60 years ago this month...

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ancientblade said:
yeah the highlight of the season was the cup final can remember being in tears after my first cup final aged 6 in 1958 when manchester united lost to bolton they were my 2nd team back then after munich nat lofthouse would have been red carded thesedays for that challenge on harry gregg and always the wembley hoodoo as it was called happened every year with one team having an injured player hobbling on the wing lol
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I shared all those emotions with you. I find it hard to think now that I really wanted ManU to win the 1957 and 1958 finals. I am totally indifferent to them nowadays.
 

ancientblade said:
yeah the highlight of the season was the cup final can remember being in tears after my first cup final aged 6 in 1958 when manchester united lost to bolton they were my 2nd team back then after munich nat lofthouse would have been red carded thesedays for that challenge on harry gregg and always the wembley hoodoo as it was called happened every year with one team having an injured player hobbling on the wing lol
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You're right - every final in the 1950's / early 1960's seem to throw up a heartbreaking story of someone getting injured either in the final or days before.

My first FA Cup final was 1964 - WHU v PNE with a certain Howard Kendall appearing as the youngest player in a final. Alan Kelly (senior) in goal for PNE.

In those days we were starved of live TV football so the Cup Final was a huge day.

Sometime in the late 60's they introduced an end of season Home International tournament which was televised. Not sure if it was live. That was a bonus.
 
I remember the old end of season Home Internationals. All the games were played over a week. As I recall they were on live TV. The last game was always England v Scotland on Saturday afternoon

I recall watching Tony Currie making his England debut at Wembley against Northern Ireland in a midweek game. I think it was 1973. England lost 1 0 - a rare defeat against Northern Ireland
 
Sandygate Blade said:
I remember the old end of season Home Internationals. All the games were played over a week. As I recall they were on live TV. The last game was always England v Scotland on Saturday afternoon

I recall watching Tony Currie making his England debut at Wembley against Northern Ireland in a midweek game. I think it was 1973. England lost 1 0 - a rare defeat against Northern Ireland
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1972
 
used to love cup final saturdays in the 60s and 70s used to start about 10 in the morning but as has been said at that time apart from the european cup and cup winners cup finals was the only live football we saw
 
Any excuse in this awful season to cast my mind back to the giant-killing v Newcastle. I came across the programme for the 2000 Cup game at Newcastle (no giant-killing that day), and they were kind enough to include in the programme a major item on United’s 3-1 victory in 1961 at Newcastle (pics below). The only bit that is wrong is that it talks of 1000 Utd fans in good voice; there were 18000 of us. Otherwise, a pretty fair reflection.
2 members of the Newcastle squad in 2000 were of particular interest: Gary Speed, for obvious reasons, and James Coppinger, who finally announced his retirement at Doncaster the other day.
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HodgysBrokenThumb said:
Any excuse in this awful season to cast my mind back to the giant-killing v Newcastle. I came across the programme for the 2000 Cup game at Newcastle (no giant-killing that day), and they were kind enough to include in the programme a major item on United’s 3-1 victory in 1961 at Newcastle (pics below). The only bit that is wrong is that it talks of 1000 Utd fans in good voice; there were 18000 of us. Otherwise, a pretty fair reflection.
2 members of the Newcastle squad in 2000 were of particular interest: Gary Speed, for obvious reasons, and James Coppinger, who finally announced his retirement at Doncaster the other day.
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And sixty years after our semi final against Leicester, they get to finally win the FA Cup today!
 
XM657 said:
OH!!! God please, and don't make it too long , I ain't got all that much time. 😊 Ta ever so. In fact you can have me on the final whistle. Amen.😥
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What, and miss the aftermatch celebrations?
 
Time to get my act together and make a start on another season. I can’t let Silent Blade get away with all this recent stuff from 1971, so it’s time for some proper history. And it is good that we both have a new season back in the top division to look back on.
I begin with an apology/appeal for help. My scrapbooks end mid-season (we’ve all been teenagers, and I’m sure we all understand that young lads’ thoughts do begin to wander away from football…); I have got most of the programmes, but I didn’t go to as many away games (school football on Saturday mornings was getting more serious). So I hope others will come forward with memories, photos, etc., to fill in some of the gaps. We should be able to see this season through ok. After 5 years in Division 2, my strongest memories are of seeing at the Lane some of the great names of English football, as well as my first top-division local Derby.
Pre-season was fairly gentle, with a short tour of Holland bringing a 3-1 win at Maastricht (August 9), with goals from Pace, Russell and Allchurch, and on August 12th a 5-0 win at DWS Amsterdam (Hodgson, Russell 2, Pace 2). I have a report of that match:
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The fact that the names are familiar reflects the absence of new signings, whether through choice or lack of finance. It was probably the latter: the Board had been concerned about poor attendances in the promotion season, and the abolition of the maximum wage meant that players would begin to exert pressure on clubs to pay them more. Hodgy, in his autobiography, suggests that Utd players remained on £20 per week, whereas Wednesday were paying £30 plus various bonuses; other sources suggest Utd were paying £25 plus bonuses. Whether manager Hohn Harris was ok with this, I don’t know, but on the day before the opening game v Wolves, Hodgy describes an inspirational team talk by the manager, persuading them that they were good enough, that they would make mistakes, but the test would be whether they learnt from those mistakes and became the players they could be. The first test was just round the corner - a home game v Wolves, one of the most successful clubs in the last 10 years.
 
1961 is just a little bit too far back for me as a 6 year old. It would be around 1963 when my dad first sent me through the kids turnstile with strict instructions to stand there until he got in the ground to collect me. My dad always stood on the kop on the corner of the John st side and would sit me on the crush barriers to see until I got a bit fidgety due to a numb arse. When the crowd wasn't so big I could go with the other kids down at the front on the white railings which were great for kids to stand on the wall and hold onto top of the railings until the copper would amble down the cinder track telling the kids to get down. Quite funny it was as soon as he had gone past the kids would be up on the railings again, he knew it was a losing battle and his afternoon was spent watching the match and telling kids to get down as he strolled along the front of the kop.
In those days a coppers lot at the match was fairly uneventful but that would change drastically a few years later, by that time I was allowed to go up and stand on the white wall with the army, navy and airforce recruitment posters on it. That was the natural progression for young lads being introduced to following Sheffield United in the early 1960's.
 

ancientblade said:
eh hodgy you and silent what a pair battling it out on here but 10 years apart but yes 2 historic seasons from 2 eras keep em coming fantastic memories for us o.a.p.s. lol 😃
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Don’t tell Silent Blade but I can’t compete with him this August and September. Aug/Sept 1971 must be the best 2 months any of us Blades have witnessed. [Spoiler alert: guess which season worked out best in the end🤣] Hope you share your memories with us.
 
metalblade said:
1961 is just a little bit too far back for me as a 6 year old. It would be around 1963 when my dad first sent me through the kids turnstile with strict instructions to stand there until he got in the ground to collect me. My dad always stood on the kop on the corner of the John st side and would sit me on the crush barriers to see until I got a bit fidgety due to a numb arse. When the crowd wasn't so big I could go with the other kids down at the front on the white railings which were great for kids to stand on the wall and hold onto top of the railings until the copper would amble down the cinder track telling the kids to get down. Quite funny it was as soon as he had gone past the kids would be up on the railings again, he knew it was a losing battle and his afternoon was spent watching the match and telling kids to get down as he strolled along the front of the kop.
In those days a coppers lot at the match was fairly uneventful but that would change drastically a few years later, by that time I was allowed to go up and stand on the white wall with the army, navy and airforce recruitment posters on it. That was the natural progression for young lads being introduced to following Sheffield United in the early 1960's.
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Pretty much my experience from 1953. A solid grounding for years of suffering!
 
HodgysBrokenThumb said:
Don’t tell Silent Blade but I can’t compete with him this August and September. Aug/Sept 1971 must be the best 2 months any of us Blades have witnessed. [Spoiler alert: guess which season worked out best in the end🤣] Hope you share your memories with us.
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yes your up against it hodgy but the 61/62 team was a very good team and as we will find out in 9 months time finished above our porky neighbours in s6 and that after they had finished 2nd in the first division to the mighty spurs double winning side so dont put your era down and just think in 10 years time you will be reminising about our great start to the 71/72 season lol
 
ancientblade said:
yes your up against it hodgy but the 61/62 team was a very good team and as we will find out in 9 months time finished above our porky neighbours in s6 and that after they had finished 2nd in the first division to the mighty spurs double winning side so dont put your era down and just think in 10 years time you will be reminising about our great start to the 71/72 season lol
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I’ve always said the season is a marathon, not a sprint! In 10 years time I will be glad if I can remember my name, never mind 71-72🤣
 
60 years ago today was the opening day of the 1961-62 season. Before posting about the match, I include below 3 photos for a bit of context. The first 2 are team/squad photos, which are quite revealing. United had made no summer signings (familiar worry in August 2021?), and there was uncertainty over whether the explanation in the first programme (the players that won promotion deserved an opportunity at the top level) was the real one, or whether it was the unwillingness/inability to invest - crowds had been poor in the promotion season, and wage demands with the abolition of the maximum wage were feared. John Harris’ pep-talk (see post 613) could have been sincere, or an attempt to make the best of a difficult situation.
One squad picture shows 16 players, some of whom hardly played; the other shows a cast of 1000s, reassuring perhaps, but most of them were at best several years away from the first team. The concerns were there for the first few months, but I think that by the end of next April, I will have convinced myself that 1961-62 is a candidate for the most successful season in my lifetime.
The other photo is of our dependable skipper, on the front cover of the top magazine of its day - a source of pride for any young Blades at the time.
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August 19, 1961
United 2-1 Wolves
Attendance: 27930

On a sunny August afternoon at the Lane, the players who had won promotion started the new season in the top division with a good win against Wolves. The programme notes pointed out that in the previous 12 seasons, Wolves had been champions 3 times, runners-up 3 times, third 3 times, and Cup-winners twice; the first match was to be a serious test. And it began that way - after 10 minutes Ron Flowers (England left-half and still attends Wolves games) ran through the United defence towards the Kop and drove a shot low past Hodgy and into the far corner of the goal. If that goal added to the worry of some that we should have made new signings, things improved dramatically within minutes: Pace scored with a trade-mark header from a left-wing centre by Hodgson (17 minutes), and United were good value for the 1-1 half-time score line.

It did not take long for the noise on the Kop to help bring about a second goal. Simpson drove in a hard, low cross from the right, goalkeeper Finlayson failed to hold on to the ball, and there was Hodgson to push the ball into the empty goal. Cue great celebrations, and 40 minutes of anxiety as the game went end-to-end and both sides created further chances. The final whistle was greeted with a sense of relief, and a boost for the confidence of those who believed that the success of United against League 1 teams in the Cup the previous season meant that we would cope in the top division.

A couple of notes on the pictures. The newspaper captions have confused the first and second goals, in case you are thinking that they appear to be at the wrong end! And an innovation in the programme: me and my brother awarded the players marks out of 20, averaged out our scores, and stuck them in the programme. If you were at the game and disagree with our ratings, let me know! We did this for most games that season. No surprise that Joe Shaw was our first man-of-the-match!
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August 23, 1961
Cardiff 1-1 United (Simpson pen)
Attendance: 24662

And so begins a period for which I have limited information. It must have been the case that we were away on holiday, as even where I have the programme, there are none of our player-ratings. I certainly did not attend this or the following match. The scrapbook does have a match report, and it is clear that this away draw was further confirmation that United were well able to cope in the top division, and that it was a good, even game. One detail from it that rang a bell: it brought back a memory of Allchurch and Simpson switching wings (the winner the week before had come from a Simpson right-wing cross). Simpson was, I think, mainly an out-and-out left-winger, but when Allchurch signed, they did seem to switch wings a lot. A John Harris tactic, a new fashion, or the way Allchurch liked to play? I have no idea.

A few comments arising from the uninspiring programme. The match report gives the very famous Jack Taylor as referee; the programme gives the ref as Jim Finney, who was also well-known, and
was the ref at Hillsborough in 1966 who sent off 2 Uruguayan players v West Germany in the World Cup. By coincidence, Jack Taylor once replaced Jim Finney as the referee in a European Cup Final, following Finney’s involvement in a car crash. The other comment is about the piece by a News of The World journalist on the maximum wage: these pieces were syndicated to most league clubs, and it was mildly irritating to buy a programme at an away match and find an article you had read the week before at the Lane!
The next game, v Forest, is another I missed, and had no information on; but a very familiar name has come to my rescue…
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HodgysBrokenThumb said:
August 23, 1961
Cardiff 1-1 United (Simpson pen)
Attendance: 24662

And so begins a period for which I have limited information. It must have been the case that we were away on holiday, as even where I have the programme, there are none of our player-ratings. I certainly did not attend this or the following match. The scrapbook does have a match report, and it is clear that this away draw was further confirmation that United were well able to cope in the top division, and that it was a good, even game. One detail from it that rang a bell: it brought back a memory of Allchurch and Simpson switching wings (the winner the week before had come from a Simpson right-wing cross). Simpson was, I think, mainly an out-and-out left-winger, but when Allchurch signed, they did seem to switch wings a lot. A John Harris tactic, a new fashion, or the way Allchurch liked to play? I have no idea.

A few comments arising from the uninspiring programme. The match report gives the very famous Jack Taylor as referee; the programme gives the ref as Jim Finney, who was also well-known, and
was the ref at Hillsborough in 1966 who sent off 2 Uruguayan players v West Germany in the World Cup. By coincidence, Jack Taylor once replaced Jim Finney as the referee in a European Cup Final, following Finney’s involvement in a car crash. The other comment is about the piece by a News of The World journalist on the maximum wage: these pieces were syndicated to most league clubs, and it was mildly irritating to buy a programme at an away match and find an article you had read the week before at the Lane!
The next game, v Forest, is another I missed, and had no information on; but a very familiar name has come to my rescue…
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dont remember it but good point down there
 
August 26, 1961
Forest 2-0 United
Attendance: 26550

This is the match where I first meet the situation of knowing nothing about it, except for the basic facts above. We were on holiday, at the Butlin’s Holiday Camp in the place beginning with P in the north-west of Wales. We were busy competing at every sport possible (football, cricket, table-tennis, snooker, etc., though I now realise the knobbly knees competition would have been my best chance of winning something), and clearly did not give United much thought. So there is no programme, no scrapbook photos, no memory. Fearing what would happen for this post (and a few more this season), out of the blue Silent Blade offered to send me material from the archives at Sheffield Library, and despite my insistence that he should post them himself, he generously insisted that I should post them. If ever I needed a reminder of why I spend time on this forum, his knowledge, generosity and devotion to the Blades, provided it. You are a true gent, Silent Blade , though I still intend to show that 61-62 was a better season than 71-72 🤣
For the moment, this defeat at Forest meant that that the start had been ok, but no better - 1 win, 1 draw, 1 defeat, was ok, but the reports suggest that inconsistency was likely to hold us back. The team overall seems to have been below par, and add in a Joe Shaw howler and you have the proverbial ‘bad day at the office’. Almost one year previously I had gone to Nottingham to see Forest outclassed in a 4-0 defeat against Spurs, and was surprised they avoided relegation. It appears they had not improved much, but United clearly played badly; ex-Blade Jim Iley, a good left-half on his day, was obviously up for this game. But at least the next game came quickly, as the home match v Cardiff was the first of several Monday games that autumn. 2 days for United to re-group, and for me to get over not winning anything at Butlin’s. Reports below, with a big thank-you to Silent Blade
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Monday, August 28, 1961, at 6.15 p.m.
United 1-0 Cardiff
(Allchurch)
Attendance: 19193

Back from holidays for us, and back to winning ways for the Blades. No scrapbook entries for this game, an indication that keeping a scrapbook was perhaps losing its appeal, but we did get the match programme, and me and my brother again rated all the players out of 20. Not quite in line with the match report, again kindly provided by Silent Blade . My share of the marks will no doubt have helped Hodgy, while my brother always favoured Joe Shaw; even he must have been worried by Joe’s dodgy back pass described in the report, and deducted some marks.
The experiment with a 6.15 kick-off was not a success, as the crowd was under 20000. I doubt many supporters got home from work and decided on the night to watch TV instead. It does provide a reminder of how season ticket sales have encouraged regular attendees.
The other feature of this game was Allchurch’s goal, again resulting from swapping wings with Simpson. In particular, it is a reminder of how good it was to be able to walk round to the Lane End at half-time when we were kicking the ‘wrong way’. Having seen Utd dominate but fail to score kicking towards the Kop, those of us who used the 10 minutes of half-time to find a spot behind the goal at the Lane End were rewarded almost immediately with Allchurch unleashing a powerful long-range shot against the inside of the post, and from there into the net. For a goal like that, there is only one place to be to experience it fully.
And that goal was enough to give us a second win of the season, and the feeling that we were settling well in the top division. And we had 2 more home games coming in 7 days - v Villa and Spurs. Things were looking good.
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Newspaper reports follow.
 

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