M'FRIEND FOR JUST ANOTHER YEAR

With our run in the FA Cup still in most peoples' memories, it is easy to forget Chesterfield's last success in a major cup competition.  By major I mean one which is listed in the Playfair Football Annual list of honours.  It was a competition in which we beat a club that has qualified for Europe every other year for the past thirty-five years.  This was a knock-out competition which they realised could never be surpassed and so we are the current holders of the trophy.  It graces our cabinet along with a replica of the Canon League Division Four trophy and the Littlewoods Giant Killer award.  Perhaps it is a good job for the FA that we didn't win their cup a few years ago- precedent suggests they might never have got it back.

The 'Scottie'

The Anglo-Scottish Cup was a competition founded in 1970 using the name of the first domestic sponsors of football- Texaco.  After being won by teams such as Derby, Wolves and Ipswich (who beat Norwich in front of over 60,000) the oil crisis meant that the sponsors pulled out and the competition was renamed 'The Anglo-Scottish Cup'.  This was a joint enterprise between the two leagues and without sponsors became a pre-season event for mainly lower division clubs, the winners of English regional groups being invited to play Scottish clubs in an eight team knock-out.  The reigning champions were St. Mirren when the Spireites made this one and only excursion into European football.

Geoff Salmons highly influential

Better late than never

By rights Chesterfield should not have been in the competition at all but top flight Sunderland pulled out at the last minute and the lure of a pre-season skirmish with Sheffield Utd prompted Town to take their place.  The opening stage was a four team group with just one to qualify.  We fielded a full strength side against Sheffield United including new signing Danny Wilson.  A Bonnyman goal watched by the seven thousand at Saltergate saw a victory notched against our closest rivals in this mid-summer contest.  A three-all draw at Grimsby, champions of our division the season before, gave us two points!  One for the result and a second for the three goals scored by Moss and Salmons(2).  This meant that a one-all home draw against Hull was sufficient for us to top the group with the Birch penalty being decisive.

Out of the hat

All these matches took place before the end of the first week in August.  The draw for the quarter-finals was made before the league season started

        Notts County v Morton

        Blackpool v Kilmarnock

        Bury v Airdrieonians

        Chesterfield v Rangers

It was some eight weeks before the formalities of a victory by the winners of seventy domestic titles over the 1969/70 fourth division champions could be arranged.  Such are the problems of being such a major international force (and we had to consider Rangers' plans too). 

The first leg was at Ibrox Stadium in front of 11700 bemused Scotsmen, and some 300 Spireites, some of whom travelled by aeroplane.  Phil Walker scored one of only 13 away goals at Ibrox that year direct from a corner, (the 'keeper was Scottish after all) even an equaliser for Scottish Cup-winners hardly hid their embarrassment.

Phil Walker scored at Ibrox

Back home

There was always the second leg; here surely the might of Scotland would put little Chesterfield in their place.  John Greig, the Ranger manager, certainly thought so.  In the press he was confident to the extent of a patronising arrogance.  He described Colin Tartt as the worst full-back in Europe.  What the condescending Scottish press did not realise was that this was probably the best Chesterfield side in the last forty years and that it was playing at it's peak.  It was also losing £300,000 a year due to its wage bills.  We were, after all, top of the league and since the first leg we had scored three goals away at both Reading and Blackpool.  The fact that we had then lost, for the first time that season at Saltergate, against Walsall, did not stem local confidence.  What followed exceeded all Chesterfield dreams and stunned the press in England as well as Scotland.

Colin Tartt was he really the worst full-back in Europe?

Whoops Scottie!

There were officially just under 14,000 at the match but the ground was as full as I have known it in 25 years.  Anyone counting on a drink before or after found the town-centre closed.  The several thousand Scottish fans present saw Rangers humiliated.  Phil Bonnyman, born in Glasgow and released by the Rangers, hit a brace while Ernie Moss got the third.  John Turner then saved a late penalty. 

The full team was: Turner, Tartt, Pollard, Wilson, Green, Ridley, Birch, Moss, Bonnyman, Salmons and Walker. 

Prior to last season's FA Cup run I considered this match to be the third best in my 25 years watching the Spireites. (The play-off win over Mansfield was number two)  Next time I will explain why, prior to Old Trafford, a match in this Cup was my most memorable in a quarter of a century.

By Pete Whiteley

Tickets are available from the Club Office and the Spar Shop on Whittington Moor,

it is an all-ticket event, so don't miss out!

OVER 300 ALREADY SOLD.

AGENDA

7.30 Introduction

7.35 Film footage of the players, some contemporary action and goals

7.55 Interviews with the Players and Management about that 1980-81 triumph

8.30 Break / Pie & Pea Supper whilst film of Chesterfield games from 1980-81 against Millwall, Walsall and Charlton Athletic are shown. Your opportunity to talk to the Players, have your photo taken with the Cup and browse around the displays. The Bar will be open

9.30 General Question & Answer Session with the Players and Management

10.15 Close