60 years ago this month...

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December 9, 1961
United 2-1 Arsenal
Attendance: 19213

And so for the moment the sequence of ‘lose away, win at home’ continued with an impressive win over the mighty Arsenal. In front of another disappointing crowd, United dominated, and should have won more convincingly, but the close score line meant that we had that most satisfying of outcomes - a late winner in front of the Kop.
I begin with Heap’s cartoon from the Green ‘Un, as ever courtesy of Silent Blade :

Events elsewhere were interesting: Wednesday were playing at Wolves, United’s opponents the following week, and immediately went 2-0 down, while Barnsley were 3 down at home to Peterborough by half-time. We played Peterborough in the Cup the following month. Both Wednesday and Barnsley ended up losing 3-0, but we had no such problems against Wolves or Peterborough. The depiction of the United match is classic Heap, from the polite words spoken by Hodgy after his error to the description of the rumpus between Pace and the Arsenal defender Brown. Remember that bookings were very unusual at the time.
United, with Russell replacing Hartle, and Pace looking like his old self, dominated the first half, and his opportunism after 15 minutes led to the Arsenal defender McCullough diving full-length to save the ball with his hands. Even from the Kop we could see that VAR would not have needed to review that! And the pictures below show it well, and Simpson’s penalty was a repeat of previous ones - driven hard to the the keeper’s left with the outside of his left foot.

With successive similar penalties he had beaten Trautmann and Kelsey, a pair of good keepers.
After half-time Hodgy misjudged a header which went just under the bar, and then United got back on top, unsettling Arsenal with a combination of skill and aggression, until Pace, in the 76th minute, broke free through a gap in the defence and thumped the ball past Kelsey to score a rather un-Pace-like goal.
And that was that. 2 points, Pace back on form, and John Hathaway, in his match report, was honest in recognising the change in Pace’s performance after his strong criticism the week before. Next up was Wolves away, so Wednesday’s 3-0 defeat there was perhaps not celebrated as enthusiastically as usual. And the next home match, v Forest, might, as the programme explains, include the inauguration of the new floodlights, if the electricians could get the wiring connected in time! Programme, newspaper report, scrapbook photos in the following post:

 

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[Silent Blade]

A paragraph from the programme

 

[SUFC Handsworth]

I know the photo quality isn't great and the Lane was only three sided back then, plus no BL upper, but the Kop and John Street look pretty full to me. Surely more than 19k

 

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I know the photo quality isn't great and the Lane was only three sided back then, plus no BL upper, but the Kop and John Street look pretty full to me. Surely more than 19k

I was only interested in what went on on the pitch at the time, so I took crowd numbers at face value. There were not that many at the Bramall Lane end usually, and the terrace/stand onJohn Street did not hold many. With a big crowd, the Kop was uncomfortably full, which was usually only the case at Cup matches. And there were few season ticket holders, so the numbers given would not include people who did not turn up. A proportion of the gate money also went to the away club, so the home club would have an incentive to declare low numbers. So I haven’t a clue! If I dare say it, when I went to S6, their crowds always seemed a lot bigger.

 

[ancientblade]

gone full circle hasnt it hodgy going back years nobody missed an fa cup game and grounds were packed opposite nowadays nobody interested till the later rounds and very poor crowds

 

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A paragraph from the programme

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That is a great photo, one I don’t remember seeing before. Looking at the tiny old floodlights, it’s a wonder we ever saw anything at evening matches. The picture I posted recently of Graham Shaw scoring a free-kick from the half-way line (Sept 1960, v Portsmouth) is one where I assumed the ball disappeared into the dark night sky so that the keeper saw it too late:

I have a vested interest in believing that. Many years later, in an evening match on the University pitches that used to be opposite Weston Park Hospital, an opponent hoofed the ball from the half-way line, the ball disappeared into the night sky, and I had no idea where it was until I heard it bounce behind me on its way into the net. Our defenders never accepted my explanation, or my complaint that they were not skilful enough to kick a ball accurately from 50 yards and do the same

 

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December 16, 1961
Wolves 0-1 United
Attendance: 20034


I like this cover of the Wolves programme, except for the absence of the date and name of the opponents. I like the ‘NOTES’, except for the smallness of the print:

It is fun to read how a young Wolves team with 3 reserves in the forward line had comprehensively beaten Wednesday by playing ‘gay’ football the week before, allowing Wolves to move into the top half of the league. And how the Wednesday match had been Wolves’ lowest crowd of the season. Massive, my arse…
But the rest of the programme is poor, in my opinion, especially the following rambling 2 pages largely supposed to be about United.

But the outcome of the game was good, and it was satisfying that we were able to knock Wolves back down into the bottom half of the table, and we replaced them in the top half:

This was real progress for United, who now had clear daylight between them and the teams at the bottom - riffraff such as Chelsea, Man City, Man Utd! And if we are comparing the return to the top division seasons of 61-62 and 71-72, it is clear that the patterns were exactly opposite - rising in late 1961 after a dodgy start, declining in late 1971 after an incredible first 10 games.

I was not able to go to the Wolves game, as I was playing school football. Instead, I raced home from Whitely Woods in search of a quick lunch, and then went to S6 to watch Wednesday v West Brom. More of that later.
For my comments on the match, I rely on the newspaper reports, my brother’s player-ratings, and the scrapbook. Both teams were unchanged:

My brother’s player ratings suggest that it was the back 4 of Hodgy, full-backs Coldwell and Graham Shaw, and centre-half Joe Shaw, that really won this game for Utd; the newspaper reports also point to the extra protection they had from players like Richardson.

It is clear that this was a disciplined performance, with the bonus of a Pace goal from a defensive error the icing on the cake. So this left us with a healthy league position, a pre-Xmas treat of a match v Forest with new floodlights being inaugurated, followed by a winnable match against Blackpool against Boxing Day. It was good to be a Blade.

Why we included the same picture twice in the scrapbook remains a mystery!

 

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And here are some pics of the programme of Wednesday’s 3-0 win against WBA. A pity, but the updates from Molyneux more than made up for it. I love how the programme notes celebrating an upcoming match against Barcelona end up shifting between apologising for the chaos at the previous match and blaming the fans for not turning up early!

 

[SUFC Handsworth]

3k to QPR on a friday night, most turnstiles in the country, most empty seats in League 1, they're great, sorry massive, the club that just keep giving

 

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December 22, 1961
United 2-0 Forest
Attendance: 19931

This was literally United’s night under the spotlight. The long-promised inauguration of the new floodlights occurred just 3 days before Xmas, and under lights which were a great improvement on the previous ones (though now they would seem inadequate), United earned their 3rd successive victory and allowed us to start to look at the top of the league rather than a relegation battle. Rather as the team of 2021-22 has done in recent weeks, in fact.
There was again disappointment with the attendance: despite the improvement in results, the novelty of new floodlights, and the fact that Forest are relatively local, the attendance was again under 20000. I have included pics of the detailed explanations in the programme about the new floodlights for any electrical engineers out there who might be interested.
Forest featured several players of interest to Sheffield football followers. Jim Iley was a Utd player who had an excellent career as a powerful left-half, and it appears from the match report that he got involved in physical clashes with Utd players, especially Kettleborough. On the right-wing, it surprised me to learn that they had a youngster called Trevor Hockey. From what I remember of him as a real hard-man midfielder in later years, not least for United, it is hard to think of him as a winger. The match report does not mention that he got involved in any of the rough stuff, and it was his misfortune to come up against Graham Shaw at his very best (according to the report, and our player-ratings, which had him as man of the match). And this was also probably the first time I saw Peter Grummitt, one of my favourite goalkeepers, until 1970, when, of course, he signed for Wednesday.
In the end, it came down to Pace being the difference between the sides: a first-half header against the woodwork, turned in by Russell, and a second-half shot, with the help of a deflection. With the defence solid, Pace again scoring goals, and the new floodlights, the future looked bright. We had only 4 days to wait for the next game, v Blackpool, on Boxing Day. And for those who could not get used to Xmas Day without football, there was Utd v Wednesday in the 3rd round of the Youth Cup, at 11 in the morning at the Lane. Did anyone go to to that game?

 

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In addition to Trevor Hockey playing at the Lane that season, I have just realised (preparing material for the Bury cup-tie in January), that later that season some of us saw Eddie Colquhoun at the Lane for the first-time towards the end of the 61-62 season. Needless to say, the programme got the spelling of his name wrong! By my calculation he was 16 years old when he played in that 3-1 victory for Bury Reserves:

 

[Silent Blade]

Who took Badger's place?

 

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Who took Badger's place?

You are here dealing with my Dad’s writing, which was challenging at the best of times. From the writing, I would have said Naylor; the player appearances in the programmes by the end of the season show a G. B. Taylor with 7 appearances. So that would be my guess.
Edit: v Huddersfield Reserves, April 28, 1968, Taylor is left-back.

 

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December 26, 1961
United 2-1 Blackpool
Attendance: 22657

You are here dealing with my Dad’s writing, which was challenging at the best of times. From the writing, I would have said Naylor; the player appearances in the programmes by the end of the season show a G. B. Taylor with 7 appearances. So that would be my guess.
Edit: v Huddersfield Reserves, April 28, 1968, Taylor is left-back.

1962, of course!

 

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December 26, 1961
United 2-1 Blackpool
Attendance: 22657

A wonderful Boxing Day at the Lane took United to new heights in Division 1:

Blackpool had been on a good run themselves, but after the brass band carols and on an icy Bramall Lane pitch, they struggled to contain United’s attack, even though they did take the lead with a spectacular goal at the Kop end. The goal was scored by Brian Peterson, one of several South Africans in their squad at the time. United continued to attack, and got their reward after 40 minutes with a diving header from Pace from a Simpson cross. A wonderful way to celebrate the 4th anniversary of his debut for the Blades. He also provided the assist for Allchurch to smash the ball into the net at the Kop end after 73 minutes. The scrapbook page contains a positive report, and although the photo showing Pace’s goal doesn’t show Pace himself, the photo of Pace jumping to attempt to head the ball shows very well his surprising athleticism - he was not a big centre-forward, but he could jump high and with good timing.

The calendar year ended on a high, with promotion and a semi-final achieved in the first half of 1961, and then, the new season had seen United finding their feet at the higher level. There was supposed to be 1 more game in 1961, the return match at Blackpool on the following Saturday, but that match fell foul of the winter weather, so there were no more matches before the Cup 3rd round at Bury. Away at a lower league team in January weather would be a very different sort of test.

And with that I wish a Merry Xmas and a Happy New Year to all (both?) my readers, with special thanks to Silent Blade , whose help is always much appreciated.

 

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January 6, 1961
FA Cup, 3rd round
Bury 0-0 United
Attendance: 14760

It had, of course, long been an ambition of mine to watch United play Bury 3 times in 9 days… After a week and a half without football (the previous Saturday’s game at Blackpool had fallen foul of the cold weather), there was excitement in the air about the prospect of another good Cup run. As we had made it to the semi-final the previous season as a second-tier club, it was not unreasonable to expect further Cup success as a top-tier club. A trip to Bury, even on a cold foggy day, did not seem to pose much of an obstacle. In the end, my one and only visit to Bury was an anti-climax, and will not figure prominently in the the current thread on the most memorable 3rd Round Cup games.
In front of a big crowd, Bury were clearly up for it, and with Russell injured early on, the game was even and competitive, but produced relatively little goalmouth action. By the final whistle, I think everyone was ok with the draw, with Bury feeling that they would have a decent payday at the Lane, and United confident that the goals would come again.
Material for this report is limited, I’m afraid. It is one of the handful of games for which the programme has gone missing, and the eagle-eyed amongst you (yes, I mean you, Silent Blade ) will notice that the scrapbook has the date of the match wrong. Sadly, the scrapbook ends in a few weeks, and perhaps such carelessness is an indication that enthusiasm was waning. The 14-year-old me did not realise how attached I would have become to those scrapbooks 60 years later. Youngsters, eh?

 

[SUFC Handsworth]

January 6, 1961
FA Cup, 3rd round
Bury 0-0 United
Attendance: 14760

It had, of course, long been an ambition of mine to watch United play Bury 3 times in 9 days… After a week and a half without football (the previous Saturday’s game at Blackpool had fallen foul of the cold weather), there was excitement in the air about the prospect of another good Cup run. As we had made it to the semi-final the previous season as a second-tier club, it was not unreasonable to expect further Cup success as a top-tier club. A trip to Bury, even on a cold foggy day, did not seem to pose much of an obstacle. In the end, my one and only visit to Bury was an anti-climax, and will not figure prominently in the the current thread on the most memorable 3rd Round Cup games.
In front of a big crowd, Bury were clearly up for it, and with Russell injured early on, the game was even and competitive, but produced relatively little goalmouth action. By the final whistle, I think everyone was ok with the draw, with Bury feeling that they would have a decent payday at the Lane, and United confident that the goals would come again.
Material for this report is limited, I’m afraid. It is one of the handful of games for which the programme has gone missing, and the eagle-eyed amongst you (yes, I mean you, Silent Blade ) will notice that the scrapbook has the date of the match wrong. Sadly, the scrapbook ends in a few weeks, and perhaps such carelessness is an indication that enthusiasm was waning. The 14-year-old me did not realise how attached I would have become to those scrapbooks 60 years later. Youngsters, eh?
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Been some good 'uns at Bury since that Cup game in '62 HBT.

Run in to the Fourth Division season, midweek, Tuesday night, losing 1-0 going into injury, then up popped Keith Edwards to grab the equaliser, right in front of thousands of jubilant Blades fans. I remember 88/89 promotion season, playing them again midweek, probably March/April time, I think Deano grabbed a late/late winner, again right in front of our fans. I recall at the end of the game shaking hands with Bob Booker at the top of the perimeter fence.

Then there were the two New Years games there. In the Ched Evans season 2012, when we had both ends of the ground and ran out 3-0 winners if memory serves, we put on something of a champagne performance second half. And the League 1 title winning season, I think we beat them 3-1 after former Blade trainee Jacob Mellis had given them the lead. They were near the bottom and the game was a lot closer than the scoreline suggested.

 

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Been some good 'uns at Bury since that Cup game in '62 HBT.

Run in to the Fourth Division season, midweek, Tuesday night, losing 1-0 going into injury, then up popped Keith Edwards to grab the equaliser, right in front of thousands of jubilant Blades fans. I remember 88/89 promotion season, playing them again midweek, probably March/April time, I think Deano grabbed a late/late winner, again right in front of our fans. I recall at the end of the game shaking hands with Bob Booker at the top of the perimeter fence.

Then there were the two New Years games there. In the Ched Evans season 2012, when we had both ends of the ground and ran out 3-0 winners if memory serves, we put on something of a champagne performance second half. And the League 1 title winning season, I think we beat them 3-1 after former Blade trainee Jacob Mellis had given them the lead. They were near the bottom and the game was a lot closer than the scoreline suggested.

Obviously some great memories there. I got out of the habit of going to away matches many years ago, partly because of the crowd trouble. Walking out of the Mansfield ground with bricks coming over a wall and landing all round us as we left was the last straw. I have only been to a handful since.

 

[SUFC Handsworth]

Obviously some great memories there. I got out of the habit of going to away matches many years ago, partly because of the crowd trouble. Walking out of the Mansfield ground with bricks coming over a wall and landing all round us as we left was the last straw. I have only been to a handful since.

Lol sounds like trips to Millwall

 

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Wednesday, January 11th, 1962
FA Cup, 3rd Round replay
United 2-2 Bury
Attendance: 25023

If anyone wants an example of the magic of the FA Cup at the time, they need only compare the attendance at this Cup replay with the Boxing Day match a couple of weeks before. On Boxing Day, newly-promoted United, 8th in the top division and on a good run of form, played Blackpool, just below them in the League, in front of a crowd of 22757; a couple of weeks later, playing 3rd Division Bury (who brought a small following) in a 3rd Round Cup replay, the attendance was over 25000. In recent years, a similar Boxing Day match would have been a sell-out, and a 3rd Round replay against a 3rd-tier club would have seen a crowd below 10000. But in 1962 the Cup was still the glamour competition, and while there was still the opportunity of another good Cup run, the crowds would come.
And this replay also provided a perfect example of the ups and downs of being a Blade. The league form appeared to have been sorted, so going 2-0 up with a few minutes to go, with our solid and experienced defence to see the tie out, what could possibly go wrong? Well, Bury scoring 2 late goals, including the equaliser from a 16- year-old lad, that was what could go wrong! Extra-time provided no more goals, and so it was yet another replay to look forward to. At least we won the toss to choose venue, and so it came to pass that we had an extra visit to Hillsborough on the calendar, the following Monday.
We seem not to have included this first replay in the scrapbook, so I rely on material supplied by Silent Blade for a report and photos. At least the programme has survived, with our player ratings suggesting that a number of players under-performed. But it is, I think, interesting to observe that our marks are consistently much higher than the marks given on social media these days; grade-inflation has taken place in our public examinations (GCSE, A-level, degrees), but the exact opposite has happened with our evaluation of footballers. Yet if you ask the ‘average person’ whether standards have declined or improved in schools and on the football pitch, most will say that school kids now know less and footballers nowadays are more skilful. It’s a funny old world.
The programme has interesting details. Words of praise for reserve Cliff Mason; the prospect of coming up against Jimmy Hagan in the next round; the fact that Bob Stokoe was Bury manager; and the fact that Joe Shaw in 1949 scored 2 goals in a 4-4 draw with Bury. Given that he only scored 7 league goals in 632 league matches, that must have been a unique achievement! And one for us oldies: it is deemed to be a sign of great longevity that Billy Gillespie is still able to play a good game of bowls at the age of 70!
A busy few days coming up then. Villa away on the Saturday, followed by an unusual trip on the Monday to Hillsborough - a match there where we wanted the ‘home’ team to win!

 

[SUFC Handsworth]

Looking forward to the report from the 2nd replay, so glad it was on a Monday night, not two days later!!

 

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Looking forward to the report from the 2nd replay, so glad it was on a Monday night, not two days later!!

I am pleased to report that it merited inclusion in the scrapbook!

 

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You are all clearly too polite to correct my errors. I had forgotten that Bury had been promoted to Division 2 in 1960-61; they were not a ‘third-tier club’ for these FA Cup matches. They were a third-tier side when they beat us in the League Cup the season before.

 

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January 13, 1961
Aston Villa 0-0 United
Attendance: 26350

Just like the previous Saturday, this was another 0-0 away draw, in a season in which we had only one other League or Cup 0-0 draw. I didn’t go to this game (school football will have resumed), and the fact that I can’t find the match programme could mean that my brother didn’t go either. But funnily enough I do remember this match, or rather, I remember my reaction to reading the match reports.
Let me explain: Derek Dougan was something of a hero to me, for the very good reason that this maverick Northern Irish centre-forward had scored both goals for Blackburn against Wednesday in the 1960 Cup semifinal, preventing Wednesday getting to Wembley after knocking us out of the Cup in the 6th round with a crude display of ‘football’. I was not alone amongst Unitedites in thanking Dougan for that service to football. However, in 1962, having moved to Villa, Dougan showed a different side to his play, and according to all reports, he twice recklessly flattened Hodgy, and left him in a groggy state which nowadays would have required him to be substituted. The reports provided by Silent Blade describe the incidents, and 2 of the photos in my scrapbook are in the seconds leading up to the assaults, I believe. Nobody flattened Hodgy and remained a hero to me, and Dougan went on that day from hero to villain (pun intended) in my eyes. I never saw the incidents, but I didn’t need to.

The bottom picture is, I believe, the first collision, which sounds from the reports and looks from the picture to have been totally avoidable; and the picture on the right looks like the second incident. Dougan out of control? The whole thing brought back memories of the 1957 Cup Final, when another Villa Irishman, Peter McParland, launched himself at the ManU keeper Ray Woods early on, and left him with a broken cheekbone; in the days before substitutes were allowed, this in effect stole the game from ManU, with McParland scoring both goals. I never forgave Dougan, and Villa have been one of my least favourite teams ever since.
Apart from that, it appears to have been an awful game, a good one to miss. But in the days of only 2 points for a win, an away point was always satisfactory, and it kept the unbeaten run going. There was just the little matter of getting as many as possible of the walking wounded fit enough to play in another Cup replay in just 2 days. And managers today complain of fixture congestion…

 

[SUFC Handsworth]

Great report HBT. Slightly at a tangent, what about the Swallonest team in the report. Furniss, Thickett, Warnock ... I wonder if they were relatives of what would have been past and future Blades?

 

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Great report HBT. Slightly at a tangent, what about the Swallonest team in the report. Furniss, Thickett, Warnock ... I wonder if they were relatives of what would have been past and future Blades?

You are very observant. Given that he appears to be right-back, it could well be Fred Furniss, as he played football for many years after retiring from professional football. I couldn’t confirm it with a quick Google search. There a certainly a lot of Blades-related names there - even the referee is C. Grainger

 

[SUFC Handsworth]

You are very observant. Given that he appears to be right-back, it could well be Fred Furniss, as he played football for many years after retiring from professional football. I couldn’t confirm it with a quick Google search. There a certainly a lot of Blades-related names there - even the referee is C. Grainger

If FF carried on playing after his pro career, then yes it could well be him. Could just imagine Warnock senior though, "we'll get our Colin down an hour before kick off and get him to clear all t' dog shit off pitch. It'll get him in practice for when he teks over at United!"

 

[Silent Blade]

You are very observant. Given that he appears to be right-back, it could well be Fred Furniss, as he played football for many years after retiring from professional football. I couldn’t confirm it with a quick Google search. There a certainly a lot of Blades-related names there - even the referee is C. Grainger

Yes Fred Furniss was still playing local football in the 1970s

 

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Yes Fred Furniss was still playing local football in the 1970s

I still bear the mental scar of the penalty he scored past me…