Give ’Em Beans! - Rest of the Best

And you thought winning at Stevenage in the Conference was pretty weird!
But, says Andrew Ward, the games on this page are...

BARROW's STRANGEST MATCHES

Give 'Em Beans! has been down the library again! After working our way through the collected works of Paul Ferris, we came upon 'Soccer's Strangest Matches', a gem of a book from which we reprinted the two stories you see below. As well as these it features nearly a hundred other strange games, from the dawn of football to modern times, from the local park to the international arena, along with the funny and the tragic, the heroic and the inept.

In company with the referee doing his bit for Barrow, we have a dog scoring in the Staffordshire Sunday Cup, Chris Nicholl getting all four in a 2-2 draw between Aston Villa and Leicester, and Denis Law putting a double hat-trick past Luton for Manchester City in the Cup, only for the game to be abandoned and City lose the re-match! Wars, writs, walkovers, woeful weather (that's enough alliteration. Ed.), women's teams against men - they're all here.

Of interest to non-League fans will be the story of the Weymouth players' strike of 1983, and how it affected their game at Maidstone, a cup-tie between Leicester City and Burton Albion that was forced to a replay behind closed doors because of crowd trouble in the original tie, and how Dartford failed to turn up for a FA Trophy game at Leatherhead. A good job this Kent side didn't have to travel to Barrow!

But these are just a selection of the many interesting tales in this fascinating book, which should appeal to fans everywhere. All that remains is to give Andrew his plug for letting us use the stories about Barrow. Thanks, Andrew!

THE NIGHTMARE DAY TRIP
(October 1961)
Gillingham thought they could travel to Barrow on the day of the game. The journey from the mouth of Kent's River Medway to the tip of the Furness peninsula in Lancashire (as it was then) was over 300 miles. A train leaving London Euston at 9.05am seemed a safe bet. The team should arrive over an hour before kick-off, which was at 5.15pm as Barrow had no floodlights.

First came the 35-mile coach trip to Euston. The coach made an early morning start but ran into heavy traffic. Officials estimated the time/distance equation and grew agitated. The coach arrived at Euston half an hour after the train had left.

The options remaining weren't promising. The next train, the 10.25, would arrive one minute after the kick-off. Coach would be far too slow, and cars would be very risky. There was only one possible option - aeroplane. Club officials discovered two suitable scheduled flights - the 10.40 to Manchester and the 11.00 to Newcastle. Both were fully booked.

The next idea was to charter a plane. One was arranged but the company had to fly it from Gatwick to London Airport, where the Gillingham party would be waiting. The cost of the plane was £500 - money in advance.

Gillingham officials also telephoned the Football League. They negotiated a fifteen minute delay in kick-off time. The players would be asked to forego their half-time interval. It was a 5.30 kick-off now.

The next problem was the plane's destination. They decided to head for Squires Gate Airport at Blackpool, about 70 miles from Barrow. This meant arranging another journey. A coach was hired to meet them at Squires Gate, but as time slipped by, officials realised a coach would be too slow. Four cars were hired and a police escort arranged for what would be a hectic last leg of the trip.

The charter flight left London Airport at 2.31, having been delayed in a queue of planes. There were less than three hours before the match.

The plane arrived at Squires Gate at 3.25pm. Within twenty minutes everybody was in cars. They had a 70-mile journey and 105 minutes.

There were no motorways in the North West in October 1961. The roads around the Morecambe Bay were among the country's worst for a late dash by car through driving rain. They reached Holker St at 5.30pm. The players needed to change.

Gillingham, as you can appreciate, were not ideally prepared to play a Fourth Division game. They'd been up early, stuck in traffic on a coach, forced to hang around, shepherded on to a plane (the first time for some), driven rapidly through the countryside and told to change as quickly as they could. By half-time they were five goals down to Barrow.

The problem now was the light. By the 74th minute, when Barrow were leading 6-0, referee Mr. Jobling from Morecambe felt it was too dark for football. He allowed an extra couple of minutes under Barrow's training lights - just time for Barrow's seventh goal - but finally abandoned the game after seven o'clock.

The Football League ruled that the 7-0 scoreline should stand as a result. Gillingham's next away game was an even longer trip - Carlisle United. They set off in good time and won 2-1.
THE REFEREE'S WINNING GOAL
(November 1968)
Barrow 0, Plymouth Argyle 0. Thirteen minutes to play. Then came a goal to settle this Division Three game, scored by the most unlikely person on the pitch - referee Ivan Robinson.

Barrow won a corner kick. The ball was cleared out. George McLean shot hard from outside the penalty area and the ball was going well wide. Referee Robinson, perhaps 15 yards from goal, was in the ball's path. He tried to jump to avoid the ball but it hit him on the inside of his left foot and it flew off at an angle. Plymouth goalkeeper Pat Dunne was completely deceived by the deflection. Having moved to cover McLean's shot, Dunne was stranded as the ball shot past him into the net. Barrow 1 (the referee), Plymouth 0.

The rules are quite clear. The ball is in play if it rebounds off either the referee or linesmen when they are in the field of play. Ivan Robinson knew that. He pointed meekly to the centre circle to confirm his goal. Plymouth players looked stunned and shocked.

The incident spurred Plymouth into a frenzied late rally. Barrow hung on to win 1-0 and the referee had to try to avoid congratulatory pats on the back from Barrow supporters as he ran off the field.

Barrow took their unbeaten home run to eighteen games and moved into second place in Division Three, probably the highest position they ever reached in the Football League. Diplomatically, they credited the goal to McLean.

Plymouth were left with a long disconsolate journey home, hardly assuaged by Mr. Robinson's subsequent apology.

PS. I don't know if Andrew is planning any more books of this nature, but if any of you have any stories you think are noteworthy, e-mail us and we'll pass on the details. Cowps' goal in 3.55 seconds at Kettering in 1979, which is generally accepted by football historians and statisticians to be the fastest goal on record, springs to mind as the obvious contender.

Soccer's Strangest Matches by Andrew Ward is published by Robson Books. The Nightmare Day Trip and The Referee's Winning Goal were reproduced in issue 008 - November 1991 by kind permission of the author and I trust we're not stepping on anyone's toes by posting them again here!

BARROW's STRANGEST MATCHES
And you thought winning at Stevenage in the Conference was pretty weird! But, says Andrew Ward, the games on this page are...
Give 'Em Beans! has been down the library again! After working our way through the collected works of Paul Ferris, we came upon 'Soccer's Strangest Matches', a gem of a book from which we reprinted the two stories you see below. As well as these it features nearly a hundred other strange games, from the dawn of football to modern times, from the local park to the international arena, along with the funny and the tragic, the heroic and the inept. In company with the referee doing his bit for Barrow, we have a dog scoring in the Staffordshire Sunday Cup, Chris Nicholl getting all four in a 2-2 draw between Aston Villa and Leicester, and Denis Law putting a double hat-trick past Luton for Manchester City in the Cup, only for the game to be abandoned and City lose the re-match! Wars, writs, walkovers, woeful weather (that's enough alliteration. Ed.), women's teams against men - they're all here. Of interest to non-League fans will be the story of the Weymouth players' strike of 1983, and how it affected their game at Maidstone, a cup-tie between Leicester City and Burton Albion that was forced to a replay behind closed doors because of crowd trouble in the original tie, and how Dartford failed to turn up for a FA Trophy game at Leatherhead. A good job this Kent side didn't have to travel to Barrow! But these are just a selection of the many interesting tales in this fascinating book, which should appeal to fans everywhere. All that remains is to give Andrew his plug for letting us use the stories about Barrow. Thanks, Andrew!
THE NIGHTMARE DAY TRIP (October 1961) Gillingham thought they could travel to Barrow on the day of the game. The journey from the mouth of Kent's River Medway to the tip of the Furness peninsula in Lancashire (as it was then) was over 300 miles. A train leaving London Euston at 9.05am seemed a safe bet. The team should arrive over an hour before kick-off, which was at 5.15pm as Barrow had no floodlights. First came the 35-mile coach trip to Euston. The coach made an early morning start but ran into heavy traffic. Officials estimated the time/distance equation and grew agitated. The coach arrived at Euston half an hour after the train had left. The options remaining weren't promising. The next train, the 10.25, would arrive one minute after the kick-off. Coach would be far too slow, and cars would be very risky. There was only one possible option - aeroplane. Club officials discovered two suitable scheduled flights - the 10.40 to Manchester and the 11.00 to Newcastle. Both were fully booked. The next idea was to charter a plane. One was arranged but the company had to fly it from Gatwick to London Airport, where the Gillingham party would be waiting. The cost of the plane was £500 - money in advance. Gillingham officials also telephoned the Football League. They negotiated a fifteen minute delay in kick-off time. The players would be asked to forego their half-time interval. It was a 5.30 kick-off now. The next problem was the plane's destination. They decided to head for Squires Gate Airport at Blackpool, about 70 miles from Barrow. This meant arranging another journey. A coach was hired to meet them at Squires Gate, but as time slipped by, officials realised a coach would be too slow. Four cars were hired and a police escort arranged for what would be a hectic last leg of the trip. The charter flight left London Airport at 2.31, having been delayed in a queue of planes. There were less than three hours before the match. The plane arrived at Squires Gate at 3.25pm. Within twenty minutes everybody was in cars. They had a 70-mile journey and 105 minutes. There were no motorways in the North West in October 1961. The roads around the Morecambe Bay were among the country's worst for a late dash by car through driving rain. They reached Holker St at 5.30pm. The players needed to change. Gillingham, as you can appreciate, were not ideally prepared to play a Fourth Division game. They'd been up early, stuck in traffic on a coach, forced to hang around, shepherded on to a plane (the first time for some), driven rapidly through the countryside and told to change as quickly as they could. By half-time they were five goals down to Barrow. The problem now was the light. By the 74th minute, when Barrow were leading 6-0, referee Mr. Jobling from Morecambe felt it was too dark for football. He allowed an extra couple of minutes under Barrow's training lights - just time for Barrow's seventh goal - but finally abandoned the game after seven o'clock. The Football League ruled that the 7-0 scoreline should stand as a result. Gillingham's next away game was an even longer trip - Carlisle United. They set off in good time and won 2-1.	THE REFEREE'S WINNING GOAL (November 1968) Barrow 0, Plymouth Argyle 0. Thirteen minutes to play. Then came a goal to settle this Division Three game, scored by the most unlikely person on the pitch - referee Ivan Robinson. Barrow won a corner kick. The ball was cleared out. George McLean shot hard from outside the penalty area and the ball was going well wide. Referee Robinson, perhaps 15 yards from goal, was in the ball's path. He tried to jump to avoid the ball but it hit him on the inside of his left foot and it flew off at an angle. Plymouth goalkeeper Pat Dunne was completely deceived by the deflection. Having moved to cover McLean's shot, Dunne was stranded as the ball shot past him into the net. Barrow 1 (the referee), Plymouth 0. The rules are quite clear. The ball is in play if it rebounds off either the referee or linesmen when they are in the field of play. Ivan Robinson knew that. He pointed meekly to the centre circle to confirm his goal. Plymouth players looked stunned and shocked. The incident spurred Plymouth into a frenzied late rally. Barrow hung on to win 1-0 and the referee had to try to avoid congratulatory pats on the back from Barrow supporters as he ran off the field. Barrow took their unbeaten home run to eighteen games and moved into second place in Division Three, probably the highest position they ever reached in the Football League. Diplomatically, they credited the goal to McLean. Plymouth were left with a long disconsolate journey home, hardly assuaged by Mr. Robinson's subsequent apology.
PS. I don't know if Andrew is planning any more books of this nature, but if any of you have any stories you think are noteworthy, e-mail us and we'll pass on the details. Cowps' goal in 3.55 seconds at Kettering in 1979, which is generally accepted by football historians and statisticians to be the fastest goal on record, springs to mind as the obvious contender.

Soccer's Strangest Matches by Andrew Ward is published by Robson Books. The Nightmare Day Trip and The Referee's Winning Goal were reproduced in issue 008 - November 1991 by kind permission of the author and I trust we're not stepping on anyone's toes by posting them again here!

And you thought winning at Stevenage in the Conference was pretty weird! But, says Andrew Ward, the games on this page are...

BARROW's STRANGEST MATCHES

Soccer's Strangest Matches by Andrew Ward is published by Robson Books. The Nightmare Day Trip and The Referee's Winning Goal were reproduced in issue 008 - November 1991 by kind permission of the author and I trust we're not stepping on anyone's toes by posting them again here!

And you thought winning at Stevenage in the Conference was pretty weird!
But, says Andrew Ward, the games on this page are...