My suggestion in my previous piece, written for the Charlton match, that I may be wasting my time due to a possible postponement proved to be sadly right, despite getting as far as taking my seat in the East Stand along with many others, and watching the players happily warming up with no problems. Even the referee was able to accomplish the ridiculous bouncing-of-the-ball test – to the accompaniment of the lads behind the goal, who were no doubt relieved to see it achieved successfully, ensuring the game could go ahead . . . How wrong we all were.
Anyway, enough of my ranting on how the game has gone soft and completely lost any thought for the paying fans, and on to our meeting with Burton Albion, one of our longest-standing rivalries in modern times – weather and officials permitting, of course!
1963/64 1st Meetings with Burton Albion
Our rivalry goes back to our first season in the Southern League which was 1963/64, although I notice from the Southern League records that Burton’s membership goes back a few more years to season 1958/59. Their membership seems to coincide with the expansion of the Southern League from just one division to a South Eastern and a North Western one, with the winners of each meeting to decide the overall champions.
For those not familiar with it, the Southern League at the time was the pinnacle of the non-league professional game alongside the “amateur” Isthmian League. Various leagues also represented the north of England, such as the Northern League and the Lancashire Combination, although there was no pyramid structure as such for teams to progress to the Football League.
As a newly elected expansion club, Burton obviously found their first season tough and would finish bottom of the North Western zone with only nine points, having conceded 104 goals while scoring only 41 – although it was only a 34-game season. At the time it was still two points for a win, and Hereford United topped the North Western zone with 49 points. However, they would lose out in the championship match to Bedford Town, winners of the South Eastern zone. This championship match was actually played at Hereford, much to the anger of Bedford, but that anger was channelled successfully into a 2-1 win. To give some idea of the level of the Southern League, Bedford had signed two players (Len Duquemin and Colin Britton) from Tottenham Hotspur for £2000 in the November, quite a sum in those days. It paid off, however, as Duquemin, then in his mid thirties, would go on to score 28 goals in that successful season, although this was hardly a surprise as he had scored 114 goals for Spurs in 274 games and won a league title with them.
Even when we joined the Southern League in 1963/64 there were still top Football League players ending their careers at that level, not having earned the massive salaries available to today’s players.
Back though to Burton Albion, and for their second season, beginning in 1959, the Southern League would be split into Premier and First divisions. Not that it did Burton much good, although they did improve by one place to second from bottom in a division now consisting of a 42-match season.
I noticed that Exeter City reserves were also allowed to play in a First Division won by Clacton Town, with our current league opponents, Cambridge United, also in the division.
Burton would continue to struggle, although in the 1962/63 season they soared up to sixth from bottom in the First Division. That season saw a thrilling race for the Premier Division title, with Cambridge City beating rivals Cambridge United to the title by three points, helped by a 2-1 win at their Milton Road ground over United in front of a crowd of over 11,000.
1963/64 Our first Southern League season
Our entry into the semi-professional Southern League First Division in 1963/64 was a massive step for a relatively small club such as ourselves, albeit in a New Town with a rapidly expanding population. As it turned out, we did fairly well, finishing 12th in a division won by Folkestone Town ahead of King’s Lynn and Cheltenham Town. With a record of 20 wins, 2 draws and 20 defeats, we were consistently inconsistent, much to the displeasure of our manager Fred Cook. We did score a respectable 81 goals but conceded 71. Mind you, 71 goals conceded in a relatively open and expansive footballing era was nothing compared with the team finishing bottom that season, Barry Town, who let in 137 and scored only 33 in the 42-game season. Sadly for us we only contributed four of the goals Barry conceded that season, but we did win both games 2-0.
Barry Town 1963/64 2 x 2-0 wins!
Our record against Burton Albion that season was two defeats: a 3-0 defeat at Town Meadow on 28th March 1964 followed by a narrow 2-1 loss (Des Carroll) at Eton Park on 22nd April 1964.
I have included both programme covers for those interested and noted in the manager’s notes in the home programme, Fred Cook expressed his disappointment over our recent run of eight losses and only two victories since Christmas and the desperate need for a win. Thankfully that was achieved the day before the Burton game when we entertained Poole Town at home on Good Friday and won 3-0 (Ken Parsons, Ray Carter, Derek Waterman).
Fred Cook also mentioned his thoughts on the retained list for the following season and was seemingly planning on having only 14 professionals as I believe we were shutting down our reserve side, who had played the 1963/64 season in the Metropolitan League. Fred’s final mention was for Peter Silk, who had played at full back the previous Saturday when only 15 years old, our youngest ever player, surely?
After beating us comfortably at Town Meadow, Burton would go on to finish a few places above us in the league that season, in eighth place, and highlighted this big improvement over previous seasons by also reaching the Southern League Cup Final. There they faced one of the Premier Division’s top teams, Weymouth, who started as hot favourites and looked set for overall victory after a narrow 2-1 win at home in the first leg. Burton had other ideas, however, and a convincing 4-0 win and 5-2 aggregate scoreline gave them the cup, much to everybody’s surprise.
We actually played Burton at Eton Park on Wednesday 22nd April 1964, their next game after demolishing Weymouth in the cup final, which, unusually for an SL cup game, had been played on a Saturday. I saw in the programme that the Burton player manager was Peter Taylor, who would go on to even greater successes alongside Brian Clough with firstly Hartlepools (sic) United and then Derby County and Nottingham Forest.
Burton would achieve promotion to the SL Premier Division two seasons later in 1965/66 when, despite scoring 121 goals, they still managed only a third-place finish to Barnet and Hillingdon Borough. However, four teams were promoted in those days.
We would eventually join Burton in the Premier division in the 1969/70 season after our fourth-place finish the previous season, although sadly, life in the Premier Division was to prove too tough for both our teams and we would be relegated back to the First Division after one season, although at second from bottom, we did manage to finish above Burton!
1968/69 Pre season team line up Tony Kingston front row 2nd from left
Mention of our 1968/69 promotion season leads me on to some sad news. I learnt this week of the death of former player Tony Kingston (see team photo from pre season 1968/69). Tony was a local man, and I can see from my records that he played some SL games towards the end of the 1967/68 season, and in fact scored in consecutive victories over Gravesend (3-1, Dave Haining, 2, the other scorer) and Rugby Town (4-1, Haining, Vic Bragg, Dave Robertson penalty, the other scorer) in April 1968, which went a long way to securing our escape from relegation after a pretty disastrous season. As well as scoring against Rugby, Tony also won two penalties (one missed by Dave Robertson) and was laid out by the Rugby keeper for one of them, with reports suggesting he did a fine job in needling the opposition with his persistence and tenacious play. All that from somebody who had been mainly playing Crawley League football and who had been planning to pack up football entirely that season!
15th April 1968 Tony Kingston our saviour against Gravesend!
Tony even carried on the following season and featured a number of times in our promotion-winning team of 1968/69, as well as regularly in our Premier Midweek Floodlight League team. In fact, Tony was on the scoresheet in our first game of that season, a 3-0 home win (Dave Hannan, Roy Jennings penalty, the other scorer) over Wisbech Town, following it up with both goals in a fine 2-1 win at promotion rivals Dartford on 17th August 1968.
10th August 1968 Tony Kingston (left) in action v Wisbech
Tony despite planning to retire two seasons previously also played three early games in our Premier Division season and even scored two in a 4-2 home win over King’s Lynn on 16th August 1969, our first win of the season.
Hopefully we can celebrate Tony’s life with three points against long-time opponents Burton Albion! But whether we do or not, RIP, Tony, and condolences to the family.
Mick Fox – mjfjo@yahoo.co.uk
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