1961 - 1963 - My dad remembers

I was watching United from the time I was a small boy in the 1950’s, during which time they had been in the old Division 2. In 1960-61 I saw them promoted, and I was looking forward to seeing them in the First Division.


1961 - 1962 side

The first match of the new season was Wolves at Bramall Lane. Wolves had just enjoyed a spell of dominance, winning the League in 1957-8 and 1958-9, and the FA Cup in 1959-60 when they were also runners-up in the League. We beat them 2-1. Doc Pace and Billy Hodgson scored for us and I felt we were going to have a good season.

After that we had two away games, getting a hard-won point in a 1-1 draw at Cardiff but losing 2-0 at Notts Forest. Our next home game was against Cardiff. It was held on a Monday evening, but it was a hot, bright sunny day. Sometime before the game someone near me in the crowd started to peel an orange and you could taste it for yards around. Everybody was licking their lips at the thought of it. The game itself was a hard one. United were on top but Cardiff were always dangerous. United were kept out by Cardiff’s goalkeeper, Graham Vearncombe, who had played for Wales. Eventually, Len Allchurch got the ball wide on the left and looped a marvellous shot over the keeper’s head into the far corner. We won 1-0.

The next game was at home to Aston Villa. We were never really in the game and lost 0-2. I remember Derek Dougan playing for Villa. He was rough and tough and caused problems in the 6-yard box. I had the feeling they could score any time they wanted.

Things were better in the next game. We had a home game against Tottenham and drew 1-1. I was proud that we had held our own against the team that had done the League and Cup double the previous season. They were good, but we matched them.

The following game was a heavy defeat, 1-6 against Chelsea away, followed by a 1-1 draw in the League Cup against Fulham.

On 16th Sept we were at home to Wednesday. My previous experience of a derby game was seeing us lose 0-2 in the Cup in 1960, when Wednesday were very lucky to win. I was worried that they might get lucky again. No worries! We had the best of it but couldn’t score. Right in the last minute Doc Pace got the winning goal for us.

The next match was a big let-down. We lost at home 1-4 to West Ham, and I have never seen United so outplayed at home. We were wiped out and I took it very bad. I was 11 years old and my language was so bad I was warned about it.

The next home game we beat Fulham 4-0 in a League Cup replay, and we then had a 2-1 win at Blackburn in the League.

The next game I saw was the match against Newcastle in the next round of the League Cup. We drew 2-2. One thing I remember about this game was that we had Len Allchurch in our team and his brother Ivor was in the Newcastle team. When the ball went out they would take some time to have a chat. We won the replay 2-0.

In the League we lost 1-4 at Leicester, then beat Ipswich 2-1 at home. Next up was a midweek friendly match against Eintracht Frankfurt. They had been the losing finalists in the previous year’s European Cup Final against Real Madrid. That was said to be one of the best matches ever. I was convinced there would be a massive crowd, so I went along early and got there before the ground was even open. I was wrong about the crowd. Only 19,000 turned up, but United played really well and won 3-1.

In the League we lost 0-1 at Everton and then drew at home to Fulham 2-2. I remember seeing Johnny Haynes in that game. He was a great player, and I judge him the best London footballer I have ever seen. Then we lost 0-2 at Bolton and followed with a 3-1 home win against Manchester City. One of their players obliged by scoring an own goal.

We then beat Portsmouth 1-0 in the League Cup but lost 1-3 at West Brom. I didn’t see that game, but all the reports said that Hodgkinson had a great game. We then beat Birmingham at home 3-1, but lost the following game 2-4 at Burnley.

At this point United were in the relegation area, which seemed odd because we had played some good football. The match against Burnley was a turning point. After that we went on an unbeaten run that took us up the table.

The first step was a 2-1 home win against Arsenal. I remember that there was a bit of snow and ice lying about. Some Arsenal guy was walking round the pitch before the game holding up a board. He was wearing a red tail coat and a top hat. I picked up some ice to throw at him but when he got closer I could read that the board said “Arsenal welcomes Sheffield United back into the First Division”, so I dropped the ice because I thought he was ok after all. We followed this with a 1-0 win over Wolves away in the next match.

We had two home games over Christmas. We beat Notts Forest 2-0, then beat Blackpool 2-1. The Notts Forest game saw the new floodlights in use for the first time. Shortly after this, in the hurricane that hit Sheffield in February, one of the pylons was blown down.

In the New Year we played Bury in the 3rd Round of the Cup. It took us three games to get past them. In the first replay at Bramall Lane I remember seeing Doc Pace go up for a cross in the middle of a bunch of players. A fist came out, I didn’t see whose, and laid out poor old Doc. The ref didn’t see it.

In the League we drew 0-0 at Aston Villa followed by a very good 3-1 win over Chelsea at the Lane. We got through the next round of the Cup with a 3-1 win at Peterborough.

Our next game was at Hillsborough, where I stood on Wednesday’s famous uncovered Kop. What I remember best from this match was Doc Pace’s second goal in our 2-1 win. The Wednesday were pushing forward but lost the ball. A United player hit it forward and Doc chased it and got it. He was onside with nobody to stop him but Ron Springett. Doc kept his head, Springett came way out to close him down, and Doc lifted the ball over his head. It was a beautifully judged lob and it was obviously a goal from the moment it left his boot. To rub it in, it took a long time to get into the goal, almost in slow motion. There was nothing Wednesday could do about it. Springett was stranded and there was nobody else anywhere near it.

We drew 0-0 at Blackpool in the League Cup, and a got a 2-1 win at West Ham in the League. Then we won a home game against Norwich, 3-1, in the Fifth Round of the Cup. Then we had a 0-0 draw at home to Blackburn, got a very good 3-1 win against Leicester at the Lane, then lost 0-4 at Ipswich, ending our unbeaten run.



The next match was at home to Burnley in the Sixth Round of the FA Cup. Almost straight from the kick off we lost Gerry Summers to a bad injury. He stayed on the pitch afterwards, but could hardly move. He was only an onlooker. This was before substitutes. Sometimes you can only appreciate a good player when you see what things are like when he’s not there. This was a big loss to us, and showed how much Gerry meant to us. We eventually lost 1-0 to a fluke goal. A Burnley player hit the ball very hard, but it was going wide of our goal by a mile. It hit the Burnley centre-forward, Ray Pointer, on the head and deflected in to our goal. He didn’t know what had hit him, but it put us out of the Cup for that year.

SHEFFIELD - BURNLEY WIN

Another aspect of this game was the crowd, which was so large it has only been estimated at a massive 57,000. I was on the Bramall Lane end in the old “Jubilee Suits Me” shed. We could see people climbing on to the roof of the Kop and some of the fencing at the front of the Kop collapsed, with many people injured. I remember seeing the St John’s staff rushing to the incident. Two blokes went to hospital. One of them got a visit from United players and a signed team shirt. The other guy only got a ten bob postal order from some Liverpool supporters.

Soon after this we were also knocked out of the League Cup when we lost the Fifth Round Replay to Blackpool 0-2 at the Lane. I couldn’t believe how poor we were that night. The team just didn’t look interested, and Blackpool had some very good goalkeepers at that time, West and Waiters, who were in rivalry to see who got the first team place. I think West eventually went to Everton.

Meanwhile the League campaign went on. We had a home draw 1-1 against Everton, lost 2-5 away to Fulham, then beat Bolton 3-1 at the Lane. At this time we were capable of beating anybody on a good day. The Bolton team that day had two players I particularly remember. One was their goalkeeper Eddie Hopkinson. When Alan Hodgkinson was England’s keeper in the mid-1950’s, Hopkinson was the bloke who was picked to replace him. I didn’t believe there was a better keeper anywhere than Hodgy, but I must admit that Hopkinson was bloody good that day. The other player was a winger called Brian Pilkington, who had played for England while he was with Burnley. He was their biggest threat, and caused lots of trouble for us on the right wing. So, you see, we were beating good teams, not rubbish.

The following games were a bit routine – drew 1-1 at Manchester City; won 4-2 at Blackpool; drew 1-1 at home to West Brom; drew 3-3 at Tottenham (must have been a good game, but I didn’t see it), and lost 0-3 at Birmingham.

The next game was one to remember. We beat Burnley 2-0 at the Lane, which was some consolation for the Cup knock-out. It wasn’t just the win but the manner of it. The pitch was a mud bath. United’s Scottish inside-forward, Billy Hodgson, was a real warrior. He got stuck into Burnley and turned them inside-out. He got one goal and Ron Simpson got the other through a penalty. At the end of the game Billy was entirely covered in mud. He looked like a slime monster, but we loved him. Another aspect of the game I remember was how our left back Graham Shaw totally wrapped up Burnley’s international winger John Connelly. Connelly was rated quite high, but Graham made him look a fool. By the end of the match, Graham was pushing forward and Connelly was having to drop back to stop him, reversing the roles. Connelly couldn’t even do that, and eventually resorted to a rugby tackle to stop Graham!

This was Easter and on the Monday I travelled to Old Trafford to see us play at Manchester United. We had just moved house to Woodseats, and I travelled to the match with some lads from the area I had just moved in to. We travelled by train from the old Victoria Station. We got to the game very early and took up position on the Stretford End, which didn’t have the reputation it got later. The only record they played before the match started was “Theme from Dr Kildare” over and over again. Doc Pace scored for us and we won 1-0. In the return game the following day we lost 2-3, throwing away a game we had in the bag at one point.

The final League match of the season was a 0-2 defeat at Arsenal, but we finished fifth that season, and we were well pleased with that. The icing on the cake was another win over Wednesday, this time 3-2 in the Final of the County Cup.

The matches from the 1962-63 season don’t have any vivid memories for me. Our home win over Tottenham was a good one. Manchester United turned up for a punch-up, not a football match. Setters and Stiles should have been in a kick-boxing team, not a football team. Snow started falling on Boxing Day, and it stayed until Easter. The football fixtures were thrown into chaos and many matches were postponed. I remember seeing a friendly match against Stoke at the Lane, with Stanley Matthews playing for Stoke.

With no football to watch I had to find other things to do. I was 12 going on 13. I palled up with three other lads from the school I was attending, and we used to meet on Saturday afternoons, go round the record shops and coffee bars, and talk about things like girls, which hadn’t featured much until then. We used to go to each others’ houses, play records, and talk about girls again. I was enjoying it. When the thaw came and football returned, I was doing something else. I didn’t go back to the Lane for another two years.

1960 - 1961 - My dad remembers

Season 1960-61 started in boiling hot weather on 20th August. United's first match was away at Norwich. I was only ten years old, so not attending many away matches, but we got a point. United supporters had a respect for Norwich then, as they had knocked us out of the FA Cup a couple of seasons before, so a point well won. I went to the first home game, against Plymouth. It was one of those early season mid-week matches when the pitch looked like a snooker table under the floodlights. We won easily 3-0. A few days later we beat Charlton at home 1-0. Not a big margin, but we always looked comfortably in charge.

For a while the results were a bit up and down. We lost away to Plymouth, but beat Leyton Orient away 4-1. We lost to Stoke away, 0-2, but beat Huddesrfield away 1-0. Home form was more steady. We beat Huddersfield 3-1, Swansea 3-0, and Portsmouth 3-1. We were well on top in all these games. This seemed to work through to the away form when we beat Luton 4-1 and Ipswich 1-0. Meanwhile we carried on winning at home. We beat Lincoln 2-1, Scunthorpe 2-0, and Brighton 2-1. I was at all the home games, and we looked capable of beating anyone at the Lane. The Scunthorpe game was memorable for the foul weather, some of the worst conditions I've ever seen a match played under. The wing on the John Street side was a lake.

United's first game in the League Cup came at Bury, where we lost 1-3. This was a real surprise, but few people were bothered about that competition then. We lost 1-3 at Middlesbrough in the League, but that was always a tough fixture. We had a 5th November win against Leeds at the Lane, 3-2. It was a good game, there were a few fireworks in the crowd, and added interest was caused by Leeds having former United players like Ted Burgin and Colin Grainger playing for them. We followed this up by a 1-0 win at Southampton and we beat Rotherham 3-1 at the Lane. It looked like we were back to top form, but then things started to go wrong.

We lost 2-4 at Anfield. We knew Liverpool were a tough challenge, but this was followed by a home defeat from Bristol Rovers 2-3 when we'd been leading 2-0. Bristol Rovers were a bogey team for us in those days, but that didn't make us feel any better. United seemed to lose nerve. We lost at Derby, dropped a point at home to Norwich, and in back-to-back Christmas matches took only one point from 4 in two matches against Sunderland. On New Year's Eve we won away at Charlton 3-2 and, though we didn't know it at the time, we had turned the corner.

The New Year saw us get a sensational win away to First Division Everton in the FA Cup 3rd Round. Much cheered up, we won our next two home games 4-1, first against Leyton Orient, then against Stoke. Next we had a home game against Lincoln in the FA Cup 4th Round and were easy winners 3-1. It's from around this time I remember "Ilkley Moor bar t'at" being played over the loud speakers when United came out of the tunnel at the start of the game. That became the team song for years after.

Next we lost 0-3 at Swansea, but came back with a 2-1 win over Luton at the Lane. Then we had another FA Cup match against First Division opposition. We were at home to Blackburn, who had been beaten finalists the year before. We won 2-1 and morale soared. We won 5-0 away to Lincoln and got a point at Scunthorpe, and then we had our next FA Cup match, a 6th Round match away at Newcastle. I didn't get to this game, but we had a great 3-1 win, playing in Tangerine shirts, and Billy Russell scored a hat trick.

United were in the thick of the promotion battle, but Ipswich were leading the pack. They came to the Lane and beat us 3-1, and we never really looked like winning. The next match was a 0-0 draw at Brighton.

Perhaps this was Cup nerves, because we were in the Semi-Final of the FA Cup and drawn against Leicester. My brother-in-law was twelve years older than me, (still is, come to that), and he took me up to Leeds to see the Semi-Final. The ground was packed. Before the kick-off some Leicester supporters carried a mock coffin round the pitch with "Sheffield United" on the side. For us, an elderly gent dressed in red and white with a long red and white baton walked round the pitch escorted by two young lasses with United hats and scarves. The game was real end-to-end stuff, and both sides had goals disallowed. Doc Pace hit the ball into Leicester's net, but the ref ruled he had handled it first. Doc pointed to a mark on his shirt, to show he had chested the ball, but there was no change. Ever after, I cited this as evidence we had been robbed, but I heard that Doc, just before he died, admitted he had handled the ball.


Program for the semi final in Leeds

The game ended 0-0 and the replay was a few days later at Notts Forest's ground. We were at school, and the teacher let us listen to the second half commentary on the old school radio. This was 0-0 again. The third, and deciding, match was won by Leicester 0-2. They went on to lose in the Final to Spurs who were in their Double-winning year. We took comfort by saying we could concentrate on the promotion drive.

LEICESTER FOR WEMBLEY

Footage of the United vs Leicester match

Meanwhile, me and my brother-in-law had returned to Elland Road, and stood in almost the same spot where we had been for the first Semi-Final. This time, we had gone to watch United beat Leeds 2-1. United played superbly well, but the outstanding point was the debut of Len Allchurch. Len scored in this, his first game for United, and played a crucial role in the rest of the season. He cost us £12,500 from Swansea, and was one of the shrewdest buys ever made by John Harris, who was famous for shrewd buys.

United next drew 1-1 at home to Liverpool. It looked as though Ipswich were certain to go up, and United and Liverpool were battling for the remaining promotion place. Next, we beat Portsmouth 2-1 at Fratton Park, Allchurch getting one of the goals. Me and my brother-in-law next went to see United at Rotherham. We won 2-1, Len scored again, and we were looking good for promotion. Next, we got a home win against Southampton. Len scored both goals in a 2-1 win.

Wednesday, 19th April, we had a home game against Derby. We won 3-1, and this secured promotion for us. We were back in the First Division after five seasons. We had played some great football, we had got to the FA Cup Semi-Finals and beat three Division 1 teams on the way.



Two games were left before the end of the season. We lost 1-3 at Bristol Rovers, that old bogey team, but finished with a glorious 4-1 win at the Lane against Middlesbrough. Len Allchurch got one of the goals, making 6 League goals from 8 appearances. We had some great players in that team - Hodgkinson; Coldwell; Graham Shaw; Richardson; Joe Shaw; Summers; Doc Pace; Billy Russell; Ron Simpson; Billy Hodgson; and that great servant Cliff Mason played in 21 first class matches that season, but Unitedites who remember that season will, perhaps, think first of Len Allchurch.


1961 promotion side

1959 - 1960 - My dad remembers

If United could ever be represented by just one man, for me that man would be John Harris. He was United's manager through the 60's and early 70's. He was a Scotsman who had played for Chelsea. He never got capped by Scotland, but his contemporaries had great respect for him. He captained the Chelsea side that won the championship in 1954-5 and was said to be able to land a football on a sixpence. He was a very quiet man, even by the standards of those times, but the United teams he turned out spoke for him.


John Harris

Harris took over United at the very end of the 1958-9 season. Up to then I had been to the Lane a few times with my dad, who worked for the local paper and was there for his job. I was very young and unfocused, so those games don't stick in my mind. 1959-60 was the first season I wanted to go and watch United as a supporter, and Harris was the new manager, and an unknown quantity.

I was only 9 years old, my mum didn't want me to go on my own and my dad had recently pissed off, so I was taken to my first few matches by a lad who lived just up the road from us. His name was Keith Dobson. I wonder how he's getting on. In advance of the season starting I'd been bought a woolly red & white hat, a red & white scarf, a red & white rosette, and I had one of those red & white wooden rattles that made a hell of a noise.


1959-1960 side

The first match of the season was at home to Derby County. It was a fine hot day, United won 2-1, and there was a lot of satisfaction in that because Derby had a reputation then for being a dirty team. People used to spit when they said "Derby".

I missed United's next home game, when they beat Hull 6-0, but was there to see them beat Liverpool 2-1. Graham Shaw got both goals from the penalty spot. I remember that I was stood in a part of the ground where supporters of both teams were mixed together and got on very well, no bother at all. Some of the Liverpool supporters were trying to make a few bob extra by offering Liverpool programmes for sale.


Graham Shaw

Up to then United were undefeated, but in the next home game we were beaten 2-1 by Sunderland. It was unbelievable because I'd never before seen United so outplayed. We weren't really in with a chance. A few days later, in a return match at Roker, they beat us 5-1.

At this time I was judged to be too small to go to away games, so I used to go to watch the reserves in the Central League when the first team was away. The next home game was against Bristol City. United won comfortably 5-2, Graham Shaw hit a penalty over the bar.

Next game was against Rotherham. United were 2-0 up but lost 3-2. Rotherham that year had one of their best ever seasons, and were in the top three for most of the season. Their goalkeeper was Roy Ironside. He had a great game and, as he was a friend of our family, I wasn't as upset by losing as I would have been against anybody else.

Next game was a mid-week game against Lucerne, who were doing a tour of Britain. Just after the war these tour matches were extremely popular, but by this time they had lost a lot of their interest. The crowd was only 8,000. I didn't care about that, though. I was still only 9, any United game was an attraction for me, and I had heard that the European sides were a class above us. When the teams came out and were kicking the ball around I was amazed at the ball skills of the Swiss. I thought we'd get thumped, but when the real game started we were better than them by some way, winning 5-1.

The next League match was against Aston Villa, who were clear favourites for being Division 2 champions that year. The only teams that were in it with them were Cardiff and Rotherham. United, after starting well, had dropped too many points. In the Villa game we did well to get a 1-1 draw. United's goal was scored by Doc Pace, one of United's greatest-ever players, who had been bought from Villa.



United's next home game was a County Cup match against Wednesday, and we won 3-1. I didn't get to that match and have regretted it ever since. The next match I was at was a Division 2 home game against Leyton Orient. The weather was bad and the pitch a mud bath. Leyton had a centre-forward called Tommy Johnston, who was rumoured to wear metal studs in his boots, and at one point in the game he went for a ball in United's six yard box. Our goalkeeper was the great Alan Hodgkinson. Hodgy was the best keeper I've ever seen for being able to get down on the ball to smother out danger. This took a lot of guts, but Hodgy never neshed it ever. This time he paid a price for it when Johnston's studs went slicing into his leg. Hodgy was stretchered off and Unitedites were all convinced that Johnston had done it deliberately. United were down to 10 men, and Dennis Shields went into the goal. He did a pretty good job, but United lost 2-0. Hodgy was out for weeks, and United's reserve keeper, Des Thomson, had a run in the first team.


Alan Hodgkinson

United's next home game was a fairly quiet 1-0 win over Ipswich, but in the very next game after that, away to Bristol Rovers, we lost another stalwart player. All season Billy Russell had been in fine form scoring 11 goals. In the game at Eastville he scored again and United were leading 2-0 when Russell's leg was broken. United lost the game 3-2 and with Hodgy and Russell both out United were struggling a bit.



The next home game was a 3-3 draw against Swansea. Swansea had a goalkeeper called King who had played for Wales, and he played well. The most memorable thing about the game was Cec Coldwell scoring a goal when hit a screamer from way out. Record books say 30 yards. Cec wasn't what you would call a prolific scorer, so he must have got a lot of satisfaction from it. The game after that was another home defeat, 1-0 at the hands of Stoke.

Going into Christmas, Unitedites looked at the season with great frustration. Although they had played some good football, they hadn't been consistent. They had lost points carelessly and the injuries to Hodgy and Bill Russell had been great set-backs. Russell was out for the rest of the season, but Hodgy returned, showing no ill-effects from his injury.

Cardiff were having a very good season, and had a strong team. It looked like, with Aston Villa, they had the two promotion places sowed up. United played them twice over Christmas. The first game was at Ninian Park on Boxing Day, and Cardiff won 2-0. The return game at the Lane was only two days later, and United won 2-1. Looking back, I'd say this was the turning point for United. The second half of the season was going to be a lot better than the first.

The first game of the New Year saw us beat Plymouth 4-0. What was to be significant was that two of these goals came from Doc Pace, the first goals he'd scored in the League since the home game against Villa in October. A return to form by United's highest scorer was a sign of things to come.

The next game was the 3rd round of the FA Cup and United beat Portsmouth 3-0, with Pace getting a couple more. The next home game was a Div 2 match against Charlton. Pace got both United's goals in a 2-0 win.

The next game was the FA Cup 4th Round, and United were drawn at home to Nottingham Forest who were the cup holders. United obviously weren't overawed by this, or the fact that they were up against Division 1 opponents. We won 3-0 and Pace got a hat-trick.

The next home game was a Division 2 game against Scunthorpe. United won 2-1, with Pace scoring again. After that was the FA Cup 5th Round game against Watford. United won again, thanks to Doc Pace getting all three of our goals. It wasn't an easy game, though. Even though Watford came from a lower division they played well and had deadly twin strikers in Dennis Uphill and Cliff Holton. Holton scored both Watford's goals, he was an old hand who'd played with Arsenal. Watford must have made an impression on John Harris because, not longer after, he signed Barry Hartle from them. The first of many players to play for United and Watford. These days I'm an occasional visitor to Saracens home games at Vicarage Road. Sharing the ground with Watford, their hospitality lounge has pictures of old Watford players in it and so many of them are also ex-United.

The very next week we played Aston Villa at Villa Park. Remember this is a season when Villa secured promotion to the First Division comfortably. On this occasion, United ran riot and won 3-1, Pace scoring a hat-trick for the second week running. Next in Division 2 was a home win over Lincoln, 3-2, with Pace scoring one of the goals.

This set the scene for the 6th Round FA Cup tie. This was at home against Sheffield Wednesday, and the city was in great excitement about it. Tickets were in great demand and hard to come by. Bramall Lane still had the cricket pitch then and a temporary extension was erected from the pavilion seating. I managed to get a ticket for this area and got to see the game. Wednesday at that time were in their first season back in Division 1 after getting promoted in 1958-9. To be fair, they had some good players. Ron Springett was an athletic goalkeeper, the full backs Johnson and Megson were steady and dependable. Right Half was Tom McInearney who was a class player. The other two half backs were Swan and Kay. Both were crude, Swan as a stopper, Kay in midfield. The forward line was very handy. Alan Finney and Bobby Craig were both very skilful players, while Wilkinson, Ellis, and Fantham were effective strikers.


Program for the Cup tie against Wednesday

On the day United were the best team by a long way. They had Wednesday pinned back in their own area for much of the game but Springett had one of his best ever games. Wednesday were obviously scared stiff of Doc Pace and Swan played a game not so much as sweeper but rather more like an ale-house bouncer. He played dirty and got away with it. Wednesday had two break-away attacks and Wilkinson scored from both of them. He took his chances well and we got stuffed. Bugger!

The rest of the season was a bit of an anti-climax. We were out of the Cup and had no chance of promotion. I missed the two home games against Brighton and Middlesbrough. I saw us draw 1-1 with Bristol Rovers and 0-0 with Portsmouth. Perhaps that last score says something. The team we had beaten easily in the Cup were able to hold us to a draw in the League. The season had gone flat. The last Division 2 game of the season we perked up a bit and beat Huddersfield 2-0. Then there was the County Cup Final against Rotherham and we won 2-1. Rotherham had just missed out on promotion, so maybe they felt a bit deflated. Also but both teams put on a really good show for the crowd. The County Cup was played for every year between United, Wednesday, Rotherham, Barnsley, and Doncaster. It ought to be revived.

In 1959-60 season United had played some great football, demonstrated that they had some class players, and only needed to be able to hit their peak earlier and hold it. Given that, we thought Promotion was a real prospect.