Post by Budleigh on Mar 1, 2010 19:02:21 GMT
At last, I’ve managed to obtain a programme from our first season in the Football League, 1927/28. Indeed this programme is for only the twenty-second game played by United since being elected in the Summer of 1927, and is for the away game against Coventry City at Highfield Road, played on the 14th of January, 1928, a game which we lost 5-1 in front of 6,878 spectators.
Unfortunately this was the fifth time that five goals or more had already been knocked into the United net this season with one of those games being the 9-1 drubbing against Millwall in our first ever away league game. Interesting that Coventry had also been beaten at Millwall by the same score!
Torquay went on to finish bottom of the Third Division (South).
The team was as the programme, excepting the forward line. Number 16 was Len Knapman and not Jim Mackey; number 13 was Lew Griffiths and not Tom McGovern; and number 12 was Jack Pattison and not Alwyn Thomas, noting that as was the case in this period the numbers ran-on from the home team, being 1 to 11, and then effectively starting with the away team left-wing as number 12, the right-back 21, with the away keeper being number 22.
Not many of the team either listed in the programme, or who actually made it onto the pitch, played many games for The Magpies after the wholesale changes made at the season’s end, indeed for poor Knapman this was his one-and-only league appearance before moving to 'nursery side' Dartmouth United!
Four of the team that played this day had played in the first ever league game at home to Exeter; George Cook, Frank Wragge, Jack Connor and Jimmy Jones.
But the biggest bit of interest is the lack of Herbert (Bert) Turner or Maurice Wellock in the line-up. As can be seen in two places in the editorial mention is made that both players were suspended for fourteen days due to a ‘breach of discipline’. Internal strife at a club like ours? Unheard of…
Unfortunately this was the fifth time that five goals or more had already been knocked into the United net this season with one of those games being the 9-1 drubbing against Millwall in our first ever away league game. Interesting that Coventry had also been beaten at Millwall by the same score!
Torquay went on to finish bottom of the Third Division (South).
The team was as the programme, excepting the forward line. Number 16 was Len Knapman and not Jim Mackey; number 13 was Lew Griffiths and not Tom McGovern; and number 12 was Jack Pattison and not Alwyn Thomas, noting that as was the case in this period the numbers ran-on from the home team, being 1 to 11, and then effectively starting with the away team left-wing as number 12, the right-back 21, with the away keeper being number 22.
Not many of the team either listed in the programme, or who actually made it onto the pitch, played many games for The Magpies after the wholesale changes made at the season’s end, indeed for poor Knapman this was his one-and-only league appearance before moving to 'nursery side' Dartmouth United!
Four of the team that played this day had played in the first ever league game at home to Exeter; George Cook, Frank Wragge, Jack Connor and Jimmy Jones.
But the biggest bit of interest is the lack of Herbert (Bert) Turner or Maurice Wellock in the line-up. As can be seen in two places in the editorial mention is made that both players were suspended for fourteen days due to a ‘breach of discipline’. Internal strife at a club like ours? Unheard of…
makes you wonder if there is a home programme still in existence from our first season in the league, if there is I bet it stands a good chance of ending up in your collection.