworth were a Fall song, they would be:
I Can Hear The Grass Grow, which, in the process of covering this psychedelic ‘60s classic, also provides a longing homage to the lost turf of The Lamb. [Find it: Fall Heads Roll, Narnack album, 2005.]
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Post by hatter_in_macc on Apr 14, 2018 12:42:59 GMT
Here is today's programme-piece on the visiting 'Bucks':
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GUEST INFORMANT: AFC TELFORD UNITED
Hatter in Macc discovers plenty about the ‘Bucks’ to TEL FOR Discerning readers!
This afternoon’s visitors - like our most recent guests, and the other National League North club whose name begins with ’T’ - are the sole representatives at this level from their county, hailing as they do from Shropshire (which, as coincidence would have it, borders Tamworth’s Staffordshire to the east).
Except, of course (and before anyone… erm, Tels me I got it wrong), the ‘Bucks’ nowadays find themselves officially listed at the head of the alphabet, rather than at its 20th point - having been formed as a new club, with the ‘AFC’ prefix, in the immediate wake of the original Telford United’s liquidation almost 14 years ago.
That said, the development - borne from debts of several million pounds - has not been without any continuity. As well as incorporating the name of the former club, the current Bucks (or ‘Lillywhites’) sport a playing kit that retains part of the colours worn by their forerunners, as well as plying their trade at the same ground - although Telford United (as was) only got to enjoy the fully-renovated New Bucks Head stadium for a season before folding.
Talking of which, there is - as ‘inn’ the case of other clubs visiting SK3 of late - a pub involved…
1. Telford United - marks 1 and 2 - owe their ground-names and nicknames to an alehouse. In fact, by another of those quirky chances, they will this afternoon complete a hat-trick of visitors to Edgeley Park whose stadia were named after adjacent pubs. The original Windmill Ground of Leamington, who we entertained here three weeks ago, took its title from the Spa town’s nearby ‘Windmill’ which is still trading today. And Tamworth’s directly recalls ‘The Lamb’, an inn that once graced the entrance to what is now the club’s car-park.
Meanwhile, over in Shropshire, the ‘Bucks Head’ public house was built on the corner of land which first provided a home - namely, the original Bucks Head ground that stood more than a century - for the Wellington-based club formed as the Parish Church Institute, before becoming Wellington Town and, from 1969, Telford United. The current stadium has replaced the original on the same site, as well as keeping alive the name of the old licensed premises - which remain in use, although trade these days as part of a national pizza-takeaway chain.
2. The ‘old’ Telford may technically be no more, but left an impressive non-league mark.
The original Bucks had been in existence for 90 years before being re-named Telford United, after Wellington’s surrounding new town. But they rather made up for any lost time over the next 35 years - establishing a record, which still stands, for most appearances in FA Trophy Finals. Of the five Finals reached, they won three (in 1971,1983 and 1989) - which is also a record, albeit one shared with Woking and the now-similarly-defunct Scarborough.
3. Hatters of a certain age will shudder at memories of playing Telford in the FA Cup!
The ‘old’ Telford also proved no slouches when it came to football’s most famous domestic knockout competition - eliminating a plethora of Football League clubs that included the likes of Burnley (in 1986/87) and Stoke (1991/92). So far, for us Hatters, so gratifying…!
Prior to that, alas, County, at the time of Division Four, had already been added to the then-Conference side’s list of FL scalps - and not once, but twice, as the Bucks triumphed 3-0 at home in 1983/84 before stunning the Edgeley faithful with a single-goal victory two seasons later.
County did exact a modicum of revenge, after a replay at EP, during the 1987/88 competition - and, in fact (although few, if any, Twelfth Man representatives will still be around from 1929 to tell the tale!), had made tidy work of Wellington Town some 58 years earlier, courtesy of a 4-1 win at the original Bucks Head.
4. There are interesting links between Telford and the last two clubs County have visited.
Well… fairly interesting links! North Ferriby, on whom we called this time last week, provided the ‘new’ Telford’s very first opposition in the Northern Premier League First Division, at the outset of the inaugural campaign for the reformed club on 21 August 2004. And Kidderminster, who provided our destination four evenings ago, share with the original Shropshire outfit the distinction of lifting the Welsh Cup - which Wellington Town did three times, in 1902, 1906 and 1940.
5. County and the ‘new’ Telford share a sequence of results that bodes well for the Hatters!
For our five seasons together, both matches have been won by the home team (in 2013/14), or by the visitors (2015/16), or else drawn (2011/12, 2012/13 and 2016/17). All of which - for those of you who set store by such precedents - is potentially good news for County, given that this season’s reverse-fixture was won by the Bucks on their own turf. Here’s hoping that matters once again follow suit and go the way of the hosts this afternoon…!
6. If Telford were a Fall song, they would be:
Dr Buck’s Letter. [Find it: The Unutterable, Eagle album, 2000.]
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Post by hatter_in_macc on Apr 28, 2018 12:25:56 GMT
Here is the concluding GI piece - as appearing in today's programme:
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GUEST INFORMANT: DARLINGTON
Hatter in Macc shakes some action in uncovering the history of the ‘Quakers’!
For my final column in this series, I go in search of Darlington - which, fittingly, is something that we Hatters have done both often, and at a variety of locations, over the years.
‘Darlo’, founded in 1883, are one of two clubs (Chorley being the other) that share their year of birth with the Hatters. And after joining the Third Division North in 1921, the ‘Quakers’ were to enjoy 88 years of Football League membership - quite often in the same division as County, and interrupted only by a season’s flirtation with the (then) Conference during 1989/90, following their demotion as the third-ever FL outfit to be relegated automatically.
On that occasion, Darlo bounced straight back as Conference Champions of 1990 - and then proceeded to top the Fourth Division for 1990/91 in the season that also, of course, saw County gain promotion as runners-up.
But the club’s second, ongoing spell out of the League, which preceded that of County by a year, has seen the Quakers wobble up and down a rather less straightforward path. Following two periods in administration and, subsequently, a second relegation from the fourth tier in 2010, they went into administration a third time during 2011/12 and were demoted from the Conference.
The club survived liquidation, and was set for community ownership - but in the absence of a Creditors Voluntary Arrangement, was deemed to be a new organisation, and ‘Darlington 1883’ found themselves not only plummeting four divisions, into the First Division of the Northern League, but also playing out of town at Bishop Auckland. The reunion with the Northern League that the Quakers had left over 90 years earlier was fleeting - with their first campaign back seeing them finish as Champions in 2013. And within another three seasons, they had successfully negotiated two levels of the Northern Premier League to join us in the National League North. For over a year now, the club has had a new home in Darlington, and, since the start of this term, has dropped the ‘1883’ to revert to its original name.
So, our two clubs, despite sometimes experiencing different roller-coasters, have often found themselves on the same merry-go-round! Here is - ahem - ‘dar lo’-down…
1. We have played the Quakers more often than any other National League North club.
County and Darlo were regular opponents for many of the years they spent mutually in the Football League - coming up against each other no fewer than 108 times on League business. In fact, the Hatters faced only three others (namely, Crewe, Rochdale, and Darlington’s traditional rivals Hartlepool) more frequently.
There have also been four FA Cup-ties between the two, as well as encounters in other knockout competitions - including, in 1934, the final of the Third Division North Cup which the Quakers won, beating County by the odd goal in seven, at Old Trafford. And, of course, the game-count continues to rise in the non-league world where we have met on five occasions ahead of today.
2. We have been received at more grounds by Darlington than anyone else in modern times.
Blackwell Meadows, which the Quakers now share in the town with Darlington Rugby Club, has been their home since Boxing Day 2016. And when we visited them there for the first time back in early October, it became the fourth different Darlo-venue to which we had trekked over the previous quarter of a century - after the charming Feethams, the cavernous Darlington Arena and, early last term, Bishop Auckland’s Heritage Park.
Not that the changes of scene seem to have helped the County cause of late, mind: we have not beaten them anywhere in more than six years, since a single-goal Conference victory at the Arena… two stadia ago!
3. Recent encounters between us at Edgeley Park have proved to be veritable goal-feasts!
You have to go back a little over a decade to remember when the Hatters last defeated Darlo at EP - also, as it happens, by just the one goal - towards the end of County’s League Two promotion campaign of 2007/08. Since then, the Quakers have paid a couple of visits here - sharing the spoils from a three-all draw last season, and edging us out in a seven-goal affair during our first non-league campaign after relegation from the FL in 2011.
4. County’s last opponents’ manager played for both the Hatters and the Quakers.
‘Super’ Alun Armstrong (at EP from 1994-98), who greeted us at Croft Park seven days ago as manager of Blyth Spartans, had two separate spells (in 2004/05 and 2006/07) during later stages of his playing career at Darlo. 5. Darlo can boast a couple of interesting FA Cup ‘firsts’ as a Football League outfit.
The Quakers participated, in 1955 and with Carlisle, in the inaugural floodlit FA Cup-tie between FL clubs. More recently, during 1999/2000, they became the first team to lose and yet still qualify for a next round of the FA Cup, when they were the ‘lucky losers’ drawn to replace Manchester United, while the latter opted to play in the FIFA Club World Championship.
6. If Darlington were a Fall song, they would be:
Don’t Call Me Darling. [Find it: Cerebral Caustic, Castle album, 2005.]
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Post by hatter_in_macc on Apr 28, 2018 12:30:44 GMT
Thanks for reading - and RIP, MES.
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