Sunday 14th February 2010

WELCOME….


……to my latest blog. I hope that you find this as interesting as my first effort obviously was judging by the feedback that I have had.

FEEDBACK

I have received some really positive feedback to my last blog and I thank all those who took the trouble to let me know how much they appreciated it.

Trevor Wright has pointed out to me that he was the Chairman when we visited King’s Lynn in the FA Trophy. Peter Stroud was one of the Club’s Directors at the time and had yet to move into the hot seat. Apologies for the error and a thank you to Trevor for putting the record straight.

In the final piece on Billy Kellock’s 4 goals against Banbury United I omitted to mention the year the game took place. City’s 6-1 win was played on Monday 20th October 1975.

John Morris has done some digging around with regard to the half a dozen players I listed whose date and place of birth are missing. This has led to some interesting leads, most notably for Danny Moul, that I will be following up later. Another six players are listed later.

LEN PHILLIPS

Following my recent ‘City Legends’ article on Len I have managed to track down his family and sent his wife Joan a copy of the relevant programme. I received a very nice letter from Joan in response in which she explained that Len has been in hospital for over two and a half years suffering from vascular dementia as well as having arthritis in most of his limbs. I had asked Joan if she could arrange for Len to autograph a copy of the programme but with Len’s current condition that was impossible. However she very kindly sent me an autographed copy of the Portsmouth team that won the Football League Division One title in the late forties. Evidently Len is the only one of that squad still alive.

Jim Culleton, who currently undertakes a role at the Club looking after the match officials and their guests, met Joan last week on a visit to Portsmouth and she told Jim that she is in touch with Derek Tiffin. Hopefully this will lead to me being able to send Derek a copy of the programme that featured him in the ‘City Legends’ series.

CONSECUTIVE HOME GAMES

Peter Foster asked on the City Message Board whether City’s current run of eight consecutive home games was a record. It is indeed a Club record Peter, the previous longest run being seven games. This run started following an away game at Wimbledon on Tuesday 14th January 1975, when City went down 2-0 in a league game at Plough Lane. City then played seven consecutive home games before travelling to Atherstone Town on Saturday 1st March and getting thumped 4-0, again in a league game. The run of seven games consisted of three league games and four games in the Eastern Floodlight Competition. City won six of the games but lost one, a 1-0 defeat against Telford United in the league. On four occasions City have played six consecutive home games, with runs ending in January 1992, March 1990, April 1983 and December 1980.

The most consecutive away games played stands at eight with a run that stretched from 2nd October 1999 until 13th November 1999. This run consisted of four league games, two FA Cup games, and FA Trophy game and an EFC game. The Club also played seven consecutive away games from 20th October 1956 until 1st December 1956 although this run included the FA Cup 3rd Qualifying Round 2nd Replay with Clacton Town that was played at Layer Road, Colchester.

LEN GALLEY

Len played four games for City and there are some interesting coincidences. All four games were played in April, two in 1947 and two in 1948 and all four games were against Bedford Town! Len obviously liked playing against Bedford because in those four appearances he scored three goals. Playing at inside forward Len appeared in three League Cup ties and one League game.

WANTED LIST

Thanks to the Club’s former Kit Manager Ian Butcher I have made contact with Justin Beacher and obtained his date and place of birth details bringing down the number of players details needed to 188. As mentioned above I have some leads to follow up from John Morris that should see this number reduced further. Here are another six fairly recent players who I would like to track down – Roger Brown (1991), Mark O’Leary (1991), Jason Coles (1991), Gary Barden (1991), Merrick Harriott (1991) and Steve Jones (1991). Merrick Harriott was born in London in 1955 but I do not have any more precise details.

FRIDAY 13th – UNLUCKY OR NOT?

With Saturday’s game against Newport County taking place on the 13th of the month I was asked whether Friday 13th was lucky or unlucky for City. Well I suppose you could say that itis lucky, but as the Club have only ever played one game on that day and date it might be stretching things a little! On Friday 13th 1972 City played Folkestone at New Writtle Street and won 2-0 with goals from Frank Peterson and Barry Thornley. A crowd of 2,979 watched the game.

MISSING LINE UPS

Dave Clarke has done some digging around and come up with a match report on the game at Bedford Town on Wednesday 14th April 1948. City lost the League Cup game 2-0. Although the report, which is from the East Anglian Daily Times, does not list the team line ups it does include the names of several City players with the result that we now know the names of another three City players who took part in this game.

The full list of games where we have incomplete line ups are:

14th April 1948 A Bedford Town LCP – 2 players missing.
21st April 1952 A Dartford Lge – 2 players missing.
30th April 1953 A Kidderminster Harriers Lge – 5 players missing.
27th April 1955 A Llanelly Lge – 2 players missing.

A lot of research has gone into trying to track down these missing players names, so if you can help in any way then please let me know. It may be, for example, that you have a programme from one of these games that has been marked with the names of the players who took part.

THE CHELMSFORD CITY HISTORIAN

Those who read my first blog will know that I am considering publishing a quarterly newsletter covering the history and statistics of the Club.

To enable me to decide whether to go ahead I would welcome your feedback on whether you think that this should be in paper format, which would obviously result in a charge to cover costs, or in PDF format made available by e-mail. I would appreciate hearing your views.

BRYAN REEVE

It was good to see the former City Chairman Bryan Reeve at the Newport County game. Bryan confirmed to me that he retains an avid interest in non league football but this was the first City game he had attended since he stood down as Chairman in 1988. Needless to say I obtained his contact details so that I can interview him in depth on his time not only as City Chairman but as a member of the Southern League Management Committee.

HOME ATTENDANCES

The attendance of 554 for the recent home game with Dorchester Town was the second lowest for a league game at Melbourne Park. The lowest crowd was 502 who watched the 3-0 win over Hendon on Wednesday 8th March 2006, on what was a very, very wet day. City’s goals were scored by Tony Boot and Richard Halle (2).

AND FINALLY….

…..don’t forget that if you want to contact me with any help, feedback or requests you can e-mail me at chelmsfordcityhistory@googlemail.com.