By John Taylor

With the number of Town substitutes netting this season, I thought it worth a look at the history of this recent phenomenon. To date, this season, we've scored 12 substitute goals out of a grand total of 68 in all competitions since substitutes were first allowed in 1965. In the early days, Town had a reputation for not liking to use subs and an article I once read in the early 70's had us with far fewer substitute appearances than any other club. Even as late as the 79-80 season, we were still wary of the idea and used only 5 subs all season in the league.

The honour of being our first scoring sub went to Charlie Bell who netted at Meadow Lane on Boxing Day 1968 in a 2-1 defeat. Malcolm Darling was next, at Colchester in February 76 in a 3-2 win, whilst our first home effort was by Stuart Parker in a 1-1 draw with Tranmere in December 1977. Steve Cammack became the first Town sub to score twice when he netted winners in successive home games in 1978 against Southend United and Swansea City.

The first to hit 2 in a game was David Windridge in a 3-0 victory over Fulham in September 1981 and this has been repeated only twice: by Steve Norris against Carlisle in 1994 and Caleb Folan at Bradford City earlier this season.

Our first two cup goals were memorable events indeed. Gary Simpson scored the first, in the FA Cup replay against Sheffield United in December 1980 when we beat the Blades 1-0. It was our last FA Cup replay victory and, in fact, we've won only 1 second round game since. Additionally, it remains our only substitute goal in that tournament. The second cup goal was scored by Alan Crawford in the Anglo-Scottish Cup Final Second Leg at Meadow Lane and won us the trophy-which we've still got. Amazingly, until Mark Allott scored at Grimsby to win the first round game in 2002, we had never had a scoring substitute in the League Cup in all its guises. We then followed it up in the next round against West Ham with a goal by sub Chris Brandon, now of today's opponents, Huddersfield. Luke Beckett, recent Terriers' loanee from Sheffield United, provides the only other link with our visitors with his only sub strike for us against Cardiff (2-2) in our infamous 2000/01 promotion season.

Our first scoring debutant was Scott Cordner at Peterborough in November 1990 (in a game where we had 7 bookings). He never scored for us again, along with 3 other scoring subs: Gavin McDonald (v Fulham in 1988), Darren Williams (v York in 1990) and Andy Rushbury (at Wycombe in 2003).

One thing that is amusing is that in each of the seasons when the number of substitutes has been increased, we have actually failed to register a single league goal from a sub: 1965/66, 1987/88 and 1995/96 proving that we certainly don't adapt to these changes very swiftly. Darren Roberts did, however, score in the Associate Members Cup victory over Rochdale in 1995 when coming off the bench.

Lee Turnbull and Steve Norris hold the distinction of being our only scoring substitutes with penalties, whilst Ryan Williams is our only golden goal sub with his wondrous winner at Millmoor in our 4-3 victory of December 2000 after we'd given up a 3-goal lead.

All records, however, have been broken this season, probably because the manager actually believes in using substitutes unlike many of his predecessors. Caleb Folan is our highest ever sub goalscorer with 6 to date, and Tcham N'Toya's winner against Port Vale was with his first touch of the ball as he came on after we'd been awarded a corner and headed in from the resultant dead ball for the only goal of the game. The first game of the season also gave us a first: 2 substitutes scoring in the same game with Caleb and Tcham doing the business against Brentford.

Carlisle United prove to be our most scored against team with scorers coming from the bench. The most dramatic of these was David Moss's injury time equaliser at Brunton Park in April 95, which took us to 17 games unbeaten against the team who ended up champions and a few weeks later broke our sequence of 21 undefeated games by winning 2-1 at the Rec. Who scored the Cumbrians' goals that evening? None other than that Saltergate favourite David Reeves!

In summary, the table below shows our overall games record when a substitute has hit the net-quite impressive-it's such a pity that it's been such a rare event!