Tales from Grandad's Tool Shed
White-Hot Passion, Ice-Cold Fury – Swindon! – Saturday March 31st to May 1979
Published by Eccles on May 5, 2008
Saturday, March 31st 1979. The cold winter had finally given way to a warm spring, and as I drove down First Avenue I could see that almost every front garden had a beautiful display of daffodils and early flowers. Grandad prided himself that his blooms were as good as anybody’s, “my flowers defied the Luftwaffe” he always said, except that today they were very much the supporting cast.
There were several cars already parked outside his house, and he was standing in the garden holding up to the photographer Charlie McGibbon’s New Brompton shirt, worn the day we beat Sunderland 3-1 in the FA Cup. He was just completing the story when I joined the group “….a wonderful hat-trick, and that was in 1908 and over 70 years later it’s still the only occasion we’ve beaten a top flight club in the Cup. Morning SunBoy.”
“Morning Grandad. Happy birthday. Haven’t missed the telegram from the Queen have I?” He laughed out loud. “They’ve probably gone on strike, everyone else has. I was just telling Diane here from the Chatham News about Charlie McGibbon.” Is there anyone who hasn’t heard the story of Charlie McGibbon I thought, but the Chatham News lady made the fatal error. “Have you followed Gillingham long Mr Westwick?” she asked. Grandad’s eyes lit up. It was a chance to talk about his most favourite subject, and he was immediately off into autopilot. He regaled her with stories about watching Excelsior on the Great Lines, the Napier Arms, local derbies with Chatham, cup clashes with Sunderland, Manchester City, Liverpool and Cardiff, the struggles pre-war, the tragedy when Sim Raleigh died, being thrown out of the League, the Southern League glory days after the war, getting back into the Football League in 1950, Freddie Cox and winning the Fourth Division Championship at Newport, Andy Nelson’s goal-happy promotion winners and so on.
“Grandad Waxes Lyrical”
When he paused for breath she asked “So is watching the Gills what you attribute your long life to, Mr Westwick?” “Oh yes, that, and watching Kent play cricket during the summer, and strong tea, with a tot of whiskey. I’ve always vowed that I would live long enough to see the day that Gills play in the Second Division, and so in the next few weeks I think I might have to renegotiate an earthly extension with the Almighty. Because I tell you Diane, this season we’re going up!” She was about to say something to humour him a bit, but he was off again. “We’ve got a good manager, he’s put together an excellent team, and we’re playing some great football. We’ve twelve games left, we’re nicely positioned in fourth place and we’ve got a decent run-in. Starting today with Swindon. We usually see them off, they haven’t won here since 1930.”
She opened up her file and handed him a letter. I could see that it was from the Club, and I got the gist of it by reading over his shoulder “to celebrate the occasion of your one-hundredth birthday…join us in the Directors’ Box for Saturday’s match with Swindon and in the Board Room afterwards…” He laughed “Bit different from the letter I got when I wanted to buy those shares SunBoy” but I could see that he was genuinely moved. But would he accept, after all the things he’d said about the Directors down the years? “Well, I was certainly persona non grata in Alderman Knight’s days, but if left-wing Labour MP’s can spend their life ranting about the privileges of the House Of Lords and then finish up accepting a peerage into it, I’m sure I can sit in the Directors’ Box, to watch Gills play Swindon. Only problem is that as it is such a special day and a big match, I was going to wear Charlie’s shirt for luck, and I can’t go into the Board Room dressed in that.” Diane from the Chatham News came up with the answer. “Take it and put it over the back of the seat” she said, and that’s what he did.
So it was a centenary lunch at the Park Hotel, a chauffeured Rolls-Royce to Priestfield and then a few more photo-calls before the game. The papers had twigged that it was Ron Hillyard’s birthday that day too, he was a modest 27, and the photo of the pair of them on the pitch before the game holding up Charlie McGibbon’s shirt is one of my own special Gillingham treasures. But these are Grandad’s memoirs, and here is his tale of one of the most explosive afternoons in Gillingham’s history.
“I was shown up into the Board Room, and everyone was very jovial, shaking hands and congratulating me on my birthday, including the Swindon Directors. One fat Swindon bloke with protruding teeth said ‘Watching Gillingham all that time? Have you ever seen them win? Ha! Ha!’ ‘Plenty of times against your lot’ I replied, and almost added ‘and if your team is as bad as your breath, we won’t have much trouble today either’ but I wasn’t sure if that was quite the done thing. Then we were shown up to the Directors’ Box. I was given a seat next to the Chairman Doctor Grossmark, and put Charlie McGibbon’s shirt over the back of it to bring us luck. Swindon were two places below us in the table and had two games in hand. We needed to win this game badly, and a crowd of nearly 10,000 was in to cheer.
“Our team was:-
Ron Hillyard; Charlie Young; Mickey Barker; John Overton; Mark Weatherly; Billy Hughes; Terry Nicholl; Dean White; Ken Price; Danny Westwood; Tony Funnell. (Substitute – not used – Gary Armstrong)
“Charlie Young was back playing his first game since breaking his leg in the opening match of the season against Rotherham, and Tony Funnell was making his debut, having been signed midweek from Southampton. Gills got off to a tremendous start with a goal in the first minute. Sweeping towards the Rainham End from kick-off, Allen turned Ken Price’s shot round the post. Terry Nicholl’s corner on the right was headed on by Mark Weatherly and Dean White forced the ball in at the far post. So Charlie McGibbon’s shirt was working straight away. Gills pressed their advantage with some storming football but they were continually frustrated by referee Hutchinson, who took almost every opportunity to ruin play by excessive whistle-blowing. We were obviously in for an afternoon of shocking decisions. Practically every Gills move was being stopped for some petty infringement, while Swindon’s centre-half Aizlewood was clogging at every opportunity and getting away with it. On top of that Swindon’s captain Ray McHale was yapping, pointing and getting involved at every opportunity.
“In a rare Swindon attack, Ron Hillyard was ridiculously booked after he beat away a chance when Swindon’s Rowland got through. But after twenty-five minutes Gills got the second goal they deserved when Danny Westwood went clear of defenders and lifted the ball over Allen’s head from the edge of the box. Swindon quickly recovered the deficit. Within a minute they had cut the arrears when Mayes headed in a centre from Miller, and after thirty-five minutes they were level when an angled shot by Carter eluded Ron Hillyard and went in the corner.
“Gills swung onto the offensive again, but now referee Hutchinson took centre stage. He made another ridiculous booking when Terry Nicholl failed to connect with a tackle, and was pulling Gills players up for everything while Swindon centre-half Aizlewood was fouling Danny Westwood repeatedly and not even getting spoken to. Two minutes before half-time Danny was clattered in the back for the umpteenth time by Aizlewood, about ten yards from the Gordon Road dug-out. To ironic cheers, the referee reached for his card to finally book the thuggish defender, McHale was in there again mouthing off, a card went in the air, Danny Westwood trotted off and sat down on the bench. The fans around the dug-out started to go ballistic, and it slowly sunk in to a stunned and then increasingly incensed crowd that for some inexplicable reason Westwood had actually been sent off!
“Priestfield was in uproar and things were really starting to turn ugly. The normally placid Main Stand around me erupted into a torrent of booing and invective – the first time that I’ve ever heard volleys of four-letter words hurled by the great and the good in B Block, and no-one batted an eyelid! Hutchinson got a torrent of abuse as he left the field at half-time, with police struggling to clear a way for him through about twenty fans who had leapt out of the Enclosure seats to get at him. Feelings were running that high.
“I followed the others down the stairs into the Boardroom, and blimey had the pre-match bonhomie evaporated. It was like a permafrost in there, such an icy atmosphere that I fully expected to see Captain Oates standing in the corner swigging a bottle of the Doctor’s best sherry! Someone came in and whispered to Grossmark ‘McHale said Danny was swearing at the ref so he’d got to be sent off. Our boys are furious. Gerry’s trying to calm them down’. The fat Swindon Director had earwigged some of this. ‘All’s fair in love and football, eh Doctor?’ he brayed. Grossmark said nothing, but put a whole surgical career into the withering look he gave this bloke – contempt, disgust, controlled fury, the sort of look you’d give to some slimy mutant that has just crawled out of the filthiest sewer in the world carrying every disease known to man. The Doctor then turned to the rest of us and said ‘I think the second half is about to start’ and we followed him back up the stairs.
“Things hadn’t cooled during the interval. Ten-men Gills took the field to a standing ovation, Swindon to a storm of boos which became deafening when Hutchinson appeared. He continued to give a series of rotten decisions against the Gills as the booing and abuse got worse. A director turned to me and said ‘This bloke is single-handedly wrecking our promotion challenge Charlie’. Spot on, although Gills, urged on by the increasingly volatile crowd, were holding out well. Ken Price, playing a lone hand up front, was everywhere, looking for the ball, and looking for a few of the opposition too. McHale was keeping a low profile, but Ken got a goal-like cheer – and a booking – when he flattened him in the centre-circle. Things were really hotting up now.
“Then after sixty-three minutes – the flashpoint. Ken Price tangled with Aizlewood about ten yards in from the Redfern Avenue terrace. Hutchinson ran up reaching for his cards. It was clear that Ken was going to be sent off, and without doubt Priestfield was now on the point of a full-scale riot. Suddenly a middle-aged man appeared from nowhere, was on the pitch and decked the referee with a right hook, knocking him clean out. Police, trainers, and caring Ken were quickly there to bring the referee round, whilst the middle-aged man was led quietly away in front of us in the Main Stand, where we stood as one to give him an ovation, receiving a thumbs-up from him in acknowledgement. All that is except Doctor Grossmark, who sat stoically beside me whilst all around us were cheering wildly. He knew that Gills were now in deep trouble with the FA, and slowly that began to dawn on everyone else, and things started to calm down a bit.
“On the field, Hutchinson continued, he forgot to send Ken off – or maybe he didn’t dare – the attack on him seemed to put the players on their best behaviour and there was little goalmouth action at either end for the next twenty minutes. Five minutes from time Ken Price almost grabbed the winner with a tremendous header from Terry Nicholl’s centre, and in the finish it seemed that Swindon were struggling against our ten men. Then, with the crowd gathering in the Enclosure for a final outpouring of contempt at the referee, he suddenly blew the whistle by the players’ tunnel and immediately disappeared.
“So, the bare fact that it finished 2-2 hides the detail of one of the most extraordinary Gillingham games that I’ve ever seen. The Boardroom emptied pretty quickly. I think everyone wanted to get out and talk about the game, but in front of the Swindon Directors wasn’t the place. Most people would have started thumping them. Whichever way you looked at it, Gills were in big trouble. Our top scorer suspended, adding to the loss of Damien Richardson and John Crabbe through injury, a referee assaulted and Priestfield likely to be closed for several games. Our defence that the refereeing was appalling and McHale’s gamesmanship a disgrace, whilst absolutely true, wouldn’t wash with the FA. Somehow we had to salvage something from this carnage and get the promotion challenge back on the road.
“The first decision we had to make was whether to accept an immediate one match ban on Danny Westwood, or appeal and risk a stiffer penalty. I think we were right in opting for the ban straight away, although it meant that he would miss the tough away game at promotion dark horses Carlisle. We’ve done pretty well at Carlisle down the years, and fought a classic rearguard action that nearly yielded the point we were after. They scrambled a goal with about fifteen minutes left, but without our top scorer we didn’t have sufficient fire power to pull it back. That meant that the midweek home game with Walsall was a huge must-win. Danny was back, and we were straight out the traps at a hundred miles an hour. Walsall didn’t know what hit them, a defender panicked and punched Terry Nicholl’s corner over the bar, and Dean White thrashed home the penalty. We didn’t look back. Two goals from Ken Price in the second half and a consolation gift for the visitors wrapped up a 3-1 win.
“If we were going up, it would depend on our away performances. Six of the last nine games were away from home, starting with Southend on Easter Saturday. Several teams had played on Good Friday, and results had gone our way – none more so than Watford being hammered 3-0 at home by Colchester. Southend had been thumped 3-0 at Brentford, and their manager made sweeping changes, taking the unusual step of going on the tannoy before the game and explaining what he’d done. He didn’t use words like ‘useless’ ‘rubbish’ and ‘crap’ but that was the general impression. The problem for us was knowing how their cobbled-together team was going to play, and the first half was very much cat-and-mouse as we probed for weaknesses. The 3,000 Gills fans who had made the trip really started to get behind the team in the second half, and were rewarded twenty minutes from time when Danny Westwood burst forward from the halfway line, held off a couple of defenders and hit a fizzer into the roof of the net from the corner of the box. Danny was back! 1-0 to the Gills, and two vital points.
“A huge crowd of 12,000 were at Priestfield to see the Easter Monday night game with Colchester. Fresh from their mauling of Watford, we just had to hope that they’d blown themselves out, but it didn’t look like that in the first half. With their forward Trevor Lee looking extremely sharp, we were hanging on. Then perhaps the fates started to turn our way for a change, and that essential ingredient of any promotion campaign came into play – promotion luck. In one of our few first-half attacks, Danny Westwood hit a fierce shot which keeper Mike Walker couldn’t hold, Ken Price won the race to reach the loose ball, booted it home, and Gills had the lead. We stayed under the cosh though well into the second half until Danny embarrassed Walker again. He hit another vicious shot that had Walker sprawling. He appeared to have saved it comfortably, only for the ball to squirm through his hands and spin over the line. A red face for Mike Walker, but beaming faces for every Gills fan. We romped it after that and in a sweeping move involving Dean White, Terry Nicholl and Ken Price, Tony Funnell smashed home the third. A 3-0 win, 50 points and promotion was now very much on.
“But of course, as soon as you think we’re there, we fall flat on our faces. Plymouth away, them in the bottom third, us on a bit of a roll, and when Tony Funnell put us ahead it looked like another two points were in the bag. But we forgot that last season was only the first time we’d ever won at Home Park. Inevitably they equalised, and scored the winner in a second half, when we put in a below par performance. That 2-1 defeat put huge pressure on us for the midweek away game at Lincoln. They were right at the bottom, and this could have been a huge banana-skin. Fortunately we cruised it with goals from Danny Westwood, Ken Price and a couple from Tony Funnell. The 4-2 scoreline flattered them considerably. Our three goalscorers were all firing, which was a big plus going into the next two titanic clashes which would make or break our season.
“First up, on Saturday April 28th, were League-Leaders Shrewsbury. The biggest league crowd for fourteen years, 14,902, crammed into Priestfield for this one. They saw a cautious tactical battle in the first half, more like a game of chess than football, with Shrewsbury having slightly the better of things. Neither side got a shot in on goal though. In the second half, Gills slowly started to get the upper hand. Ten minutes in, Gills suddenly got three great chances in quick succession. Terry Nicholl hit a shot across goal that smashed against the post and back into play, only for Tony Funnell to drive it over. Almost immediately Danny Westwood had a chance, and the keeper made a flying save to turn his stinging shot round the post. Then Ken Price had an almost identical chance to Nicholl, hit the same post with his twenty-yard shot, and this time it was scrambled away for a corner.
“We all felt that Gills had played their best cards and had them trumped as Shrewsbury started to demonstrate exactly why they were at the top of the table. They closed the game right down and ground towards the point they had come for. As the game entered the ninetieth minute they looked home and dry. Suddenly, out of nowhere Ken Price smashed a twenty yarder across goal that beat the keeper all ends up and flew into the top corner. The place went absolutely mad – but there was more. Shrewsbury threw everything forward in a desperate attempt to equalise, and in the counterattack Tony Funnell and Ken Price were clean through. Tony took the ball down the left, drew the keeper, and rolled it to Ken, who only had to touch it over the line. That was too easy, and Ken was on adrenalin overload. He smote it mightily, nearly tearing the net from its rigging, then ran round the side of the goal, his face contorted with a victory scream, his arm aloft and fist punching the air as the Rainham End cascaded onto the pitch around him.
“SunBoy, our ground had never seen such scenes. It was the last kick of the game, and it ignited spontaneous and wild celebrations all over Priestfield. Everybody believed we’d done it. Thousands swarmed on the pitch, gathering in front of the Main Stand calling for the players and Gerry Summers. News of another defeat for Watford only cranked things up even further. The top two beaten, and promotion was there for the taking. Eventually Gerry Summers came out and took a bow, and tried to make some sort of speech. Someone shouted ‘Let’s go up at Swindon’ and everything else was drowned in the general uproar.”
“Could Gills have gone up at Swindon, Grandad?” I asked. “No, we couldn’t” he replied. “There were still three games to play after that, and all sorts of permutations with the four other clubs. We had 54 points, 56 if we won at the County Ground. That wouldn’t have been enough, but by God it would have put us in the driving seat. Even that sour faced Spurs supporter down the road, who’s never had a good word to say about the Gills, growled at me during the week ‘win that one and you’re there Charlie’. I thought his comment was the crowning glory, if even he believed, who could doubt? Certainly not the 4,000 fans who swarmed down to Wiltshire for that infamous May Bank Holiday Saturday at the County Ground, and you could see there was going to be trouble from the off. Police were blocking all the roads in, stopping cars, searching people, making arrests. Talk about deliberately creating a hostile atmosphere. It was something which we had to put up with for many years as police did pretty much what they liked to football supporters, egged on by a right-wing government that believed even people like me were violent thugs who had to be controlled. Inside the County Ground it was little better, with a high proportion of the 15,000 crowd looking for trouble. Shout ‘Up The Gills’ and it was a good way of getting your face kicked in. We were going to be tested to our limits to take two points here.
“Our team was:-
Ron Hillyard; John Sharpe; Mickey Barker; John Overton; Mark Weatherly; Billy Hughes; Terry Nicholl; Dean White; Ken Price; Danny Westwood; Tony Funnell. Sub:- Gary Armstrong.
“The match was a bruising ugly encounter from the start. Swindon threw everything at us, and hit the post inside five minutes, but Gills held steady, with John Overton and Mark Weatherly both looking exceptionally cool at the back. All eyes were on Ray McHale, who from midfield was the driving force behind Swindon’s attacks, but of course he couldn’t resist doing his complaining act at every stoppage. This time the referee was Lester Shapter from Devon, a notorious ‘homer’ and McHale’s antics and the baying crowd backing him up made sure that Shapter was swayed Swindon’s way on every decision.
“Even so, Gills were in little trouble. After the early scare, we played some neat attacking football and in an excellent spell midway through the first half, John Sharpe with a low shot from distance, and Danny Westwood and Tony Funnell from close in, all forced saves from Allen. Gills were definitely getting on top, so it was time for McHale to take action. Terry Nicholl tackled him fairly innocuously, but after lengthy treatment and moaning from both McHale and Wilf Tranter the Swindon trainer, Shapter was eventually convinced that Nicholl needed to be booked. Five minutes later, in the thirty-seventh minute, McHale was on the right and going forward with the ball. Terry Nicholl tackled him, and McHale went down, performing the most spectacular sprawl as he did so. The crowd were up as one demanding retribution, and Shapter was only too happy to oblige, immediately waving the red card even though he was still yards from the incident. Nicholl had been set up, and Shapter had been conned.
“Things now started to turn nasty on and off the field. Swindon forced their advantage, but somehow Gills clung on. As they trudged off at half-time Gills looked shaken and angry, but hopefully they might regroup and defend out the second half. It would be a tall order, and as it turned out we didn’t have a hope. Within three minutes of the restart Shapter had given a ridiculous free-kick to Swindon, which he ordered to be retaken after we’d cleared it. It found Mayes, Ron Hillyard saved point-blank from him, but the ball spun up and off the back of Rowlands’ head for a goal. Three minutes later Mayes crashed in a second, as the extra man began to tell.
“At this point, Gills were facing a real hiding, but they clung on, steadied themselves and slowly began to look as though they might salvage something from the wreckage. But Shapter’s appalling refereeing gave them nothing, and after sixty-five minutes things got worse as Mayes picked up a bad pass in midfield and after an exchange of passes hit in the third from an offside position. Shapter theatrically waved away our strong protests. The promotion dreams were now in tatters, destroyed by a combination of McHale’s gamesmanship and rotten decisions, and it now appeared time for a bit of payback. Gills players clearly decided they had had enough, and began to seek McHale out. Dean White smashed him to the ground in an off-the-ball incident which Shapter didn’t see, and then the normally placid Danny Westwood lashed out and got him a beauty on the back of the knee. Westwood got booked for that and was immediately substituted.
“Amidst all this Tony Funnell pulled one back for Gills when he slotted home a through-ball by Ken Price. Swindon started to dish it out as well, and Ken Price got flattened by Stroud, and then Ken got booked himself for a retaliatory foul. There was off-the-ball stuff going on all over the field. The Swindon bench, and Tranter in particular, were continually leaping up and racing to the touchline demanding Shapter send someone off. By now though he seemed to have lost it completely, and ducked out by finishing the game about three minutes early.
“A 3-1 defeat wasn’t quite the end for us, but we now needed to win all our last three games. Swindon, with only two to play, both away, had gone a point above us and their nauseating fans celebrated accordingly. But if we felt like we were at rock bottom, it was about to get ten times worse. On the way home, news started to filter through that several Gills players had been arrested, and were being held in Swindon Police Station. There had been some kind of fracas in the tunnel afterwards. With no Ceefax or up-to-the-minute news, details were sketchy all evening, but it didn’t stop that pious pontificating pr*t Jimmy Hill passing judgement on ‘Match Of the Day’. Even though he had been hundreds of miles away, according to him it was all Gillingham’s fault, and ‘if players are unable to control themselves and act like thugs then they should be removed from football completely’. The implications of all this, on top of the incidents at the first game, didn’t bear thinking about.
“By Sunday, we had got further details on Radio Kent that four players had been questioned and released, some on bail, but it was unclear who they were, or if they were available to play the following night at Colchester. Doctor Grossmark gave a fighting interview saying ‘all sorts of accusations have been made which we will answer in the proper place. Our players have done nothing wrong, and we will defend them to the hilt’. He said the trouble at the game had come from ‘the same source as previously’ – did he mean McHale, the referee or both? – and he took a swipe at the excessively heavy policing, which he thought contributed to the problems before and during the game.
“Another huge crowd of Gills fans were at Layer Road on Bank Holiday Monday evening. The Swindon game was the only topic of conversation. As far as team availability was concerned, apart from Gary Armstrong coming in for the suspended Terry Nicholl, Gerry Summers was able to put out the same team. But after all the mayhem, how would they play? Several arrests and bail isn’t the ideal preparation for a vital promotion clash. Gills initially put on an excellent performance and took a 2-0 lead through Gary Armstrong after ten minutes and Danny Westwood eight minutes into the second half. Five minutes after that Colchester pulled one back and Gills needed a third goal to be safe. They gave it everything. Tony Funnell crashed a shot against the post and Walker pulled off a tremendous save from Ken Price’s flying header. Then disaster. Colchester equalised, and in the last few minutes all the stress caught up with us. Only two magnificent Ron Hillyard saves stood between us and a disastrous defeat. The point from a 2-2 draw had moved our destiny into the hands of others.
“Needless to say they took their chances. Swansea, Watford and Shrewsbury all had vital wins during the week, Swindon blew it which was some comfort and Carlisle were now well out of the picture. By the time we faced Exeter in our final home game the following Monday evening, we knew that we couldn’t overhaul Watford or Swansea. We had to win both our matches, and wanted Exeter to win at Shrewsbury after losing to us. Complicated, but that’s how the season was. We got off to the best of starts, rattling in two goals in the first twelve minutes, Ken Price and Tony Funnell doing the honours. After that we coasted to a 2-0 win, perhaps hoping not to take too much out of Exeter. It didn’t work. Three nights later they got thumped 4-1 at Gay Meadow, as Shrewsbury leapfrogged everyone to take the Third Division Championship. Our last match at Chesterfield was merely to ensure we finished fourth, above Swindon. We won 2-0 with a goal in each half.
“For the record, Shrewsbury finished as Champions with 61 points, Watford and Swansea with 60 points, us with 59 points and Swindon with 57 points. If we’d had got one more point we’d have pipped Swansea on goal difference. Any other time in the previous ten years a side with 59 points had gone up. We’d established a club record of only eight defeats in a season. So we were pretty unlucky not to go up, and as I’ve said before I’m sure we could have stayed up. Watford and Swansea pushed on to the top of the First Division and Shrewsbury stayed in the Second Division for ten years. Arguments have raged ever since as to where that extra point could have been won, or was lost. Most people focus on Swindon, and for sure I think we would have won the game at Priestfield if Danny Westwood had stayed on. We tended to win games in the second half, and our leading scorer was running hot at the time. Then there was the two goal lead we lost at home to Bury in the 3-3 draw, and our missed penalty. Or the two goal lead we’d lost at Colchester. Or the last minute equaliser by Shrewsbury at Gay Meadow. But against those you can put our two goals in injury time against Shrewsbury at Priestfield, or coming back from the dead against Tranmere to win 3-2, which gained us points in our total. You can go on and on.
“My own theory is a bit more subtle, and it involves Damien Richardson. In 1978/79 Damien was at the peak of his powers, wily and skilful, and we lost him injured for the last sixteen games. I’m certain that had he played in those games, somewhere he’d have scored or produced the magic to lay one on a plate, and we’d have won the extra point we needed. But such is football, nothing is certain. Only one certain fact comes out of 1978/79 – We Hate Swindon!”
(Next – Rainy Days)
Eccles
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