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Post by Deleted on Jan 12, 2009 10:18:01 GMT
The thread about Ipswich Town made me look at the history of Torquay United Reserves playing in the Southern League between 1927 and 1951. During that time it's amazing to think the club maintained a first team in the Football League and a reserve team in the strongest league outside the Football League. In 1927/28 our reserves actually played the first team of the club we had replaced in the Football League - by then known as Aberdare and Aberaman Athletic. Other opponents that season included the first teams of Yeovil, Bath and Weymouth. In time we played the first teams of Merthyr (once they left the FL), Cheltenham, Colchester, Gillingham, Gravesend & Northfleet, Hereford, Kidderminster, Headington United (now Oxford United) and Kettering. What I didn't know is that our reserves played Arsenal Reserves in 1938/39, which was their only season in the Southern League. Torquay apparently lost 0-1 away and won 3-1 at home according to the league's official history. I wonder if that away game was played at Highbury where our first team never played? Southern League 1938/39:  |
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Jan 12, 2009 13:22:43 GMT
Arsenal’s Southern League side played at Enfield. I’m pretty sure that their reserves were still on the Football Combination and playing at Highbury – the Southern League team was effectively an A team.
TUFC has played a competitive first team game at Highbury. In the first season of the Division 3 South Cup, the semi-finals and final were played on neutral grounds. We beat Norwich at Highbury in the semis before losing to Exeter in the final at Home Park. I wonder if we are the only club to have a 100% record at Highbury.
In the good old days, reserve team football had a far higher profile and it was very much felt that season ticket holders were fully entitled to quality entertainment every Saturday – there was not a culture of travelling to away games at the time and there were far fewer alternative forms of entertainment.
I suppose this changed gradually during the 60s and 70s, but it was still quite a common school of thought when TUFC took the unpopular decision to scrap its Western League team in 1973 as an economy measure. Against the historical background, that would have been a far more radical and shocking decision than when the Reserves were scrapped in 1982, 1988, 1993, 1996, 2000 and 2002. If there had been internet forums around in those days, the term Boyceite might have been coined for “penny-pinching” economy measures rather than Batesonite.
I expect that reserve team football was not a big loss maker up until the mid to late 60s. Not only were reserve team crowds bigger, but professional footballers were underpaid and so were very cheap to employ.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 12, 2009 14:19:27 GMT
Good one, Jon, I didn't think to look at the small print of the Division 3 (South) Cup in which we had a pretty good record. 3,727 at Highbury for the Norwich game, I see. Was the 1938/39 final - which we never contested (vs QPR or Port Vale?) - held over to the next season only for the war to get in the way? I wonder what type of competition it was? Did teams take it seriously? It's hardly as if Autowindscreens was around to provide sponsorship (unless anybody knows better?).
The Arsenal-Enfield link is interesting. I've just found this quote from Len Shackleton speaking of his experiences c1938: "Quite a number of the Arsenal youngsters, myself included, were playing Athenian League football for Enfield: there were so many on the ground staff that it would have been impossible to give us all match practice with Arsenal, but, of course, each one kidded himself he was certain to get his chance one day." There were various links between league and non-league clubs in those days - we sometimes hear "nursery clubs" suggested even today. Spurs and Gravesend was one that comes to mind.
As for old-time reserve football, I guess you really would have been at Plainmoor every Saturday in those days? Clubs scrapping their reserve teams was once big news - almost an act of sacrilege. I seem to remember Portsmouth doing it sometime in the 1960s when they pruned their number of professionals to around sixteen. Many clubs would have had between thirty and forty pros with some players being "on the books" for years without playing a first-team game. I guess that's why so many players legitimately described themselves as "ex-Torquay" (or whatever) when the likes of us - consulting the usual sources - are unable to find any trace of them. It was also a case that many of our good players of the 1950s and 1960s came ready-made at the age of 22 or 23 after a few dozen first-team appearances at a bigger club. Because they wouldn't have been "bench warming", as one of heaven-knows-how-many substitutes, they would have a hundred-odd reserve games under their belts.
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Jon
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Post by Jon on Jan 12, 2009 23:09:49 GMT
Division 3 (South) Cup ...... Was the 1938/39 final - which we never contested (vs QPR or Port Vale?) - held over to the next season only for the war to get in the way? I wonder what type of competition it was? Did teams take it seriously? Yes. We were robbed of the trophy by Adolf Hitler - I'll never forgive him for that. I think teams did take the tournament seriously - squad rotation had not been invented in those days. A midweek tournament in pre-floodlight days was never going to be a big crowd-puller though. |
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