1954/5-back in the basement

 Chairman Cyril Folkes (extreme right) meets the new signings before the public trial match at the start of 1954/5. Left to right are Ron Anderson, Hugh Evans, Doug Farquhar, Edgar Duffett, David Marchant, Mel Bines (partly hidden), Ray Haddington, Peter Fisher, Harry Kirton, Harry Lunn and manager Fred Stansfield.

 Marchant and Kirton departed without making first team appearances, and only Farquhar survived Stansfield’s departure the following spring to play in Tim Kelly’s team. 

In the opening home fixture of 1954/5 Bedford lost 1-3 to Hastings, whose goalkeeper, Jack Ball, here saves a cross watched by Bedford’s Edgar Duffett (left) and Johnny Holland in the background, with Hastings defender Cyril Toulouse in the centre. Duffett had started his career with Bedford as an amateur just after the war before playing for Norwich and Carlisle (under Bill Shankly). His return lasted only one season but he became a very well known figure on the local scene as player-manager at St Neots and then manager at Biggleswade and Shefford. A crowd of 5,500 saw this evening match but a dismal season saw crowds dip below the 3,000 mark by Christmas. 

The Eagles had to wait until their sixth league match to collect a win, against Gravesend at The Eyrie on 16 September 1954. The crowd had declined from 5,500 for the opening home match against Hastings to 3,600. Here Bedford’s amateur left winger Bobby Blacklock (right) challenges Gravesend keeper Peter Heathcote. Blacklock was in the RAF at Henlow, and had appeared in the reserves the previous season, but after a few outings he was allowed to join Hitchin Town. 

It was eight matches before the team managed a win, by 3-2 against Gravesend at home on 16 September, and that was also the first time they had managed to score more than twice. A crowd of 5,500 for the opening home match, against Hastings, had slumped to 3,600 by the Gravesend fixture. Of the new players, Evans had been out with a broken wrist from an early stage and Haddington had been discarded after only three appearances. Peter Fisher, Farquhar and Duffett had established themselves as regulars but otherwise Stansfield was relying on the players he had inherited.

An extraordinary 9-0 defeat of Weymouth (the club’s biggest win since the war) in the Southern League Cup on 25 September paved the way for four more successive victories, but as far as Stansfield was concerned this was as good as it got. This sequence was followed by just three league wins in the next 20 matches. 

After a terrible start to the season, with only three points from their first seven league matches, Bedford suddenly went mad in this home League Cup tie against Weymouth on 27 September 1954 and scored nine without reply, their biggest competitive win since the war. Here, Vivian Woodward is smashing home their seventh goal. I remember being told that Woodward was a son or grandson of the famous pre-1914 amateur forward of the same name, who played for Tottenham and won both full and amateur caps, but this appears to have been completely untrue since that Woodward never married and his biography reveals no children! In fact, the man pictured here, a signing from the first Rooke era who had given the club four good seasons, was born in South Wales and was now nearing the end of a respectable career which had featured over 200 League appearances with Fulham, Millwall, Brentford and Aldershot plus a wartime cap for Wales. This big win was followed by three straight league successes, but proved a false dawn. 

 One of the successes following the Weymouth goal-feast came the following week, on 2 October 1954, with a 3-2 home win against Hereford. The Weymouth result had increased the gate from 3,700 to 4,400 and here they have just seen Woodward (out of picture) score the second goal, one of two he bagged in the match.  Hereford keeper John Lewis is about to berate his colleagues as Frank Faulkner (left) and Ted Duggan start to celebrate.

 Exempt from the FA Cup until the fourth qualifying round, Bedford went through comfortably on 6 November 1954 with a 5-2 home win against March Town United of the Eastern Counties League. Here the March centre-half Price heads clear under challenge from Ted Duggan and the more distant Edgar Duffett. There’s also a fragmentary glimpse of the rarely photographed old stand (see The Eyrie in photographs). 

Another scene from the March cup tie shows Vivian Woodward, hair neatly parted, about to challenge March player-manager Oscar Hold, with Ted Duggan, who scored a hat-trick, following up. 5,577 saw this match, despite the minor opposition, but Bedford’s season went steadily downhill afterwards and this figure would not be exceeded later. Hold had his revenge four years later, when as manager of Wisbech he watched his team win 4-3 at The Eyrie at the same stage of the competition (see 1958/9 in photos).   

The league defeats were barely enlivened by FA Cup success. Ironically, having complained for several seasons about how unfair it was to be forced to slog through the qualifying stages, Bedford were finally exempted until the fourth qualifying round, but having defeated March Town United fairly easily at home, they were forced to travel almost as far as the previous year in the competition proper-one stop less, in fact, on the railway took them to Dorchester Town of the Western League where they were defeated 0-2. Like the exit at Weymouth the previous season, this was the worst of all worlds-not much from the match financially, and the loss of possible further revenues from the later rounds. Stansfield decided to use this match to give first team debuts to two recently signed players-goalkeeper Ben Kinchin from Gillingham (a national serviceman on loan) and Irish winger Jim Kelly, whose brother Paddy, a defender, had arrived a few weeks earlier. It was hardly the right choice of occasion; the new players were all found to be at fault in various ways, and this defeat by a team from a lower level was the beginning of the end of Stansfield’s reign. 

Bedford were knocked out of the FA Cup 0-2 by Dorchester Town, of the Western League, at their Weymouth Avenue ground in a poor display on 20 November 1954 in front of a 3,500 crowd. Here Bedford keeper Ben Kinchin, who was on loan from Gillingham while doing his national service at RAF Henlow, saves from home striker Spink, who scored their second goal in the 88th minute. Kinchin, who made a permanent move to the club the following summer, was making his first team debut in this match and is watched here by Paddy Kelly, another recent acquisition who had come from Dundalk in Ireland. Kinchin was at fault for Dorchester’s first goal and Kelly’s brother, Jimmy, was another debutant in this match. The probably unsettled side produced such a poor performance that the Bedford Record reporter thought that “no gloomier afternoon has been experienced for some time” and quoted one “caustic supporter” as saying that the corner flags showed more movement than the visiting forwards. To be fair, Dorchester did win the Western League that season and in the next round went out to York City, the eventual surprise semi-finalists. Exactly a year earlier and a few miles south, the Eagles had been knocked out by the same score at the same stage by Dorchester’s neighbours, Weymouth.  

Dorchester defender Cox in a tussle with Ted Duggan (right). Duggan, had been signed by Ronnie Rooke from Worcester after a league career with Luton and QPR, and his goalscoring, mainly from centre-forward, was one of the few bright spots of a dismal season in 1954/5, during which he was joined for a while by his younger brother, Percy. Ted was the brother-in-law of Luton’s famous ten-goal record holder of pre-war years, Joe Payne, and returned to Kenilworth Road as player-coach to the junior sides in 1956. 

After further league disappointments, in December 1954 the manager was “instructed to go forth immediately and strengthen the side”, to quote the Bedfordshire Times’s presumably well informed source, with “no reasonable expense to be spared”. With the team again in the re-election zone, this seemed to make sense, but the manager does not seem to have recruited any other players, with the exception of Ted Duggan’s younger brother, Percy, who arrived from Biggleswade in exchange for the long-serving Vivian Woodward, one of Rooke’s earliest signings. It was reported that the club had tried to sign Arsenal's Scottish international inside forward Jimmy Logie for £2000 (an enormous fee by their standards) but in the end he went to Gravesend instead. 

 Photograph courtesy and copyright of the Worcester News. 

Things went from bad to worse after the turn of the year, and this is a scene from the 1-6 thumping at Edgar Street, Hereford, on 19 February 1955. Perhaps the icy conditions can charitably be said to account for the statuesque defending on show here, where only Les Horne (far right) of the Bedford players seems to doing much about counteracting Hereford’s Doug Blair. Looking on are Frank Morrad (3), who had some excuse at the age of 35, and Ken Fisher and Maurice Walby (left). 

   Photograph courtesy and copyright of the Worcester News. 

Another trip to the West Midlands a week after the Hereford defeat produced a less unpleasant scoreline but no more points as the Eagles went down 0-2 to Worcester at St George’s Lane. The snow piled around the touchlines indicates another wintry day as Bedford right-back Maurice Walby hoofs the ball away, watched by (left to right) Ben Kinchin, Doug Farquhar and Mel Bines , with Les Horne sliding in rather late to tackle Worcester’s McCaffery. Walby, who never turned professional, made only a handful of senior appearances for the club but had a long career in top amateur football, winning two England caps and eventually managing St Albans City, one of his former clubs. 

As 1954 gave way to 1955, things merely went from bad to worse; a five goal defeat at Barry on New Year’s Day was followed by two 3-6 defeats, at Kidderminster and Hastings, by the end of the month, and then successive 1-6 thumpings at Llanelly and Hereford by mid-February. Stansfield did belatedly turn to a few local players, such as Frank Faulkner, Brian Kirkup, Maurice Walby and Peter Whiffin, but it made little difference. A 0-1 exit from the Southern League Cup at Yeovil early in March was followed by a 0-3 home defeat by Tonbridge in a match described by the local reporter as perhaps the worst seen at the ground since the war. Bearing in mind the lowly positions attained in the immediate post-war years, this must have been about as damning as you could get, and the following week Stansfield was given three months’ notice.

Grumbling about the lack of time in which to make an impact, Stansfield seems to have left immediately. Perhaps bizarrely, Ronnie Rooke was among the applicants to succeed him; the former manager was clearly a club shareholder since he was, several times in the mid-50s, noted as having attended the AGM. But after a short gap the directors appointed Thomas (Tim) Kelly, assistant manager at Luton, who were not far away from clinching an historic promotion to the old First Division. Already an experienced coach with the Vauxhall Motors amateur side and then at Kenilworth Road, he was to become the most successful manager the old club ever had.

At the end of a season of struggle the arrival of Tim Kelly as manager sparked a  revival which lifted the team from second bottom to 18th place and a final tally of 35 points, 15 of which came in the last 11 matches. This spell included a creditable 1-1 draw in the Beds Professional Cup Final on 23 April 1955 against Luton Town, the club Kelly had just left, and who were about to clinch promotion to the old First Division for the first time. Here their young reserve goalkeeper, Alan Collier, who would join Bedford 10 years later, saves from Billy Waugh (centre)-an ex-Luton player-with Alan Thompson, who would also join Bedford three years later, to Waugh’s left. Also in view for Bedford are Percy Duggan (left background) and Frank Faulkner (far right) and the other defender is Billy Dallas.  

This was the eleven that drew with Luton in the Beds Professional Cup on 23 April 1955. 

Back: Charlie Bicknell (trainer), Len Garwood, Paddy Kelly, Charlie Bumstead, Frank Morrad, Dougie Farquhar.

Front: Frank Faulkner, Percy Duggan, Ted Duggan, Ken Fisher, Billy Waugh, Johnny Holland. 

Only Farquhar, Faulkner, Garwood, Waugh and Ted Duggan survived to start the following season. Bicknell, who had been player-coach from 1948 to early 1951, became Tim Kelly’s assistant manager for a time later in his tenure as manager.  

Second from bottom of the table when Kelly arrived, the club rallied under his leadership to lose only two of their last thirteen matches and raise themselves to 18th place, as well as holding his old club to a creditable draw in the County Cup. His only signing in the short period before the season’s end was Billy Waugh, an experienced Scottish winger who had been at Luton among many other clubs. It was clear that he would need to cast his net a lot wider in the close season, and with the average attendance dropping to only 3,657-nearly 20% down on the previous season-he would not be able to splash money around.

To continue the story go to 1955/6 -four minutes from Cup history

For full results and teams go to Results and teams, 1950-67

LEAGUE TABLE 1954-1955

  1. Yeovil Town                       42  23   9  10  105   66   55

  2. Weymouth                          42  24   7  11  105   84   55

  3. Hastings United                 42  21   9  12   94   60   51

  4. Cheltenham Town             42  21   8  13   85   72   50

  5. Guildford City                     42  20   8  14   72   59   48

  6. Worcester City                    42  19  10  13   80   73   48

  7. Barry Town                         42  16  15  11   82   87   47

  8. Gloucester City                   42  16  13  13   66   54   45

  9. Bath City                              42  18   9  15   73   80   45

 10. Headington United            42  18   7  17   82   62   43

 11. Kidderminster Harrier      42  18   7  17   84   86   43

 12. Merthyr Tydfil                    42  17   8  17   97   94   42

 13. Exeter City Reserves          42  19   4  19   67   78   42

 14. Lovells Athletic                   42  15  11  16   71   68   41

 15. Kettering Town                  42  15  11  16   70   69   41

 16. Hereford United                42  17   5  20   79   72   39

 17. Llanelly                                42  16   7  19   78   81   39

 18. Bedford Town                  42  16   3  23   75  103   35

 19. Tonbridge                          42  11   8  23   68   91   30

 20. Dartford                             42   9  12  21   55   76   30

 21. Chelmsford City                42  11   6  25   73  111   28

 22. Gravesend & Northfleet  42   9   9  24   62   97   27