Tag Archives: geoff davies

A trip to Netherfield – Part 1

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Latics of Yesteryear and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

 

Geoff Davies attacks as ex-Latics player Alf Craig (left) looks on. Kenny Morris and Doug Coutts watch from defence and Bobby Todd from midfield.

Geoff Davies attacks as ex-Latics player Alf Craig (left of centre) looks on. Kenny Morris and Doug Coutts watch from defence and Bobby Todd from midfield.

On a bright sunny day, with a hint of autumn in the air, my father and I walked through the town centre towards the Gas Showrooms, opposite the market square. I had bought the coach tickets the day before, going to our usual source, Barnes Travel Agents in Market Street.

As we waited for the coach to arrive my father started to reel off one of his favourite old stories about traveling to watch Latics play. This time it was at Bacup, the ground being on top of a steep hill. The coach’s engine had stalled and the driver could not get it moving again, so the passengers had to push it up the hill. A story of his that must have been at least nine years old, when Latics would meet Bacup Borough in the Lancashire Combination.

The coach had no problems getting up hills in this journey. The advent of the M6 motorway had made traveling north much easier, although we had to come off a little before Kendal, the difficult stretch leading over Shap being close to completion, but not ready yet. We arrived an hour early and decided to go through the turnstiles and soak up some sun on the terraces. Just like at Springfield Park there was a supporters club building inside the ground where we could get drinks and a bite to eat.

As we walked in we saw a sight that I had never seen before at a football ground. There were three or four cows grazing on the pitch. It provided a classic rural scenario and made one wonder if this was the reason that the Netherfield pitch was one of the better ones in the league.

It was September 5th 1970, an exciting time for Wigan Athletic fans. The advent of the Northern Premier League had brought new hope for the club, which had been thus far been thwarted in its ambition to be elected to the Football League. Moreover Latics had appointed a dynamic young player-manager who had started to meld the talented squad assembled by his predecessor into probably the best side the club had ever had.

Playing away at Netherfield was never an easy prospect. The team from Kendal, set up by employees of the K Shoes company, were old adversaries from the days in the Combination. Like Wigan they had joined the fledgling Northern Premier League (NPL) as founder members in 1968. They had finished in midtable the previous season.

The arrival of Gordon Milne to Wigan Athletic in the summer of 1970 suggested that the club had serious ambitions. Milne had been one of Bill Shankly’s first signings for Liverpool, paying Preston a £16,000 transfer fee. He went on to make 236 appearances for the Reds in the next seven years, during which he was capped 14 times for England under Alf Ramsey. Milne had joined Latics from Blackpool at the age of 33. Although nearing the end of his playing career he was still a force in the midfield. Curiously his father, Jimmy Milne, had been manager of Latics in the 1946-47season.

The NPL offered hope to Wigan Athletic in their quest for a place in the Football League. The archaic system had remained in place by which the bottom clubs in Division 4 would apply for reelection, together with non-league aspirants. Critics would complain that the Football League was a closed shop and that the clubs would play the “old pals act” by voting for those bottom four clubs.

It was hard for a go-ahead non-league club to get into the Football League and only two had got elected in the past eighteen years, Peterborough in 1960 and Oxford United in 1962. An added complication was that the non-league vote was repeatedly split.

In 1968 Latics had been one of 15 non-leaguers making an application. They received two votes, one less than Cheltenham Town, but woefully short of the 38 votes that got the least favoured Football League club, Workington, reelected. Wigan Athletic did not make an application the following season.

In those days Latics could only dream that automatic promotion to the Football League might become a possibility for non-league clubs. However, the creation of a northern super league, composed of the top clubs from the various regional competitions, was a real step forward. Winning such a league would certainly give more kudos than the Cheshire County League, even if it had been  the best of the northern regional competitions. Moreover the prospect of only the winners of the NPL and the Southern League applying for election would make sense, if it could ever become a reality.

The NPL started in the summer of 1968. It comprised 7 clubs from the Cheshire County League, 5 from the Lancashire Combination, 4 from the Midland Counties League, 3 from the Northern Regional League and one from the West Midlands League. Interest in Wigan was high and Latics’ first game at Springfield Park against Ashington was to draw a crowd of 6,721 – the highest home league attendance for 13 years.

The legendary Ian McNeill had been recruited to manage Latics in that first NPL season. He had been managing Ross County, following a successful playing career with Leicester City and Chelsea. His contacts in Scotland were to prove valuable and in his two year stay he brought in the likes of David Breen, Benny Cairney ,Doug Coutts , Jim Fleming, Jimmy Lynn, Jim Savage and Billy Sutherland. The left full back Sutherland had been signed from Rangers to begin that first NPL season. He was to go on to make 228 appearances over a seven year period at the club.

But the most notable of all in McNeill’s squad that year was not a Scot, but an ex-youth player from Arsenal, who had played just three games in the Cheshire League the previous season, after being signed by Allan Saunders. Just 19 years old at the time, Ian Gillibrand soon established himself as a regular in the team. Although he lacked height for a central defender, Gillibrand had an impressive leap and his reading of the game made him look like the non-league version of Bobby Moore. He was to play a further ten seasons at the club, breaking the record for his number of appearances and, most famously leading Latics out to their first ever Football League match at Hereford.

McNeill was keen to win the NPL in its inaugural season, but so too were the previous season’s Cheshire League champions, Macclesfield Town, led by their inspirational player-manager Frank Beaumont. McNeill paid Runcorn £3000 for Alan Ryan, who had scored a remarkable 66 goals in the previous season. But despite having an excellent record of record of W18 D12 L8, Latics were to finish in second place, 12 points behind the Silkmen. Attendances had almost doubled from an average of 1,801 the previous season in the Cheshire League to 3,393.

The following season was an even better one for Latics, with a record of W20 D12 L6, but they were to once again to finish behind Macclesfield, this time on goal difference. Despite doing a great in those two initial NPL seasons McNeill was to leave the club following a disagreement with the chairman.

Ken Cowap replaced McNeill with Gordon Milne, who soon splashed out £4000 for the 32 year old ex-Everton winger Derek Temple from Preston. It was a sign that Latics were very serious about winning the title.

However, Milne’s key signing at the time was to prove to be the 23 year old centre forward Geoff Davies for a much more modest fee from Northwich Victoria.

What happened to the FA Cup? A post mortem

Posted by JJ (Tony) in Match Reports, News, Other, Reflections and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Wigan Athletic have enjoyed some unforgettable moments in the FA Cup. My fondest memory remains a trip to Maine Road to play European Cup Winners Cup holders Manchester City, in January 1971. A fine Man City footballing team full of household names like Bell, Summerbee, and Young, playing against non-league Wigan. There were more than 45,000 people there that day, estimates of 20,000 of them traveling from Wigan. Those were the days of Geoff Davies as Latics’ centre forward. Signed from Northwich for £800, Geoff scored five hat tricks in his first three months, ending up with 42 goals for the season. Latics were unlucky to be losing 1-0 to a Colin Bell goal after 83 minutes following a bad goal kick from their admirable goalkeeper, Dennis Reeves. He had split his boot but apparently did not want to lose his concentration by stopping the play. You can see it here. In the last minute, Geoff Davies had a superb header pawed onto the post by the excellent Joe Corrigan. An unlucky ending for Gordon Milne’s  Latics team whose performance brought great pride to its supporters.

I also recall watching Latics play Leeds United in the sixth round of the FA Cup in 1987. It was a scrappy affair played at a windswept Springfield Park. Sixth round remains the furthest Latics have reached in the FA Cup. When I was a little kid my Dad would talk about the epic cup ties with First Division Newcastle United in the 1953-54 season, with Latics drawing away 3-3 and being on the side of unfortunate refereeing decisions in the 2-3 reverse in the replay. That was the same season a crowd of 27,526 watched them beat non-league Hereford at Springfield Park. The figure remains a record home crowd for Wigan Athletic and also a record for two non-league teams playing at a non-league ground.

Then things changed. In the summer of 1999, Manchester United were given the opportunity to withdraw from the FA Cup for the 1999-2000 season. The reason was political: the FA wanted them to take part in the World Club Championship in Brazil. Alex Ferguson was later quoted “I regretted it because we got nothing but stick and terrible criticism for not being in the FA Cup when really, it wasn’t our fault. The FA and the government felt that playing in this tournament would help England’s bid to host the 2006 World Cup. There was a lot of undue criticism – but it was a great two-week break.” United crashed out in the first round in Brazil, England would fail in their World Cup bid, but Ferguson’s team would go on to win the Premier League by an unbelievable 18 points.

The world’s oldest competition has never recovered from that. United’s withdrawal sparked a downward spiral. How sad it is these days to see Premier League clubs fielding weak teams, citing the overriding importance of their league position. Wigan Athletic’s FA Cup record since joining the Premier League has been less than impressive. They have won 3, drawn 4 and lost 6 in the FA Cup. Last week’s debacle at Swindon is the second time they have lost to a League 2 side, having been defeated 2-0 by Notts County at the DW Stadium in 2009-2010. They have not progressed beyond the fourth round since arriving in the Premier League.

I have read some really good articles on Latics fan sites about last week’s performance against Swindon. I commend those Latics fanatics for the way they have tried to provide a factual kind of report, rather than lambast the players involved. Being Latics fans we need to have thick skins, having been through the real lows of 9-1 and 8-0 defeats to London sides in recent years. However, capitulation to big clubs like Tottenham and Chelsea is one thing, but losing so badly to teams from League 2 twice in three years is hard to take. Roberto Martinez has a great knack of stressing the positives and this time he singled out the performances of Callum McManaman and Jordan Mustoe in the Swindon game. McManaman was excellent during the first half, although he faded out in the second. Mustoe did not look out of place, but hardly excelled. Apart from the goalkeeper the rest were truly mediocre. In the second half it looked like Latics were going through a training exercise, there being so little dynamism and commitment. Supposedly the team was composed largely of fringe players bursting to prove themselves and get into the first team. That certainly did not look the case. Frankly it looked like many of them did not care. The stats show that Latics committed 4 fouls, a long way from their season’s Premier League average of 13 per game. Despite only committing so few fouls they received 3 yellow cards. Hard stats to digest! Moreover if either team played the classier football it was almost certainly Swindon. Hats off to Di Canio for his approach, but let’s not forget they were aided and abetted by a lack of commitment by their opponents.

So what is it with Latics and the FA Cup these days? Although there were two young players in the starting lineup the rest were seasoned Premier League squad players. Did those fringe players really believe that a good performance could edge them back into the first team? If so why did we not visibly see more effort from them? Was it already in their heads that the result did not matter? I simply cannot fathom this. Following the Tottenham drubbing a group of players got together to offer traveling fans their money back. Given how low those players must have felt at the time it was a magnificent gesture. I wonder if the players who underperformed at Swindon would think in a similar way?

Latics need to decide what they want from the FA Cup and give their fans due notice. I feel sorry for the dedicated fans who traveled to Swindon to watch that match. What alternatives do Latics have if they remain in the Premier League next year and the FA Cup comes up once again? One is to put their strongest team on the pitch and actually try to win. Another is to do what they have done in recent years and frustrate their fans to the point of losing their support. A third is to play the development squad and not worry about the result. A  fourth is to seek FA approval to withdraw from the competition. Whatever the decision it is my view that the FA needs to take a look at how it can revive the world’s oldest football competition, so that teams like Wigan Athletic will once again treat it seriously.