First match under floodlights at Plainmoor

That's right..................they'd have been clutching their non conformist bibles behind twitching lace curtains when those boys rode into town!

I do seem to recall "Louise Boutique" as well ~ were they the same club?

Pennycross was a right dump, with speedway and stock car paraphernalia all over the place and the smallest, bumpiest pitch you ever did see "Stadium" is an often mis-used word when it comes to some football grounds.

Yes, after a 1-1 draw at Penzance and a 3-3 at Taunton. Taunton, for their pains, then lost 7-1 to Bideford in the next round. Richard Rundle - who does www.fchd.info - certainly hasn't picked up the venue for the second replay (not that he misses much).

i was at the first floodlit game in 1954v birmingham and we lost 2-3. bill hayes was in goal and wore a white top,presumably to show up in those dim lights.
i have never heard the story relating to the "a" team having a game there previously.
thats not to say it didn,t happen because i,m sure the a team was formed by then.
I was also at the stan matthews blackburn game, the great man didn,t exert himself that night.
there followed another friendly floodlit game that season i believe against middlesborough.
that featured one of the few black players playing in england at the time, a left winger called lindy delapena and the keeper was an italian named rolando ugolini.

As far as I recall, when the Premier Cup was brought into being the Senior club was relegated in status to a secondary level.

Until then, the "Senior" had been the Premier competition but only open to clubs in the top divisions of the North Devon, South Devon Leagues, Devon & Exeter and Plymouth & District Leagues. Clubs who played above that level had to enter their reserves and this applied to clubs like Newton Spurs, Bideford, Barnstaple and St Lukes College. Dawlish were an Exeter & District League club at the time, as were Exmouth and Tiverton.

It became so that Bideford and Barnstaple joined Torquay, Plymouth and Exeter in the Devon Professional Challenge Bowl, Newton Spurs played with clubs like Exmouth, Tiverton, St Lukes College, Kingsteignton and Upton Athletic and Dawlish in the Premier Cup; whilst their reserves battled it out for the Senior Cup. Remember, that in order to enter the FA Cup (as clubs like Bideford, Barnstaple and Newton Spurs did) did just like the three Football League clubs, clubs HAD to enter their most senior available County Cup competition....................and that applies to this day.

The Premier Cup was thus created to allow such teams to play their First Teams in a county cup competition just as they could in most other counties.

This led to the situation at Newton Spurs where the first team played in the new Premier Cup and the reserves in the Senior Cup. Such games were usually embarrassing as we habitually seemed to lose against such raggy arsed set ups like Upton Athletic, Kingsteignton Athletic (6-1 once I recall!) and Bovey Tracey.................the manager, (Bill Anderson) didn't really welcome involvement in these games and habitually let loose young scrotes such as me in the team for a game!

I remember once he became entangled in a prolonged argument with the Committee over such a policy and so he sent the "reserves" including me down to Nanpean to fulfil a South Western League fixture which we lost 6-0 to an awful side who were bottom of the league whilst the "First Team" got tanked by Upton Athletic at home in the County Cup........................I don't think the Committee bothered the manager over such matters again after that!

At some stage in more recent history the Devon Professional Bowl and The Premier Cup must have merged into the present day "St Lukes College" thingy......................it would need a historian of more recent domesticity in Devon to explain this to us.

Yes it was 1997. In 1996/97, it was just us and Exeter in the last old Bowl. They beat us over two legs - Wayne Thomas playing in goal for most of the home leg. Argyle didn't enter.

1997/98 was the first merged competition. We beat Exeter in the final a few days after that Orient game. It should have been a welcome home promotion party, but it wasn't.

I think you'll find that's Newton Corinthians Barty. My father played for them and they were based at Bakers Park in the days when there was only one pitch there, the one that runs parrallel with the River Lemon and they had their dressing rooms and club house in the old Nisen Hut type building alongside.Newton Spurs did in fact have floodlights at the old Newton Rec before it was re-configured........................except they were never erected but laid in the weeds until they were sold on to the Stock Car circuit on the racecourse in the late sixties. They were either the old redundant ones from Plainmoor or St James' Park (not the real one) so they can't have been much use!

These pictures were in tonights Herald and answers the question did the players train at Cricketfield Road in the 50's.

I take it in the second picture that the floodlights that are stated are new, are the ones that were not good enough and replaced a few years later?