70s pre season tour of Scotland

[barrowaberdeen]

Anyone remember a pre season tour of Scotland early 70s? Apparently in the Peter Kane days.

[boyliegladbach]

No, sorry I don’t

[Lowtower]

Me neither

Has nowt else gone on this week ?

We've not had many posts since the weekend, not even any boiler updates ?

[Cubbins Paratrooper]

Think that we signed a few players as a consequence of said tour.

[geobarrovian]

Sounds very Scottish.

[Suffolk Blue]

Games against Scottish teams in pre-season were not uncommon in the early seventies.

1970-71 I believe we played Airdrieonions (1-4)

1971-72 We played Forfar (0-1) and Cowdenbeath (1-2)

These fixtures would've been in our Div 4 days and before Peter Kane. I have a vague recollection of a game against Albion Rovers which might've been later.

[blue nige]

If I recall rightly we became the first English team to beat the now defunct Meadowbank thistle at the Meadowbank stadium.
We had a guy called Stuart Liddle who played fullback then, he was the hardest player I've ever seen he was "psychotic ".

[Pedro]

If I recall rightly we became the first English team to beat the now defunct Meadowbank thistle at the Meadowbank stadium.
We had a guy called Stuart Liddle who played fullback then, he was the hardest player I've ever seen he was "psychotic ".

Remember him well he seemed to get sent off regular .

[pjdaly]

BA . . . I don't recall a tour of Scotland under Peter Kane (at that time, after having lost our place in the FL I don't think the club could afford a tour of the Furness Peninsula) but we did take on board a whole load of Scots after Peter Kane became manager (he himself being Scottish). I think they might have been lured down here by jobs in Vickers perhaps.

We had two real good uns in Jimmy Logan and David Grant but the rest were . . . erm . . . not so great. Scottish players featuring in 72-73 (our first season in non-league in the NPL) included the aforementioned Stuart Liddell, Bobby Lyall, John Mulgrew and Gerry Sweeney and I think one or two more followed later, like John McLaughlin IIRC (that's "If I Remember Correctly" rather than professional letters after his name).

But even before Kane arrived we retained a couple of Scots for that first season in non-league in the form of the late, great Harry Thomson and right back Bert Patrick, also late of this world.

Attached are the Evening Mail articles relating to the departures of the volatile Liddell and Thomson. As the Thomson article suggests, this situation was a true shame as in terms of ability Harry was still an outstanding goalkeeper who should have still been top flight and who, despite everything, was imperious during our last season in the FL.

The most famous moment regarding Stuart came in one match where an opposing fan was goading him relentlessly from the old wooden stand. This got too much and in the end Stuart was racing off the pitch, hurdled the perimeter wall and chased up towards the top of the stand where he had the taunter round the throat. Fortunately, before it became a murder case, player-manager Peter Kane, in true Keystones Kops fashion, was after him in a flash, also impressively hurdling the perimeter wall and racing up into the stand to remove said hands from said throat.

The football wasn't exactly riveting back in those days but there were still unforgettable moments to die for.

[SMB]

I do indeed remember the tour - alas not the year, We played Armadale Thistle away on the Saturday and on a pitch strewn with all sorts of debris (including bits of glass) we won 6-1. I actually wrote the on-going match report for this game for the Evening Mail and got some very fierce looks from a number of people in their clubhouse (where the telephone was situated) when I described the state of the pitch. The following day we played at the Meadowbank Stadium against Meadowbank Thistle and came back from being 2-0 down to win 3-2. My claim to fame on that occassion was eating a scotch pie in what was then the Royal Box

[barrowaberdeen]

Cheers gents. Love the newspaper articles too. Nice one.

[Colin Appleton]

We definitely played at Dunfermline Athletic in a preseason game possibly early 70's the reason I know was I was a kid at the time and was on a family holiday in nearby Alloa but didn't go to the match because my Dad and I didn't know about the game in those pre-internet days until the following day.

[Colin Appleton]

Reading the earlier posts and with reference to unforgettable moments can anyone remember Tony Hatley in the Ron Yeats era telling or should that be shouting out to a Barrow fan who was giving him stick to F:!k off. What made it embarrassing at the time was that Holker Street was completely quiet at the time - there must have only been about 300 if that, inside the ground.

[Jonty]

Reading the earlier posts and with reference to unforgettable moments can anyone remember Tony Hatley in the Ron Yeats era telling or should that be shouting out to a Barrow fan who was giving him stick to F:!k off. What made it embarrassing at the time was that Holker Street was completely quiet at the time - there must have only been about 300 if that, inside the ground.

Is it fair to say that the whole Barrow football support fell off the cliff post 1972 and never recovered. Reading of crowds of 300 in the initial non league years at at a time when football was probably enjoying a purple patch nationally and going the game was still an affordable past time. If the crowds of the late 60’s had stayed on board, the speedway never happened, could then perhaps the club got itself back on track? We’ll never know of course. But it is something I’ve thought about. You read programme notes from mid to late 60’s and I visualise a club doing ok, operating full time, ok crowds, tidy four sided ground with recently new floodlights, certainly doing as well as some of the other lower league sides who probably faced the same challenges. A bit of cup success and a promotion and then within the space of 5 years it’s all turned upside down. Very difficult to get my head around it. What was the chain of events that led to this dramatic fall. Top of the third to out of the league and 300 crowds in 5 short seasons. What happened!!

[blue nige]

Well jonty it started when Colin Appleton became ill and then we took on a manager called Norman Boddell who dismantled the team and tried to change too much,relegation followed and then the decision to allow Speedway which ruined the ground and alienated us from other clubs who voted us out of the league if the speedway hadn't happened we would never have got voted out of the league and if we had of survived that season we had a manager called Jack Compton who had arrived from Man Utd and I genuinely believe he would have built the club up and developed it into a much more professional outfit.