30/04/49: Northampton Town (H)

I've just been looking at the statistics for the "Programme Room":

Pre-1950: 64 threads
1950s: 228 threads
1960s: 331 threads
1970s and 1980s: 242 threads
1990s: 11 threads

That's getting on for nine hundred programmes with over six hundred from before 1970. Phenomenal.

I won't profess to attempting to comment upon each and every one of them. But here's another newsy-looking example from the 1948/49 season. The very last one of the campaign and Follis is clearly impressed by the team's efforts that season. There's also an introduction to new boy Don Mills who - along with young Tommy Northcott - was already making an impression. I shall think of Don when I'm in Rotherham later today.

The other featured player is Billy Thomas who was to be at the club for a number of years before leaving for Weymouth in 1955. The records show Thomas made ninety league and seventeen cup appearances over an eight year period. In another age - with extra cups and substitutions - you can imagine that he would have made at least two hundred appearances of whatever description.