1964/5-Hayward bides his time

 Bedford started the 1964/5 season with a 3-2 home win against Nuneaton on 22 August. David Sturrock watches here as the visiting keeper Les Green, who would later win a First Division championship medal for Derby County under Brian Clough, takes a high cross, watched by Norman Cooley in the background and his own defenders Birch (4) and Watts (5). The crowd of 2,800 was a slight increase on the corresponding day a year earlier but the team still struggled to reach the 3,000 mark that was regarded as the minimum for a club with serious aspirations. 

David Sturrock was a steady goalscorer who had played for Reg Smith at Dundee United and was re-signed by him from Accrington in autumn 1961, shortly before the Lancashire club’s demise. He continued to be a regular choice under Smith’s successors, Basil Hayward and Ron Burgess, and eventually clocked up five seasons of wholehearted effort. Here he has beaten Cambridge City’s centre half, Alf Craig, to the ball in a Southern League cup tie at the Eyrie on 31 August 1964, but although goalkeeper Bill Heath saved this effort, Sturrock scored all three goals in Bedford’s 3-2 success.

Bedford seemed to be heading for a win against manager Basil Hayward’s former club, Yeovil, at The Eyrie on 5 September 1964 when visiting player-manager Glyn Davies equalized with three minutes to go, and here we see home keeper Derek Bellotti diving too late and Mick Collins (right) powerless to help. Bellotti had been drafted into the side just before the start of the season after the manager decided that the veteran Tony Hawksworth would be unable to fill the gap left by Jock Wallace’s decision to move to Hereford.

Sturrock (far left) scored again this time, a few weeks later, beating Wellington goalkeeper Mike Brown for the second goal of another hat-trick in a 3-1 win on 19 September 1964.  Steve Miles is on the far right. By the time he moved to Corby in 1967, Sturrock had notched up 122 senior goals in 274 appearances, making him the leading scorer in the “old” Eagles’ postwar history.  Although Ronnie Rooke, Len Duquemin and Arthur Hukin had better strike rates, they were all conventional strikers whereas Sturrock started his career on the wing or inside forward and latterly operated in midfield.

The season got off to a reasonable start, with only two league defeats, both away, by the end of September, and a position hovering just behind the leaders. Sturrock, operating from a deep-lying inside right berth, enjoyed a purple patch, hitting two home hat-tricks against Cambridge City in the league cup and Wellington in the league, and two braces, against Nuneaton on the opening day and another against Yeovil. However, much of the football was indifferent in quality and despite Sturrock’s efforts the forwards continued, as they had done for at least the last four years, to lack a cutting edge; eleven games to the end of September produced only 18 goals, of which Sturrock had scored 12. Cooley was doing his best in the middle but to most supporters the team was crying out for a 30-goal a season conventional striker. 

A reasonable start to the 1964/5 season was dented in October when in successive weeks the Eagles went down 0-2 at home to the eventual champions, Weymouth, and then speedily departed from the FA Cup. In the Weymouth game, on 10 October, Norman Cooley challenges visiting keeper Andy Donnelly, watched by Alan Wright, who had joined Bedford from Weymouth the previous summer.

Any illusions about the team’s quality were shattered in mid-October when in successive weeks supporters first saw the eventual champions, Weymouth, coast past Bedford 2-0 with embarrassing ease, and then (swelled to 5,090, 3,000 more than had turned up so far), groaned as Cambridge United swamped them 4-1 in the FA Cup. The latter was a truly dismal performance in which the defence was shredded three times in the first half alone, and as usual in those days, so much importance was attached to the Cup that virtually all the extra supporters disappeared for the rest of the season. 

Bedford’s FA Cup run in 1964/5 lasted just 90 minutes, with a humiliating 1-4 home defeat by Cambridge United on 17 October.  Three of the goals came from United’s centre-forward Peter Hobbs, seen here challenging Bedford keeper Derek Bellotti, who had been signed from QPR on the eve of the season. He was only 19 and prone to occasional embarrassing errors, but was unlucky to lose his place through injury to Alan Collier early the following season. Basil Hayward, however, took Bellotti with him to Gillingham a few months later and he enjoyed a reasonable League career there, and at Charlton and Swansea, before moving to the west country and playing for numerous non-league clubs there. Mick Collins is to Hobbs’s left and on the line is Bob Davis (2), who was dropped after this match and eventually found an alternative career as the club’s pools salesman!

Hayward promptly ditched Davis and Miles (the latter was to spend most of the rest of the season injured), and recalled Coney, Lovell and Heckman. Emery was also now injured and as matters turned out that was the end of his career. But things did not greatly improve, and for the rest of the season the team’s form mainly limped along. There were only two more wins before Christmas, one of them by 2-1 in a tough home battle against Bath, when the referee created headlines by calling all 22 players into the centre circle for a long lecture, but nobody was so much as booked. There were very poor displays ending in home defeats by lowly Folkestone and again by Cambridge United, which tipped the Eagles into the fringes of the relegation zone, followed by a 0-4 thumping at Worcester and a 0-3 exit in the league cup at Cheltenham. Only one attendance between the Cup exit and Christmas topped 2,000 and although everyone was urging the manager to sign new players, he had some justification for his reply that there was no money for big signings and there was no point in wasting money on players who were no better than those he’d got. Even so, several players, including Wright and Sturrock, were now full-time professionals, something virtually unheard of in the Rooke and Kelly eras. In December he experimented with the reserve wing-half Ray Bailey, who had a kick like a mule and certainly looked the part, at centre-forward and Bailey obliged with both goals against Tonbridge in a 2-2 home draw on Boxing Day, but it wasn’t a long-term answer. 

The gaps on the Long Shelter terrace tell their own tale here. In those days the FA Cup was always regarded as special, but from just over 5,000 for the Cambridge United tie the previous week, the attendance plummeted to barely 1,800 when Romford visited on 24 October 1964. They went home with slightly less cause for grumbling as Bedford won 2-1, though without a lot of conviction since their goals came from a Sturrock penalty and an own goal. Here Mike Benning (on ground) has beaten visiting keeper Bill Dunbar, watched by Ron Heckman and left-back Terry Tapping, but the ball hit the side netting. Benning had moved from Cambridge City the previous summer and was still settling in at this stage, but he became a very effective conventional right-winger over the next three seasons-while in the wider game this type of player was rapidly becoming extinct under Alf Ramsey’s tactical influence.

 Norman Cooley’s many years of service to the club started at centre-forward and ended at full-back. In his early phase here, in a 2-1 win against Bath City on 7 November 1964, he challenges Bath keeper Ian Bearpark for a high ball, watched by Alan Wright (far left), Charlie Rowland (partly hidden) and Bath defenders Len Phillips (left, once of Portsmouth and England) and Ian Macfarlane. This match created a stir at the time when the referee called both teams together to warn them about repeated fouls, although nobody was sent off and only one player was booked.

The smallest crowd of the season, 1,423, turned up at The Eyrie on 5 December 1964 to see a second defeat by Cambridge United in two months, this time 1-3 in the league. The faithful few have been driven to the back of the Long Shelter by the wind and rain and may not have been too enthused by Bedford’s solitary goal, headed past his own keeper, Rodney Slack, by Cambridge defender Bill Finch (on ground). David Sturrock (8) tries to celebrate while the old campaigner Ron Heckman (far right) trudges back to the middle unimpressed. This result put Bedford uncomfortably close to the relegation zone, though their stay was only temporary.

 Ray Bailey (centre) is foiled by Tonbridge goalkeeper Fred Crump in the 2-2 draw at The Eyrie on Boxing Day, 1964, with Ron Heckman in the right distance. Bailey was really a midfield player but his size and aggressive instincts persuaded Basil Hayward to give him a run as a striker. He accompanied the manager to Gillingham the following year and made over 150 appearances for the Kent club. A second sporting career as a fast bowler for Northamptonshire was less successful, although he later became the County's head groundsman at Wantage Road.

Finally Hayward managed to land a signing in January when he recruited Danny Paton, a Scottish winger or inside-forward from Oxford who’d played for him at Yeovil while doing National Service (on loan from Hearts). Paton was a very skilful schemer with a hard shot but he was not an out-and-out striker and also tended to retaliate when thumped by the larger defenders of the period, but he soon had the crowd on his side after scoring on his debut in a decent 3-2 win against Cambridge City at Milton Road. But three more successive defeats persuaded Hayward to remodel the team again, recalling the faithful Avis at left-back, dropping Heckman-as it turned out for good-bringing Bailey in at left-half and moving Skinn to inside-left, with Paton in the middle and Cooley wide on the left. This produced the best spell of the season with four wins on the trot, including an excellent 1-0 win at the leaders, Weymouth. It also prefigured some of the manager’s ideas that would bear richer fruit the following season. 

 Bedford started 1965 with a fighting 3-2 win on a frosty afternoon at Milton Road against Cambridge City, coming back from a goal down. Here Norman Cooley (centre) chases a pass against City’s keeper Bill Heath, with David Lovell backing up. In the background is Danny Paton, just signed from Oxford United, who marked his debut with the equalizer that put the Eagles back into the game just after half-time.

 The caption here states the obvious as Paton is about to complete an excellent move by beating Heath to equalize at Milton Road on 2 January 1965, with City’s former Luton and Ireland defender Brendan McNally in vain pursuit.

Even though the results tended to disappoint again, several younger players, such as Norman Cooley, Ray Bailey and David Skinn, visibly improved their contributions and cemented regular places. Skinn was still alternating between inside forward and wing-half, although he was soon to settle down to his long-term place as a left sided “wing back”  as such a tactical role started to emerge. Here he is operating up front in the 2-1 win against Rugby at The Eyrie on 30 January 1965, beating goalkeeper Leckie in the air. He later scored the first goal and was still on the team sheet, with Norman Cooley, 13 years later. The players are wearing black armbands in memory of Sir Winston Churchill, whose funeral was in progress in London at that moment.  

 Despite being a man short for much of the match after an early injury to a defender, Hastings, who were relegated at the end of the season, held Bedford to a 1-1 draw at The Eyrie on 27 February 1965 in an unenthralling match. David Sturrock (left) gets in a header here watched by David Skinn and Danny Paton, but it was saved by keeper Ian Agate.

Consistency, however, continued to elude Bedford and their Easter typified the season, with two defeats by relegated Wisbech yet a win at the much stronger Cambridge United. They could at least look back with satisfaction on the development of younger players such as Skinn, Cooley, Bailey (now about to start a second career opening the bowling for Northants), Morgan and Bellotti, plus the proved class of Paton and Benning. Tenth position was again a fair reflection, and as the manager announced that he was releasing Coney, Goundry (who had played just once all season), Heckman and Emery he was clearly determined to make a clean break with the past. Heckman started in management with Dorking, Emery retired to become second team trainer, Goundry and Coney both moved to Hastings, and Anderson, always dependable when called on, decided to move to South Africa to rejoin Reg Smith, the manager who’d signed him in 1962. The saddest release of all was that of Tony Hawksworth, the last link with Tim Kelly’s Championship side, who had played cheerfully in the reserves for the last three seasons and now joined Terry Murray at Rushden. 

Bedford took only two points from their three Easter matches, and the additional supporters who had swelled the Good Friday crowd to just over 3,000 on a sunny 16 April 1965 were sent back home again for the season by a poor display against Wisbech. Already almost doomed to relegation, the Fenmen won comfortably 3-0, and did it again, this time 3-1, in the return match on Easter Monday. Here Danny Paton is tackled in the home game by Wisbech’s Bill Clarkson. Playing as a makeshift centre-forward did not suit Paton and his battles with the robust Clarkson ended in his being sent off in the second match.

The 1964/5 season was another moderate one, but a consolation prize came at Kenilworth Road in April when Luton were defeated 2-1 in the Bedfordshire Professional Cup.  Here George Cleary (dark shirt, left) beats goalkeeper Morris Emmerson for Bedford’s first goal.  David Sturrock (left) and Danny Paton are the other Bedford players in shot. This was one of Cleary’s first appearances in a long career that would include a Southern League winner’s medal at Kettering and a brief spell in League football at Cambridge United. 

One significant step during the season had been the creation of a youth team in a new competition, the Mercia Youth League, consisting of the youth teams of several other Southern League clubs as well as Ipswich and Colchester . One of the earliest members of this team was Bobby Folds, who was to be a regular first team player over a decade later after several wanderings round other clubs. The creation of this team-which drew average home crowds of about 600 in its first year- reignited the perennial debate about home-grown versus imported players. The advocates of the home-grown policy pointed to the worsening financial problems at this level of football; Bedford’s average crowd for Saturday league matches this season had plunged below 2,000 for the first time since (at the latest) 1950, but their figure of 1,956[2] was about par for the competition, with twelve of the 22 Premier Division clubs reporting worse averages. Nevertheless, with at least twelve[3] home league attendances failing to reach the 2,000 mark, the message was clear; playing success was the only way to improve interest in the club and thus its financial health. At the AGM in July, chairman Ted Ashdown reported match receipts (of course in the absence of a cup run) plummeting from over £14,000 to £7,152, and a loss of £8,311, the worst result in the history of the limited company formed in 1951. So hand-to-mouth was the financial operation of the club that in March the Supporters’ Club had agreed an emergency loan of £500 in March, and the directors had decided to increase the basic admission price from 2s 6d to 3s (£0.15[4]) immediately rather than waiting for the new season.

Later in the summer, Ashdown handed over the chairmanship[5], after nine eventful years, to George Senior, a cafe owner who had been on the board since 1960, and Reg Cornelius, who had been full-time secretary since 1952, also retired. So a new regime began off the field, and the next 12 months were to see some memorable moments on it.

To continue the story go to 1965/6-good times roll again

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

LEAGUE TABLES 1964-1965

 Premier Division

  1. Weymouth                          42  24   8  10   99   50   56

  2. Guildford City                     42  21  12   9   73   49   54

  3. Worcester City                    42  22   6  14  100   62   50

  4. Yeovil Town                         42  18  14  10   76   55   50

  5. Chelmsford City                  42  21   8  13   86   77   50

  6. Margate                               42  20   9  13   88   79   49

  7. Dartford                               42  17  11  14   74   64   45

  8. Nuneaton Borough            42  19   7  16   57   55   45

  9. Cambridge United              42  16  11  15   78   66   43

 10. Bedford Town                   42  17   9  16   66   70   43

 11. Cambridge City                   42  16   9  17   72   69   41

 12. Cheltenham Town              42  15  11  16   72   78   41

 13. Folkestone Town                42  17   7  18   72   79   41

 14. Romford                               42  17   7  18   61   70   41

 15. King’s Lynn                           42  13  13  16   56   79   39

 16. Tonbridge                             42  10  16  16   66   75   36

 17. Wellington Town                 42  13  10  19   63   78   36

 18. Rugby Town                         42  15   6  21   71   98   36

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 19. Wisbech Town                     42  14   6  22   75   91   34

 20. Bexley United                      42  14   5  23   67   74   33

 21. Hastings United                   42   9  14  19   58   86   32

 22. Bath City                               42  13   3  26   60   86   29

First Division

  1. Hereford United                   42  34   4   4  124   39   72

  2. Wimbledon                           42  24  13   5  108   52   61

  3. Poole Town                           42  26   6  10   92   56   58

  4. Corby Town                          42  24   7  11   88   55   55

  5. Stevenage Town                   42  19  13  10   83   43   51

  6. Hillingdon Borough             42  21   7  14  105   63   49

  7. Crawley Town                       42  22   5  15   83   52   49

  8. Merthyr Tydfil                       42  20   9  13   75   59   49

  9. Gloucester City                     42  19  10  13   68   65   48

 10. Burton Albion                      42  20   7  15   83   75   47

 11. Canterbury City                   42  13  16  13   73   53   42

 12. Kettering Town                    42  14  13  15   74   64   41

 13. Ramsgate Athletic               42  16   8  18   52   59   40

 14. Dover                                    42  14  10  18   54   59   38

 15. Hinckley Athletic                 42  13   9  20   56   81   35

 16. Trowbridge Town               42  13   5  24   68  106   31

 17. Ashford Town                      42  11   8  23   60   98   30

 18. Barry Town                         42  11   7  24   47  103   29

 19. Deal Town                           42   7  13  22   61  127   27

 20. Tunbridge Wells Rangers  42  10   6  26   51  107   26

 21. Gravesend & Northfleet    42   9   7  26   57  101   25

 22. Sittingbourne                      42   8   5  29   58  103   21 

•  Barnet (who turned professional from the Athenian League) and Dunstable Town (Metropolitan League) were elected to the First Division for 1965/6

[1] Bellotti, Morgan, Davis, Wright, Bailey and Sturrock.

[2] Quoted in the Bedfordshire Times for 6 May 1965. The average for all games may have been slightly higher, since the Good Friday home match produced the best gate of the season in the league (3,098).

[3] Several attendances for the second half of the season were not recorded in the papers.

[4] About £2.20 in 2010 prices. Ground season tickets were £3 and stand tickets £5. The Supporters’ Club at their meeting in April 1965 claimed to have given some £13,900 to the football club in the previous eleven months.

[5] He had been in poor health for some time and retired from the board at the end of the following season, passing away in November 1966.