Tales from Grandad's Tool Shed
Climbing To The Top – February to September 1963
Published by Eccles on February 28, 2008
“‘Snowy White Snow And Jingle Bells’, ‘Let It Snow Let It Snow Let It Snow’, ‘Walking In A Winter Wonderland’ and so on were certainly NOT songs that were top of the pops in the first two months of 1963, SunBoy. The whole country pretty much ground to a halt as we experienced polar conditions for weeks. There were food and fuel shortages, and regular electricity blackouts as the system overloaded with people switching on electric fires everywhere or power lines were brought down by blizzards. Very few people had central heating, and some mornings when you woke up and looked out of the window you felt so cold that you expected to see Captain Oates plodding down the road!
“As for football, the blizzard that nearly got the Chesterfield game cancelled on Boxing Day left about a foot of snow on the pitch by the following morning, and that got regularly frozen and added to during the next three weeks. The Third Round FA Cup Tie with Port Vale set for January 5th was postponed, as were 29 of the 32 ties due to be played that day. Of the three that remained, all in the West Country, two ended in draws, so just one club made it to the next round. Bizarrely, the FA still went ahead with the Fourth Round Draw, which famously became known as the Either/Or draw ‘Gillingham or Port Vale will play Sheffield United or Bolton’ and so on. So, home to a top Division side for the first time in forty years if we could beat Port Vale. Or more likely, if we could ever play Port Vale.
“After six postponements a determined effort was made to get the game on for the scheduled Fourth Round Day, and a whole load of volunteers got busy during that week shovelling snow off the pitch and tidying things up. Freddie Cox had all the players helping, and me and Bert spent a pleasant few hours brooming up with Gordon Pulley and Brian Gibbs. But with the pitch cleared and the match on, a hard frost on the Friday night followed by more snow on the Saturday put paid to our hopes. Two other attempts were made to clear the pitch in the following couple of weeks, with the same disappointing results. Then, in the second week of February the weather started to lift, and on February 16th we finally got a match on.
“Typically the first match for over seven weeks was against a team from the other end of the country. Workington deserved at least a point for managing to get down from Cumberland, and they got it with a 2-2 draw. The pitch was a mess, muddy in parts, frozen in others, and not a blade of grass on it. All that had been shovelled off with the snow. Gills hadn’t been idle during the lay-off and had signed inside forward Jim Towers, George Francis’ old strike partner from his Brentford days, for £2,500. The old pals bagged a goal each to twice pull Gills level.
“The Workington game carved the pitch up badly, and this led to a furious row the following Wednesday afternoon when the Port Vale Cup Tie was at last ready to go ahead. With some of the crowd already in the ground and the players from both sides out on the pitch testing footwear, the referee suddenly called the game off. He’d already passed the pitch fit an hour earlier, so no-one was clear what had changed his mind. Most of us had seen the pitch in a worse condition and still played on. Freddie Cox was incensed. He clearly thought we had the best chance on the pitch as it was, and told the referee in no uncertain terms what he thought. But the game was postponed for the thirteenth time, to Wednesday afternoon February 27th.
“As so often in our history, a Third Round Tie which we’d approached in high hopes ended in disappointment. Third Division Port Vale were a very competent side and took the lead early on, but we found an equaliser from Brian Gibbs. The second goal just before half-time turned the match. Here¿s a photo of it.” He showed me his scrapbook, where he had posted a cutting from Charles Buchan’s Football Monthly. It was one of the few action shots from a Gills match that had ever appeared in “The Original Football Magazine”. It showed the whole of the Gillingham End penalty area and no player from either side anywhere, except Johnny Simpson on the goal-line, and the ball in the net behind him. The headline said “Who Did That? The ball is in the Gillingham net, put there by a Port Vale forward, and goalkeeper John Simpson looks really surprised.”
“One of Johnny’s few embarrassments, I’m afraid. The Port Vale bloke hit a bobbly shot from miles out, and on the way it hit a half frozen divot and reared up over Johnny’s hands. A complete fluke, but there you go. None of the fans blamed Johnny, it was just one of those things, but Freddie Cox didn’t think so, and, ruthless as ever, axed him. Harry Hughes suffered the same fate. Although George Francis equalised in the second half, Harry was at fault for the final goal as Port Vale ran out 4-2 winners. It didn’t matter that Harry was establishing a Club record of 192 consecutive appearances – a record that still stands – he was out.
“A couple of days later I had a glimpse into the future. As I was walking past the ground Freddie Cox came along and seemed in the mood for a chat. I commiserated with him on the Cup Tie result and he said ‘They were technically better than us Charlie, and we need to play to a system which will nullify that. If you can stop the other side scoring, you only need one goal. We have good players, and with organisation and eliminating mistakes they’ll get their rewards.’ In the next two years, those words would return to me again and again. Freddie had an absolutely clear idea of what he intended to achieve, and how he intended to do it.
“The first moves were two new players – inside forward Peter Stringfellow and centre-half Mike Burgess. Stringfellow was signed from Oldham and is not to be confused with the night-club owner – several sports quiz programmes have made that mistake – and Mike was signed from Halifax for £250. Burgess was a tall, slim, muscular player with long arms and legs, and was immediately dubbed ‘Spider’. It was a brilliant nickname for a man would became one of our greatest cult heroes. Mike’s style was to clamp himself onto the opposition centre-forward, and make sure that he didn’t cause any threat. His long legs got in hard, crunching tackles, or brought someone down when they were through. His long arms enabled him to climb a little-bit higher for headers, or tangle up an opponent if danger threatened. Tripping over and pulling down someone who was through on goal was a speciality. Hard boney elbows were used to good effect to soften up his opponent early in the game. Yes, the nickname ‘Spider’ was perfect.
“We first saw all this in his home debut in early March in a 0-0 draw against Tranmere Rovers. Playing for them was Dave Hickson, a rough tough centre-forward who had played for both Liverpool and Everton in the Fifties. What a battle that was in pouring rain – boots, knees and elbows flew between them all afternoon. Late in the game and near the Gordon Road Stand, Burgess kicked Hickson yet again. Hickson spun round and threw a punch, and then they wrestled each other to the ground for a lively fight in the mud. None of the twenty-man brawls that happen these days, everyone stood around while the referee gave them a good talking-to and told them to get on with the game. It was a punch-up that was talked about and laughed about for years.
“Football now finally got back on track again after the awful weather, but the long break meant that it was almost like a new season. Clubs that had been doing well went off the boil, and others came storming through. There was such a fixture pile-up that the season was extended three weeks to 20th May. We had eight home games and eleven away games to play, and the way the rearrangements fell meant that seven of our last nine games were away. We made a really strong show, and nearly won promotion. In the away games we saw the Cox formula starting to come into play – tight defence and no quarter given. We forced 0-0 draws at Torquay, Exeter, Southport, Mansfield and Stockport, and 1-1 draws at Hartlepools and Bradford City. At home we won seven out of the eight games.
“Our only home defeat was on Saturday, April 6th, 3-2 to Barrow. It was a bad one. We played poorly, and although we were twice in the lead, two late goals sent us down. Dave Huddart, who had replaced Johnny Simpson in goal after the Cup Tie and had done well, was at fault for the winner, and as ever Freddie Cox was merciless. Simpson was restored, and went on from there to become a legend. The following Easter weekend Gills ripped through Exeter 4-0 on Good Friday, lost 2-0 the following day at Newport, and then the 0-0 at Exeter looked to have dented our chances as we slid to eighth. A Harry Hughes penalty and a superb Brian Gibbs hat-trick secured home wins against Darlington (1-0) and Newport County (3-1) and after a 0-0 draw at Southport there were two more wins – a crucial 2-0 at Chesterfield and a tough, uncompromising 1-0 home win against Doncaster where we clung on to an early Gordon Pulley goal. Five games in eleven days, nine points and we’d edged up into fourth place.
“We now had a tough one – away to Mansfield. The early season runaway leaders had slid back following the freeze-up, and were also getting drawn into the bribery allegations which were now a weekly regular in the Sunday People. Two of their players picked against the Gills were named by The People the following day, and that was their lot as pro footballers. We knew none of this however, and sweated it out while Gills ground out a 0-0 against some fierce pressure. Ken Wagstaff, our regular nemesis, gave us a real pasting, but Spider Burgess used every trick he knew to stop him from scoring. Gills had clearly gone to Field Mill for a point, which we got, and were roundly booed off at the end. But who cared, we’d kept our noses in front of ‘em in the table.
“We lost ground with a 1-1 draw at Bradford City, and so the next match, at Aldershot, became vital to our hopes. A huge crowd of Gills fans travelled down there on a really hot Saturday afternoon and we were treated to one of the most incredible own goals I’ve ever seen. Gills kicked off the second half, the ball went back to Dennis Hunt, and he hoofed it towards their corner flag, searching for Brian Gibbs. Their right back, Tony Devereux, got there first, and casually turned it back to their keeper. Trouble was, he didn’t look before he did it. The keeper was standing on the edge of the box, and there was a mad chase between the pair of them to get to the ball as it oh-so-slowly rolled towards the gaping net. The Gills fans standing in front of the flower-beds behind that goal were breathing in as madly as they could, trying to help the ball forward. It just made it over the line before the hugely embarrassed Devereux got back to hook it clear. Was his face red, but his howler had won us the game 1-0. With luck like that, could we fail?
“Just three to play, and next up, away to Lincoln, we were on for another win. A goal from George Francis put us in front, but they equalised, and then the exertions of the past weeks caught up with us as we crumbled in a poor second half and conceded a winner to them late on. It was our first defeat in ten games, but it was a significant one as everyone else won and we dropped to sixth. Brentford, Oldham and Crewe were all up, and the final place was between Mansfield, Torquay and us. A 0-0 draw away at Stockport on the Saturday looked as though we were out of it, but Mansfield surprisingly lost at home and stayed on 56 points with one to play, Torquay completed their fixtures and finished on 56 points, and we had 55 points and one to play. If we won it, and Mansfield lost at Stockport, Gills would be promoted to the Third Division!
“No synchronised kick-offs in those days. Monday May 20th, and we kicked off at 6.15pm against Oxford in front of a big crowd. Mansfield didn’t kick off at Stockport until 7.15pm. You could cut the tension with a knife, as Gills put together some fairly tepid attacks. Then, from nothing, Johnny Ballagher marauded past a couple of defenders and bundled the ball into the net. A huge cheer of relief, as most people now had such confidence in Gills tight defence that we just didn’t expect any team to equalise. But early in the second half Oxford did, and it was back to the unbearable tension. Freddie Cox, one of the first-ever managers to regularly watch matches from the dug-out, was going berserk in front of the Gordon Road Stand. You could hear him all over the ground as he sensed all the hard work of the last few months was going to waste. Then with fifteen minutes left Peter Godfrey was flattened in the box and we had a penalty. With no Harry Hughes, none of the players seemed to want to take it, until eventually Alec Farrell, who’d recently been appointed captain, took responsibility. You could hear a pin drop in the Rainham End as Alec ran up in front of them – and he missed it.
“A stunned silence, but there weren’t many who would have taken that kick in his place. But rather than deflate the team, they came at Oxford with everything they had. The crowd got behind them, there were several frantic goalmouth scrambles, and from one of them, with nine minutes left, Peter Stringfellow buried the loose ball in the corner. Gills were home 2-1, and the crowd swarmed onto the pitch at the end. The team had done all they could – win – now it down to others. ‘The half time score from Edgeley Park is Stockport County 1, Mansfield 0′. So, as everyone left Priestfield that night, the position was that we believed Gills WERE promoted, but sadly the 9.30pm news bulletin brought us back to earth. Mansfield had equalised, the 1-1 draw levelled them with us on 57 points, and their superior goal average gave them the final promotion place, pushing us down to fifth. But you couldn’t really say the season had been disappointing. 57 points was, by our standards, a tremendous effort. We’d won 17 of our 23 home games, and the average crowd was back up to 7,000. We’d seen some tremendously exciting matches and played some excellent football. Freddie Cox had turned us from an embarrassing joke into a formidable footballing force. But could we push on from here, or would we once again slide back into trouble?
“Expectations were high during the summer. For a start, there was the bomb-shell announcement that at last the club would get their act together on the ground improvements side, and install floodlights. The cost was a massive £14,000, dwarfing anything we’d ever paid for a player. Quite a few players moved on, notably Harry Hughes and Jim Towers, and a few were recruited. There was a kid from Portsmouth, a young forward by the name of Brian Yeo, and Geoff Hudson, an extremely experienced right-back from Crewe. Us regulars who crept into the ground to watch pre-season training were intrigued to see Cox rehearsing various defensive manoeuvres – strange things like playing four at the back, deep-lying wingers, only two forwards up and so on. Tactics that are now common-place, but then virtually unheard of. It had been these ideas, which since the freeze-up had led to Gills winning virtually all their home games and not losing many away games, that had nearly taken us up in 1962/63. Would they take us all the way in 1963/64?
“The new season kicked off with two home games, against the two Bradfords. We beat Park Avenue 2-0 and drew 0-0 with City. We immediately saw the new approach. Gills kept the lion’s share of the possession, and spent most of the game passing the ball around, probing for an opening. Once we’d gone 2-0 up in the first game, we just closed the game out. In the second game, the chances didn’t come, so we sat on a 0-0. Quite a few of the crowd didn’t think much of that, and there were a few boos, but Cox was pretty scathing. ‘Would these fools rather we chased the game and lost 1-0?’ We nearly did lose the next game, at Southport, only an Alec Farrell shot in off the bar in injury time saved us with a 1-1 draw.
“The following game was the first round of the League Cup, and we were home to Bristol City who were a very useful Third Division side. Many of us saw it as a good test of our credentials at a higher level, and we passed with flying colours. We won 4-2, but they never got within a goal of us. There was passing, movement, attacking football and some good goals – proof to the moaners that Freddie Cox’s sides could play attacking football when they chose to. Next up was Exeter, and for our boys it was a bit like looking in a mirror. Exeter put up a Gillingham away-type performance and we couldn’t break them down. The match had 0-0 all over it after about ten minutes. Then two long hauls – a midweek game at Bradford City and a Saturday match at Hartlepools. By all accounts we were superb at Valley Parade, won 2-0 and played them off the park. Hartlepools were struggling and we all expected a similar result, but it finished 0-0 and we were under the cosh a bit. Johnny Simpson kept them out with two blinding saves.
“And so, at 5.30pm on Wednesday, September 18th 1963 unbeaten Gillingham kicked off the last non-floodlit match at Priestfield. The opponents were Lincoln City, and a lot of slide-rule calculations suggested that if Gills won, they could go top. Gills did win, 1-0, when right-back Geoff Hudson went on a surging run midway through the first half and blasted the ball in from twenty-five yards. When the final whistle went at 7.10pm Gills were top of the Fourth Division, and the results of the matches later in the evening didn’t change that. The following morning’s papers were collectors’ items. No Football League table had ever been published which showed Gills at the top of it, but there it is for all to see.”
He showed me his scrapbook with the league table as it had stood after that round of games. Against it he had written “Gillingham – the unbeaten leaders of the Fourth Division.” He grinned “Just over a year after having everyone demanding we get kicked out the League, the humiliations and the scandals, we’d got up off the floor and climbed to the very top. And I tell you what SunBoy, because it had taken seventy years to get there we were going to take some shifting.”
(Next – Leaders Of The Pack)
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