1966/7-off field rows, on field disasters

 This team group from 1966/67 appeared on the programme cover for the FA Cup tie v Peterborough in January 1967.

Back row: Vernon Avis (trainer), David Skinn, Ron Fogg, Alan Wright, Alan Collier, Peter Morgan, Norman Cooley, David Corbett.

Front row: Mike Benning, David Sturrock, Mick Collins, Danny Paton, David Lovell.

Inset: David Pygall.   

 Alan Wright (left) and David Sturrock, two mainstays of the club in the 60s, in pre-season training, summer 1966. Vernon Avis, by then first team trainer, is lurking behind them. 

Passions ran high in those late summer weeks. Senior was given a rough ride at the Supporters’ Club AGM and at the first home league match ten days later-when the new arrangements produced a shortage of programmes- he was loudly abused all the way to and from his seat by a group of spectators[2]. So many years later, it is pointless to rehearse the arguments on either side, but it’s not hard to see why the Supporters’ Club members who had raised so much money, which had paid for most of the ground improvements over the previous 15 years, felt so slighted. Equally, the board had to consider its commercial position; things had rubbed along well for a long time without too much concern as to who owned what-for example, the Supporters’ Club offices on the ground itself- but now the football club wanted to create a social club and the board were determined that they should own this potentially large source of income. The directors had also supplied personal guarantees of £22,000[3] (over £300,000 in 2010 money) and clearly felt over-exposed. They had already started, in the previous two or three years, to run their own pools competitions which inevitably took business away from the various fund raising efforts that the Supporters’ Club had run for many years.

This situation needed to be properly resolved, but the approach of the directors was surely needlessly confrontational. Soon writs started flying around. By November, a new “Bedford Eagles Supporters’ Club” had been formed, firmly under the control of the board (although Felix Staroscik, one of the heroes of the “Arsenal” cup run, was its first vice-chairman). By the end of January 1967 they had managed to donate the princely sum of £100 to their parent club, whereas the “outlawed” Supporters' Club club had been giving at that level about once a fortnight. The dispute was not resolved until late in the 1967/8 season[4], and there seems little doubt that it had a bad effect on the club’s cash flow during 1966/7: whereas the “old” Supporters’ Club had donated £3,799 during the 1965/6 season, the “official” one managed to raise just £288 in 1966/7, and the board’s own pools proceeds declined from £6,037 to £5,041[5].

On the opening day of the 1966/7 season, 20 August,  Bedford crashed 1-5 to Hereford at Edgar Street. Two of Ron Burgess’s new signings are on view here-Ron Fogg (left), a hitherto prolific striker playing against his previous club, and Steve Hyde, a winger from Oxford United. The Hereford defenders are Ray Daniel (5) and Selwyn Vale. Fogg failed to score until October and Hyde faded after an encouraging start, handicapped by injuries. The defeat set a grim tone for what was to be a season of dismal events on and off the field. 

Danny Paton beats goalkeeper Andy Smith with the second half equaliser that enabled Bedford to draw 1-1 with Romford in the FA Cup fourth qualifying round tie at The Eyrie on 15 October 1966. George Cleary and David Sturrock (in distance) look on. 

George Cleary, who was starting to find a regular place in the first team, puts Bedford ahead in the replay with Romford at Brooklands in front of  a 5,500 crowd on 19 October 1966. A Sturrock penalty later ensured a 2-1 passage into the competition proper, as the team continued to struggle in the league. 

But for the cup run that started in the fourth qualifying round against Romford, the season would have been uniformly dreadful. An unconvincing effort at home saw Bedford escape with a 1-1 draw –Romford had a late goal disallowed for offside-but despite having failed to win away in the league the team produced a fighting effort in the replay and deserved to go through 2-1; they were two up inside half an hour and Collier made a string of good saves to defy Romford despite a late home reply. By now, Fogg had finally broken his duck, against Cambridge United in the Floodlit League, and managed his first league goal two weeks later at home to Wellington, a match preceded by two minutes’ silence in memory of Ted Ashdown, chairman in happier times, who had just died.

By the end of October no fewer than 18 professionals were injured, and although Morgan had now returned, Cooley was out for a month and Wright, a key member of the defence who now played as a second centre-half, was both injured and on the transfer list, the first of the inherited players to fall out publicly with Burgess. So endless were the injuries that I remember thinking “Not another one?” when the Bedford Record’s report of a tedious Cambridgeshire Cup tie against Wisbech was headlined “Paton breaks monotony”. Cooley’s return, in a more encouraging 4-0 home win against Cambridge City, was at wing-half, perhaps one of Burgess’s few tactical insights because it presaged the more defensive role that Cooley would fill for the rest of his long career, but any optimism was shattered by a five goal defeat at Wimbledon which even the Bedfordshire Times’s loyal and rarely critical reporter, Jim Davis, thought was one of the worst he had ever seen; in what was perhaps a symptom of off-field disorganisation Collins and Benning arrived in the same car only five minutes before the start. Two days later came an even more depressing home defeat by Nuneaton, 2-3 after being two goals up at the break. Injuries clearly forced some changes but Burgess was now tinkering with the side continually, saying “until I find the best team I will keep experimenting” after the Nuneaton defeat.

There was some encouragement amid the league failures in a 4-0 success against Cambridge City at The Eyrie on 5 November 1966. A welcome feature of this was a brace of goals by Ron Fogg, here seen tussling with City keeper Eddie Smith and full back Bill Dennis. George Cleary is in the background. But it would be 17 December before the team collected another league win. 

Norman Cooley, one of the club’s longest serving players, shoots for goal past right back John Beck in the first instalment of the four-match FA Cup first round marathon against Wycombe Wanderers (then amateurs) at their old Loakes Park ground, which sloped steeply from one touchline to the other, on 26 November 1966. Bedford eventually won the third replay at The Eyrie. 

Wycombe’s goalkeeper John Maskell was a key figure in all four matches, and here goes up for a corner in the first match with David Sturrock (right) and Mick Collins, coming up for the set piece.

Most supporters thought that the best team was the one he’d inherited, but he now introduced Chris Riley, a tall and rather cumbersome striker and a serving RAF officer, and David Corbett, a young midfielder from Oxford, without either looking the part. Corbett was included for the first round FA Cup visit to Wycombe Wanderers’ steeply sloping Loakes Park ground on 26 November, which produced a better-than-feared 1-1 draw, and that only thanks to an 85th minute strike that equalised Paton’s 65th minute effort. Wycombe were still (nominally at least) amateurs and there was a view at the time that they were likely to be less fit that semi-or full-time professionals. That theory was to be demolished in the replay at The Eyrie, where Sturrock saved the day with an equaliser from a hotly contested penalty two minutes from the end of extra time. He had given Bedford-who were using the new dressing rooms beneath the main stand for the first time- a first half lead with a fortunate goal when his intended cross was carried past the goalkeeper in the wind, but goals from Bates and Horseman put Wycombe ahead with ten minutes of normal time remaining. Skinn equalised with a flying header eight minutes later, but Merrick seemed to have won it for Wycombe with a goal early in extra time, before Sturrock’s late penalty. On the toss of a coin, Wycombe hosted the second replay, played in driving rain, in which Riley came in at centre-forward with Fogg moving inside, but when the final whistle went with the score 1-1 again the referee ruled the pitch unfit for extra time, and back the teams came to The Eyrie for their fourth meeting, where finally the Eagles made it by 3-2. Even that wasn’t straightforward; they were two up inside 20 minutes, but Wycombe had drawn level eight minutes after the break. At last a flying header from Fogg with 15 minutes left settled the tie, which had been watched in total by over 32,000 people. (For a Wycombe view of the marathon encounter, see http://www.chairboys.co.uk/history/1966_11_wycombe_bedford_fac.htm). 

 David Skinn (far left) equalizes in the 88th minute of normal time in the first replay against Wycombe at The Eyrie on 30 November 1966 to make the score 2-2, with defenders Ian Rundle (left) and Brian Baker, with goalkeeper John Maskell (on line), looking helplessly on. 

 With two minutes of extra time left in the first replay against Wycombe, who were leading 3-2,  visiting defender Ian Rundle was adjudged to have handled in the penalty area and David Sturrock scored from the spot to take the game to a second replay (there were no shootouts in those days). Here, referee Malcolm Sinclair is booking Rundle for dissent as his colleagues commiserate and David Corbett, hands on hips, looks on without much overt sympathy, perhaps knowing that his team have been thrown a largely undeserved lifeline. David Skinn and Norman Cooley are in the background.

In torrential rain, the teams met again at Loakes Park for the second replay on 5 December 1966 (Wycombe had won home advantage by the toss of a coin), but with the score 1-1 at the end of normal time the conditions were judged unfit for extra time and it was back to Bedford for a third replay. Here Wycombe captain and centre-forward Paul Bates beats Graham Willis in the air, with Alan Collier looking on.

The end of the Wycombe saga approaches at last, as the unfortunate Rundle (on  ground) heads past his own goalkeeper, Maskell to give Bedford an early lead in the third replay at The Eyrie on 8 December 1966, with Ron Fogg following up and David Sturrock in the background. Despite soon afterwards being two down, Wycombe fought back to 2-2 before Fogg scored a 75th minute winner. Nine years later, Wycombe got their revenge when the teams met again at the same stage, in a tie that again went to a second replay.

 One of the few bright spots in a terrible league season was the 3-1 defeat of Hereford at The Eyrie on 17 December 1966, soon after the end of the Wycombe cup marathon. Here visiting keeper Peter Isaac punches away from David Sturrock, flanked by George Cleary (left) and Chris Riley. Griffiths and McCall (5) are the other defenders. Riley, a former Crewe striker who was a regular officer in the RAF, stationed at Henlow, arrived at the start of December for the rest of the season and turned in some useful efforts.  These two good results were to prove a false dawn. 

These matches had created some much-needed excitement but in truth Wycombe were most unlucky not to win the first replay in which they were by far the better side. Chairman Senior showed again his tendency to look for trouble by printing a sharply worded criticism of Corby for not agreeing to postpone the home league match which came between the first and second replays, something that Corby were under no obligation to do and for which he was later forced to issue a written apology; perhaps fittingly the match ended in another defeat, and Burgess had to drop Morgan and Corbett for arriving late.

By the end of the Wycombe saga, on 8 December, Bedford were fourth from bottom in the league with only eleven points from fifteen matches. An excellent 3-1 home win against Hereford, the then leaders, proved to be merely one of several false dawns, and two major chances went begging over Christmas, when Folkestone (who finished bottom) twice got away with draws, equalising in injury time in Kent and coming back from two down to draw 3-3 at The Eyrie next day. Hall’s return in these matches proved almost as brief as his previous come-back, for during the next week he broke his wrist in training and disappeared for another two months. The 1-3 defeat at Cheltenham that followed led the manager to accuse some players of not pulling their weight, but again the Cup provided a brief respite.

In the FA Cup second round on 11 January 1967, Bedford traveled to the Manor Ground, Oxford to face old Southern League opponents. The match had been postponed from its original Saturday slot because of snow and in the following midweek in front of a crowd of almost 12,000, they secured a replay with a 65th minute equalizer from Ron Fogg, seen here ending a solo run, with Oxford defenders Pat Quartermain (left) and Cyril Beavon in pursuit, by stroking the ball past Oxford’s goalkeeper Brian Sherratt, who claimed that he had been distracted by a toilet roll thrown from behind the goal the instant before Fogg shot. It looks from this excellent photograph (by Anthony Woodcock of the Bedfordshire Times) that he saved the loo roll while missing the ball….. 

 As Oxford battle for a winner at the Manor Ground, Alan Collier punches clear from Oxford’s Graham Atkinson-brother of the more famous Ron, later a very high profile manager, who played in the replay but not the first match-watched by Alan Wright (left), Peter Morgan and Mick Collins, with Buck and Shuker in pursuit for Oxford.

On 16 January 1967 11,900 saw the replay at The Eyrie, decided by a third minute goal from a free kick. Danny Paton, extreme left, has just rolled his kick to David Sturrock, partly hidden by Oxford’s Tony Jones (10), who drove past the wall and scored via a rebound off the post.

As against Wycombe, the luck that eluded Bedford at other times smiled on them at the Manor Ground against Oxford United in the second round (unusually played after Christmas). Wright and Lovell both returned after long absences, and although Bedford were overwhelmed for an hour, with Fogg playing as a lone striker (Riley was unable to get leave from the RAF), Oxford managed only a single goal, from Graham Atkinson[6] in the 31st minute. Fogg’s 65th minute equaliser-his only shot of the match- may also have been fortunate, since Oxford goalkeeper Brian Sherratt claimed he was distracted by a toilet roll thrown from behind his goal. Collier was man of the match in the replay in a series of goalmouth scambles, as Bedford held on to a third minute lead snatched by Sturrock, whose shot from a rolled back free kick went in off a post. The crowd of 11,949 who exhaled with delight at the end had seen, as things turned out, Bedford’s last victory over Football League opposition in the FA Cup. 

David Skinn (left), Alan Collier and Norman Cooley can only watch as Peterborough’s Tommy Watson hits the first of their six goals (and the first of his hat-trick) in the third round tie at The Eyrie on 28 January 1967, watched by just over 14,000-the last of the really big crowds. 

 Spirits rose when Norman Cooley hit a superb equalizer in the 29th minute, despite the attentions of Peterborough’s defenders, but the visitors soon took the game far away from Bedford. 

Still things failed to improve in the league; a 1-1 home draw with Bath was described by Jim Davis as “a shocker, a pain in the neck long before the end”, before a gate artificially boosted to just over 5,000 by the sale of tickets for the home third round FA Cup tie against Peterborough, for which the basic admission charge went up to five shillings (£0.25) amid general grumbling. Burgess’s team selections and decisions were now increasingly bizarre; against Peterborough he included David Pygall, one of his old Watford players, who was on trial and had appeared just once in the first team, in the floodlit competition the previous week. Just over fourteen thousand people saw Bedford give Peterborough, a modest Third Division side then, a decent game for 45 minutes, with Cooley hitting a well-taken equaliser after Watson had given Posh an early lead; but when Watson scored the second of his hat-trick two minutes after half time Wright almost immediately had to go off with an eye injury, and Willis became Bedford’s first FA Cup substitute. This disrupted the team and goals by Conmy and Fairbrother just after the hour put an end to the Eagles’ chances. But something about the dispirited capitulation that conceded two more goals before the inevitable end spoke of a deeper malaise in the side. 

Mick Collins heads clear while challenged by Peterborough’s Ollie Conmy in the six goal FA Cup defeat on 28 January 1967, the end of the club’s last good FA Cup run. Also in the picture are Mike Benning (in distance), Peter Morgan and Alan Wright. Peterborough conceded seven themselves in the next round, at Sunderland.

After their FA Cup defeat the Eagles won only two league matches between 28 January and 24 April as they sunk deeper and deeper into the relegation mire. They should have had at least a point from this visit by Cambridge United on 18 February, but this penalty taken by Danny Paton was saved by visiting keeper Haggis, and Bedford went down 1-2, both United goals also coming from penalties, hotly disputed.

From that thumping 2-6 defeat it was downhill nearly all the way. Pygall played once more, then left as silently as he had come. Hall was transfer listed[7] and Sturrock, after five seasons, was dropped, never to reappear. By Easter, in late March, the team had won only once in the league since the Peterborough defeat and were firmly entombed in the bottom four. Hall did eventually return but looked a shadow of the goalscoring hero of the previous season. In a final desperate attempt to find some firepower, Burgess signed Mike Denton from Bath and (as he had tried to do twelve months earlier) re-signed John Fahy from Cambridge United. They were both included on Good Friday when over 4,000 turned up in the faint hope of seeing Bedford claw back from the brink, but a dismal defeat by Weymouth was followed by an even poorer display the next day against their fellow-strugglers Worcester, and after the return match at Weymouth had ended in a third defeat in four days, the board told Burgess to clear his desk and depart.

Burgess accused the players of going behind his back to the directors and talked of being made a scapegoat for the failings of others; there may have been some truth in the former claim because Burgess had certainly advised the board to cancel the remaining full-time contracts[8], but considering the team he had inherited he had failed to strengthen the reserve cover adequately to cope with the injuries suffered, and the players appeared to have long since lost confidence in his judgement.

As Bedford’s chances of escaping relegation became ever slimmer, Ron Burgess, desperate for goals, made his final signing, Mike Denton, a striker from Bath City, but he failed to work any miraculous transformations. Here Denton tangles with Weymouth’s goalkeeper, John Clarke, in Bedford’s 0-1 Good Friday defeat at The Eyrie on 24 March 1967. The loss of all three Easter games virtually sealed the club’s fate and was swiftly followed by the dismissal of Burgess. Denton moved on to Cambridge City early the following season. He later emigrated to Australia and was capped 14 times by his adopted country. 

 Another nail in Bedford’s relegation coffin was a 0-1 home defeat by Wimbledon on 8 April 1967-Ron Heckman’s first league game after his return as manager. Ron Fogg, who was on as substitute for George Cleary, is here thwarted by Wimbledon’s keeper Frank Smith. In the left background is John Fahy, who had rejoined from Cambridge United a few weeks earlier, but could not rediscover his form of three years earlier.

After a brief caretaker stint by Vernon Avis, Ron Heckman, who had left as a player in 1965, returned as manager, initially only part-time because he was employed as a coach by the London Education Authority, but by now there was little that could be done. Only one of the next seven league matches was won, and that was the only one in which the team managed more than one goal. On the last Saturday of April a 1-4 defeat at Corby, in another match that had the reporters scouring their thesauruses for abuse, doomed Bedford to the first-but not the last- relegation in their history. Another defeat at Burton a few days later meant that they had gone a whole season without an away win. For the last few matches Heckman relied entirely on players who had been regulars under Hayward or his predecessors; Fahy and Denton managed just one goal each in the league. After drawing 3-3 at Nuneaton early in February, the team scored more than one goal in a match only twice more, both in matches after they were virtually or actually relegated. Second from bottom, six points short of safety, and with only 54 goals scored against 72, summed up the worst season since before the first Rooke era.

There was an inevitable price to pay at the turnstiles; although home gates held up reasonably well while the team were still in the FA Cup, the season’s league average crowd dropped by nearly a thousand to 2,681 and the loss on the season was over £7,000, with debts of nearly £25,000. In April Cyril Folkes, chairman from 1953 to 1956, and a few others briefly tried to lead a shareholders’ revolt but nothing came of it. Familiar faces who moved on in the summer included Collins, Sturrock, Lovell and Vernon Avis, who had resigned as first team trainer when Heckman became manager. Fogg was the only player signed by Burgess who started the following season in the regular first eleven[9].

The earliest years of Bedford Town FC, up to 1939, were a story of reasonable success at local level(see First Years, 1884-1939). The first years in the Southern League, from 1945 to 1950, were years of unmitigated struggle (see Into the Southern League (1945-50)). The years from 1950 to 1967 had some disappointments but the good times outweighed the bad, and the best times gave great pleasure to thousands. From 1967, (see Later History, 1967-82) however, there were to be no more challenges for the title at the highest level of the Southern League and no more giant-killings in the FA Cup: it was to be a trend of slow decline, enlivened only by a few “yo-yo” promotions and relegations from and back to the lower divisions, and punctuated by ever-worsening financial problems. We had seen the Best Years.

To continue the story go to 1967/8 to 1969/70-Up, down and back up again

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

SOUTHERN LEAGUE TABLES  1966-1967

 Premier Division

  1. Romford                                     42  22   8  12  80  60  52

  2. Nuneaton Borough                  42  21   9  12  82  54  51

  3. Weymouth                                 42  18  14  10  64  40  50

  4. Wimbledon                                42  19  11  12  88  60  49

  5. Barnet                                        42  18  13  11  86  66  49

  6. Guildford City                           42  19  10  13  65  51  48

  7. Wellington Town                     42  20   7  15  70  67  47

  8. Cambridge United                  42  16  13  13  75  67  45

  9. Chelmsford City                      42  15  15  12  66  59  45

 10. King’s Lynn                             42  15  14  13  78  72  44

 11. Hereford United                    42  16  12  14  79  61  44

 12. Cambridge City                      42  15  13  14  66  70  43

 13. Cheltenham Town                 42  16  11  15  60  71  43

 14. Yeovil Town                            42  14  14  14  66  72  42

 15. Burton Albion                        42  17   5  20  63  71  39

 16. Corby Town                           42  15   9  18  60  75  39

 17. Poole Town                           42  14  11  17  52  65  39

 18. Hillingdon Borough             42  11  13  18  49  70  35

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 19. Bath City                               42  11  12  19  51  74  34

 20. Worcester City                     42  11   8  23  59  79  30

 21. Bedford Town                    42   8  13  21  54  72  29

 22. Folkestone Town                 42   6  15  21  44  81  27

First Division

  1. Dover                                   46  29  12   5  92  35  70

  2. Margate                               46  31   7   8 127  54  69

  3. Stevenage Town                46  29   8   9  90  32  66

  4. Hastings United                 46  25  16   5  89  45  66

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  5. Kettering Town                    46  27   9  10 105  62  63

  6. Crawley Town                      46  26   8  12  81  48  60

  7. Ramsgate Athletic              46  23   8  15  79  62  54

  8. Dartford                              46  19  15  12  92  67  53

  9. Tonbridge                            46  21  10  15  91  69  52

 10. Trowbridge Town              46  20  12  14  73  60  52

 11. Ashford Town                     46  18   8  20  74  68  44

 12. Merthyr Tydfil                     46  17   9  20  81  71  43

 13. Gloucester City                    46  18   6  22  69  83  42

 14. Canterbury City                   46  17   8  21  57  75  42

 15. Wisbech Town                      46  16   9  21  87  93  41

 16. Bexley United                       46  13  15  18  53  69  41

 17. Banbury United                    46  13  14  19  88 100  40

 18. Rugby Town                          46  15   7  24  57  77  37

 19. Dunstable Town                    46  14   6  26  55  87  34

 20. Barry Town                             46  11  11  24  62  89  33

 21. Gravesend & Northfleet       46  11   9  26  63 106  31

 22. Hinckley Athletic                    46  10   8  28  44 100  28

 23. Tunbridge Wells Rangers      46   4  15  27  31  96  23

 24. Sittingbourne                          46   5  10  31  44 136  20

• Hinckley Athletic (to Birmingham League), Tunbridge Wells Rangers (liquidated) and Sittingbourne (to Kent Premier League) resigned at the end of the season

• Brentwood Town (from Metropolitan League) were elected for 1967/8

EASTERN PROFESSIONAL FLOODLIT COMPETITION TABLE 1966/7

                                                                            P     W      D     L      F    A     PTS

Chelmsford City                                             18    10       3     5      31   18   23

Romford                                                          18      8        6     4     36   27   22

Bedford Town                                                18      7        7    4     33   26    21

Brentwood Town                                            18      8        5    5     28   29    21      

King's Lynn                                                       18      7        5    6     31   30    19

Cambridge City                                                18      8       2     8     33   29    18

Barnet                                                                18      5       7    6     38    28    17

Cambridge United                                            18      6       2  10    25    36    14

Stevenage Town                                                18     5        3  10    26   35    13

Wisbech Town                                                   18      3        6    9    20   43    12

[1] See front page article in the Bedfordshire Times, 19 August 1966. This reproduces some of the correspondence.

[2] Personal reminiscence. “You big headed b***er” seemed to be the main theme of the abuse. Admittedly the loudest noise came mainly from a group of perhaps 12-20 men.

[3] According to a statement published in the match programme for the Southern League Cup tie against Dunstable on 1 September 1966, which also claimed that the guarantees would shortly be increased to £32,000.

[4] Once legal proceedings were started the local press stopped commenting on the story, making it hard to establish what was happening. By March 1967 the “original” Supporters’ Club had taken an office in Ford End Road, and continued to run its competitions, banking the proceeds until the dispute was finally resolved a year later. It was not until March 1970, however, that the Supporters’ Club finally merged their weekly pools competition with that of the board.

[5] Bedfordshire Times, 15 September 1967.

[6] Brother of the more famous Ron, who missed this match but played in the replay.

[7] Although he stayed until sold to Gillingham in November 1967.

[8] Bedfordshire Times, 31 March 1967

[9] Fahy and Denton were still on the books but were transfer-listed and sold after playing only a handful of games in 1967/8.