November
I made my usual trip to Crewe the following Saturday, the Railwaymen having a better season than usual for them and currently placed eighth. With Percy Freeman injured City were forced to remain with their 4-4-2 formation although with Alan Harding fit again Dick Krzywicki dropped to the bench. Phil Neale came in for his fourth appearance of the season, deputising at left back for Dennis Leigh who was out with hamstring trouble. City fell behind to a third minute goal but then turned on the style with a hat-trick from Peter Graham before Crewe pulled a goal back. City then held out well for a win which took them back to the top of the table ahead of Northampton on goal average after Tranmere had surprisingly gone down 4-1 at Rochdale. The lead over Doncaster in fifth had now stretched to four points.
City now had two home games in a week to again even up the home and away fixtures again and the first of these came in a game which was played on a Tuesday evening due to the following night being Bonfire Night when Graham Taylor was to attend a Bonfire and Fireworks Gala at Rustons Sports with some of the players due to judge a ‘Best Guy Fawkes’ competition.
A crowd of over 11,000 turned out for the top of the table clash with Tranmere Rovers. City fielded an unchanged side although Freeman was now fit enough to return on the bench. The Imps were not at their best early on, although Graham hit the post before the visitors took the lead in the first half. Freeman came on for John Fleming at the start of the second half to play in his deep-lying role but there was little improvement and Tranmere doubled their lead five minutes later. It took a bit of good fortune for City to pull a goal back when Tranmere midfielder Tommy Young lobbed a 40-yard back pass over his own keeper’s head, Peter Graham following up to touch the ball into the net. Pressure by the Imps finally told with seven minutes to go when John Ward forced in his 14th goal of the season. The dropped point however meant the Imps stayed in second place after Northampton had beaten City’s next opponents Rochdale 2-0 the night before. With the other three clubs previously below them all winning in midweek the lead over fifth-place Doncaster was back to three points.
Not surprisingly there was a smaller crowd for the visit of Rochdale but it was still a respectable seven thousand-plus. Dennis Leigh was fit to return to the side but otherwise City once again reverted to their 4-4-2 formation due to Dave Smith now being injured. This meant John Fleming moving inside to partner Dennis Booth in the centre with Dick Krzywicki on the right wing. Peter Graham was now getting the nod over Percy Freeman, and he it was who made the game safe at 2-0 a minute from time after City had been holding on to the lead Krzywicki’s first goal of the season had given them in the first half. With Northampton winning for the sixth game in a row City stayed in second place a point behind them and two ahead of Tranmere and Reading. But with Doncaster losing the gap to fifth place was now four points again.
Northampton were winning relentlessly and did so again the following Saturday to remain in top spot with City closely pursuing them to remain a point behind after a 3-0 win at next-to-bottom Workington. Dave Smith was back in place of Krzywycki but John Ward was now injured so Percy Freeman returned to the starting line-up alongside Peter Graham and both scored along with Fleming in a one-sided match played in slippery conditions. As Tranmere had lost at Crewe Reading moved into third place, a draw at Torquay meaning they were three points behind the Imps. Newport were thrashed 5-1 at Doncaster moving the Yorkshire club above them with the gap between City and fifth place now five points.
Over the previous two seasons with City often playing on Sunday afternoons or Friday nights I had managed several trips to see games elsewhere but there had been fewer chances for that this season. However, knowing there was no chance of getting to Workington I paid my first and so far, only visit to Old Trafford to see Manchester United play Aston Villa. In those far-off days there was no worry about buying tickets in advance for such top games – you just turned up on the day and paid at the turnstile. As it was, the attendance of around 51,000 was some way short of capacity as United won 2-0. In their side was future England winger Gordon Hill who I was next to see playing for Stafford Rangers, while the Villa side included 18-year-old striker John Deehan.
It was now time for the FA Cup, which had proved to be something of a distraction from the league campaign the previous season. Once again City had been drawn away from home and intriguingly it meant a visit to Lincolnshire neighbours Boston United, for a first ever meeting of the two clubs in proper competitive action. In the Northern Premier League Boston, like the Imps in the Fourth Division were currently in second place, one point behind the leaders. Their player-manager was future England coach Howard Wilkinson and as usual with the Pilgrims there were one or two players with a Lincoln connection including midfielder Colin Symm who had moved from Sincil Bank in the summer, Allan Gilliver, centre forward from the David Herd era, and defender Dick Bate who was later to be assistant to Colin Murphy.
I made the straightforward train journey from Nottingham for my first visit to York Street which was only the fourth ever non-league ground I’d been to and of course was something of a contrast to where I’d been the previous Saturday.
City fielded an unchanged team with John Ward fit enough again to be on the subs’ bench but a bumper crowd of 6,500 saw a disappointing match with neither side at their best. City were thankful to scrape through with a goal by Percy Freeman early in the second half.
There was Lincolnshire opposition again the following week with third-from-bottom Scunthorpe United the visitors as City played their first Friday night fixture of the season. The game made history as thanks to tyre company Fossitt & Thorne it was the first-ever sponsored match to take place at Sincil Bank.
John Ward remained on the bench, but a surprise was the omission from the squad of John Fleming with Dick Krzywicki selected on the right wing “for this particular match” as Graham Taylor explained. With Scunthorpe having lost seven away games in a row and given City’s current form a 3-0 score-line was probably the least anyone would have predicted and in front of a crowd of just under 8,500 this was achieved by half time. Two goals from Freeman made it four in the last three games for him plus there was one from Peter Graham. However, there were no further goals after the break as City turned in what was probably their poorest 45 minutes of football in the season so far. The two points put City on top of the division overnight and they were still there on goal average 24 hours later as Northampton, after seven wins in a row were held to a goalless draw at Bournemouth. With Doncaster losing at Exeter, Huddersfield’s 3-2 win at Barnsley moved them up to fifth place and meant the gap between that position and City had widened by another point to six.
City’s record for November of five wins and a draw brought Graham Taylor his second Manager of the Month award in three months. Not content with that he added to his list of targets for the season the winning of the award for a third time, something which he didn’t think had been done before