1955/6-four minutes from Cup history

In the summer of 1955, Tim Kelly had a major clear-out of many of the players that Fred Stansfield had inherited or signed. Only Farquhar, Ted Duggan, Faulkner, Kinchin and Cyril Partridge remained; Billy Waugh had been Kelly’s own signing at the end of 1954/5, and Len Garwood had been re-signed at the same time after returning from Canada. So the new manager had to sign almost two new teams. It was even more important than before to have adequate cover, because the reserves had left the United Counties League in favour of the tougher Metropolitan League, consisting mainly of reserve teams of Southern League clubs and “A” teams of League clubs. The latter sometimes included already famous names-I remember seeing Mel Charles playing for Arsenal "A" when making a comeback after injury-or names which would become famous later, such as a certain G. Hurst who scored for West Ham "A" at the Eyrie early in 1958/9.

His own playing days being long past, Kelly cast his net rather wider than Ronnie Rooke had tended to do. His biggest coup was to persuade four members of the Headington team that had won the league title in 1952/3 and been runners-up the following year to move to Bedford. Bob Craig, a Geordie centre-half, Johnny Crichton, a balding Scots wing-half, Ronnie Steel, another Geordie who could play right wing or inside forward, and Harry Yates, a prolific goalscorer of Yorkshire origins, appear to have fallen out with the Headington management over the non-payment of appearance bonuses to injured players[1], but whatever the reasons behind their move this was an extraordinary piece of good business, effectively acquiring the “spine” of a whole new team; the players would have been out of contract and thus cost only their wages. Also, Kelly acquired a new goalkeeper, Terry Pope from Newport County, who was the only full-timer on the books and used to double as an assistant groundsman and odd-jobber during the week, two new full-backs, Billy Cooke from Watford and Des Quinn from Millwall, Bert Carberry, a wing-half from Gillingham, and two new goalscorers in Arthur Adey, a Scots inside-forward from Bradford Park Avenue, and Felix Staroscik, a Polish left winger who had arrived in the UK with his country’s Free Forces during the war and had played for Third Lanark and Northampton. Only Cooke had any previous connection with Kelly, having been at Luton earlier in his career. However, Dougie Gardiner, who had also been with Kelly at Luton, had retired to become first team “trainer-coach”, and he was to become Peter Taylor to Kelly’s Brian Clough, if that’s not too much of an anachronism.

It was still possible to recruit good players from Football league clubs by exploiting the absence of a maximum wage, in contrast to the one that existed in the Football League. John Plummer, who joined from Spurs the following season, recalled in correspondence in October 2010: “It was at the time when the pay was £18 maximum per week and outside the league it was possible to negotiate beyond that wage." It must have been easier still to do this with part-time players who could be found jobs in businesses owned by directors.