Memory Lane On this day ...........

[Mick]

.....just 41 years ago, we clinched our first ever Football League promotion at Scunthorpe.

Away support in those days was not what it is today and there were very few of us there to witness the historic occasion. Billy Best's goal secured the necessary point.

 

[Rob Noxious]

I remember hearing the news the next day just before we were on a school trip to Colchester Zoo ... I was 11 and it had been the first season that I'd been allowed to go regularly without an adult in tow. Me and my best mate went to mainly Friday night games back then.

 

[Bolton Shrimper]

.....just 41 years ago, we clinched our first ever Football League promotion at Scunthorpe.

Away support in those days was not what it is today and there were very few of us there to witness the historic occasion. Billy Best's goal secured the necessary point.[/QUOTE 1971-72 season, remember it well, particularly the 17,059 crowd ( I think ) at RH against Cambridge Utd when Spud Taylor replaced Derek Belotti in Goal and the aggro at Gillingham away.

 

[fbm]

I didn't get to that Scunthorpe game, but do remember we had a long unbeaten run and were playing Cambridge at home on a Friday in a game that was an absolute home banker. We'd beaten them easily at their place (the first side to do so I think since they became a league club) and this was a Friday night game that I couldn't go to for some reason.

I remember waking on the Saturday and rushing to the door to pick the paper up, flicking straight to the back pages for the result to see how many we'd won by... and then seeing we'd lost 2-1 and thought it was a misprint.

I still remember the feeling of despair and misery when I saw that result... I was gutted, absolutely gutted.

We still went up though behind Grimsby and I think Brentford and Scunthorpe went up with us too. Happy days, pre teletext, mobile phones and internet. It built up the anticipation more.

 

[E for B and Billy Best]

Some great away days that year Colchester on a wet Monday night (can still picture Peter Knight moaning that his new Royals were getting ruined by the rain) night followed on the Saturday with Brentford away. All topped off with a day out in Gillingham.....Happy days!!!!!!!!

 

[McNasty]

How do you gents remember things in such detail ? I have trouble remembering what I had for tea last night.

 

[OldBlueLady]

How do you gents remember things in such detail ? I have trouble remembering what I had for tea last night.

Me too! It always amazes me how people do remember such detail about so many games. There are odd games that I remember, or rather incidents in a few, but, "big" games apart, if I remember an incident, I couldn't tell you what the final score was!

 

[Suffolk Shrimper In Dorset]

.....just 41 years ago, we clinched our first ever Football League promotion at Scunthorpe.

Away support in those days was not what it is today and there were very few of us there to witness the historic occasion. Billy Best's goal secured the necessary point.[/QUOTE 1971-72 season, remember it well, particularly the 17,059 crowd ( I think ) at RH against Cambridge Utd when Spud Taylor replaced Derek Belotti in Goal and the aggro at Gillingham away.

My Dad and me were part of the 17,059 - Belotti going off injured and the Villa cup game pitch invasion earlier that season are my earliest SUFC memories

Lets start the 17,059 club. Three of us found so far.

 

[E for B and Billy Best]

My Dad and me were part of the 17,059 - Belotti going off injured and the Villa cup game pitch invasion earlier that season are my earliest SUFC memories

Lets start the 17,059 club. Three of us found so far.

Make that 4

 

[Pak Power]

.....just 41 years ago, we clinched our first ever Football League promotion at Scunthorpe.

Away support in those days was not what it is today and there were very few of us there to witness the historic occasion. Billy Best's goal secured the necessary point.[/QUOTE 1971-72 season, remember it well, particularly the 17,059 crowd ( I think ) at RH against Cambridge Utd when Spud Taylor replaced Derek Belotti in Goal and the aggro at Gillingham away.

make it five

 

[Napster]

I had a brief look at that season and saw that 2 players won player of the season. Bill Garner, who scored 26 goals, and Brian Albeson.

Brian Albeson was a centre-half. He played 110 games for us before moving back to the North. He later opened a hairdressers in Darlington, where he played his football before us.

I found this on the Net:

Farewell to stalwart Alby

Brian Albeson, Darlington's stalwart centre half for four fourth division seasons in the late 1960s, has died, aged 56 (October 2003).

Alby, as generally he was known, signed from Bury in 1967, made 154 first team appearances and scored twice before moving on to Southend.

After a total 302 Football League appearances, he returned to Darlington where he ran a hairdressing business,

"He was a quiet, conscientious, consistent centre half, not the sort of harem-scarem you get these days," says Jack Watson, the club's assistant manager at the time.

Mind, adds Jack, you didn't get many harem-scarems in those days. Brian's funeral was on Tuesday 21st October 2003.

 

[Rob Noxious]

I didn't get to that Scunthorpe game, but do remember we had a long unbeaten run and were playing Cambridge at home on a Friday in a game that was an absolute home banker. We'd beaten them easily at their place (the first side to do so I think since they became a league club) and this was a Friday night game that I couldn't go to for some reason.

I remember waking on the Saturday and rushing to the door to pick the paper up, flicking straight to the back pages for the result to see how many we'd won by... and then seeing we'd lost 2-1 and thought it was a misprint.

I still remember the feeling of despair and misery when I saw that result... I was gutted, absolutely gutted.

We still went up though behind Grimsby and I think Brentford and Scunthorpe went up with us too. Happy days, pre teletext, mobile phones and internet. It built up the anticipation more.

Hey mate - that Cambridge away game was the first away game I went to. We won 3-0 and Cambridge had 3 of our ex-players playing for them - Trevor Roberts, Mel Slack and AN Other (can't remember who the 3rd was). I'd never seen a terrace as small as the one we were in behind the goal and the wall was so low that the ball kept going over it.

 

[1966 and all that]

.....just 41 years ago, we clinched our first ever Football League promotion at Scunthorpe.

Away support in those days was not what it is today and there were very few of us there to witness the historic occasion. Billy Best's goal secured the necessary point.

Would that have been the time Southend 'lost' its record - of being the only football club to have remained in the same division from inception?

 

[shallowshrimper]

I seem to remember that we had an Australian keeper called John Roberts in goal that night and a work mate was telling me how he had seen him down the pub a few days before and worried me sick with tales of Roberts beer gut. Probably all rubbish of course but all was well in the end. Of course no internet or sky sports or even teletext in those days, I cant even remember how or where I heard the final score.

 

[Tangled up in Blue]

Would that have been the time Southend 'lost' its record - of being the only football club to have remained in the same division from inception?

You're talking about 65/6.

 

[Kevin Hogg]

Six.

My memory is blurred (I was 9) but can clearly see the pitch invasion against Villa in the cup. The report in the national paper on the Sunday said something along the lines of "when Best scored - the roar could be heard at the end of the pier"!

Ha ha!

 

[rararblue]

Six and a half - I was absolutely distraught as I had to miss the game to have my 'sinus's done' in Southend Hospital. From my room on the top floor I could just about see the South Bank , part of the East Stand and a little corner of the pitch. Thats why I am claiming a half!

 

[Mick]

My Dad and me were part of the 17,059 - Belotti going off injured and the Villa cup game pitch invasion earlier that season are my earliest SUFC memories

Lets start the 17,059 club. Three of us found so far.

Statistically and, for me, frighteningly, anyone over their mid 30s at the time is more likely to be dead than alive.

 

[Mick]

I had a brief look at that season and saw that 2 players won player of the season. Bill Garner, who scored 26 goals, and Brian Albeson.

Brian Albeson was a centre-half. He played 110 games for us before moving back to the North. He later opened a hairdressers in Darlington, where he played his football before us.

I found this on the Net:

Farewell to stalwart Alby

Brian Albeson, Darlington's stalwart centre half for four fourth division seasons in the late 1960s, has died, aged 56 (October 2003).

Alby, as generally he was known, signed from Bury in 1967, made 154 first team appearances and scored twice before moving on to Southend.

After a total 302 Football League appearances, he returned to Darlington where he ran a hairdressing business,

"He was a quiet, conscientious, consistent centre half, not the sort of harem-scarem you get these days," says Jack Watson, the club's assistant manager at the time.

Mind, adds Jack, you didn't get many harem-scarems in those days. Brian's funeral was on Tuesday 21st October 2003.

He was an ever-present that season ....... but only had to play 50 games !!

 

[A Century United]

Seven.

When they carried DB off the pitch on the stretcher, they had covered him completely with the blanket which rather worried me. We were already a goal up when he broke his collar bone diving into the post, Spud went into goal, and both their goals came from defenders not trusting Spud to come for the ball.