timbo
Programmes Room Manager 
QUO fan 4life.
Posts: 2,432
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Post by timbo on Nov 27, 2009 22:32:36 GMT
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Post by stewart on Nov 27, 2009 23:46:08 GMT
I can't help feeling that if were to overcome Stockport tomorrow and draw Tottenham in Round 3, we would be bitterly disappointed with the team they would put out.
At least I would.
In 1965 it was the experience of a lifetime to see Blanchflower, Greaves and Cliff Jones running out at Plainmoor. I suppose the equivalent of these now would probably be Ledley King, Defoe and Lennon, but there would be absolutely no chance of seeing them as Harry would almost certainly rely on his reserve team, and quite likely win with them, too.
This is one of the drawbacks of the progression of substitutes in the game and the need for much bigger 'squads', as all of the bigger clubs feel that they can 'rest' their star players so that more financially rewarding League points can be obtained. In 1965 they were not allowed to do this, indeed they would have been fined had they not fielded their strongest teams.
Personally, I would rather have seen Torquay lose in 1965 and yet had the privilege of seeing the legendary Tottenham stars of that era, than go and watch a team of reserves, nobodies and youngsters in January 2010, even if Torquay managed to beat them.
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Jon
Admin
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Post by Jon on Nov 28, 2009 19:00:45 GMT
If you look at the inside-forwards in that 1963 team, I can't spot the midfielder. Were we really playing with five up front? With 39 goals in 11 home league games, it looks like Mr Webber was throwing caution to the wind that season!
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Post by stewart on Nov 28, 2009 22:08:32 GMT
If you look at the inside-forwards in that 1963 team, I can't spot the midfielder. Were we really playing with five up front? With 39 goals in 11 home league games, it looks like Mr Webber was throwing caution to the wind that season! This is an intriguing point and one which I am straining at the leash to respond to, given my admiration for the club's greatest ever player, Robin Stubbs. In the early sixties, Geoff Cox was perhaps the key member of Eric Webber's teams, as he had the versatility to play either as an attacking midfield player or as a dual striker, depending on who was wearing the No. 10 shirt. The arrival of Stubbs changed all that, and was, I have no doubt, the single most significant and revolutionary event in the club's history, both before and since. In seven years, we had gone from the rugged donkey work of Harold Dobbie and Ted Calland, valuable players though they were in their own day, to the sublime skill, vision, pace and tactical acuteness of Robin Stubbs. Imagine that, such a change in only seven years. This latter quality was the secret of the unusual formation highlighted by Jon, which apparently contained three goalscoring forwards with little midfield backup. In fact, the way it worked, and worked so well, was that Tom Northcott and Reg Jenkins would take it in turns in an impromptu manner to drop deeper than the other two, depending on the direction of the play. Often Stubbs himself would hang back behind the other two to link play and bring in the wingers, but the key factor was that the entire process of positional switching was orchestrated by his movement and gestures, to which his fellow forwards responded so brilliantly. The season 1963/64 has always been my outstanding favourite because this cavalier nature of attacking football made it so exciting, entertaining and memorable. We actually scored 60 goals at home during that season. Sadly, it all came to an end very abruptly when the decision was taken to allow Reg Jenkins to move to Rochdale for a grossly undervalued fee. The board in charge at the time should have hung their heads in shame for agreeing to probably the most outrageous loss of playing talent we have ever known. |
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