Escape from Ayresome

After having faced one team from the north east the Saturday before, 40 years ago today, Forest had to face another. They'd beaten Newcastle United at home 1-0 and now faced the relatively long (about 130 miles or 209 km) trip to Middlesbrough for a Wednesday night fixture. Only Newcastle (256 km) and Bristol (220 km) were further away trips for Forest in the league that season so it must have been a bit of struggle to get to - thanks again are due, presumably, to Ian White for a lift there.

Forest had soundly beaten 'Boro 4-0 earlier in the season. My blog for that match covered their history, including the important period when Brian Clough and Peter Taylor played for them. So here, I'll focus on Ayresome Park, a proper football ground, alas no longer in existence and Middlesbrough's frustrating lack of success in their long history.

Seventh Game in March

Like most clubs, Forest and Boro had been hit hard with the weather that winter and now that it had started to get a little warmer, each week presented an opportunity to catch up with lost fixtures. This was an especially busy time as it was around Easter and more so for Forest, as they'd had two long cup runs both including several replays.

This was Forest's seventh game in March, their 25th in the last four months.

Forest's 45th game of the season, and it was still March

Bad as this might sound, it was actually Boro's 8th game of the month. They'd played six in the league and the two games against Orient in the F.A. Cup quarter finals - one they sadly lost. As my mate (aptly named "Boro") describes below, it should have been their first ever semi final appearance but instead that privilege went to Orient.

To rub salt into that wound, Boro had just lost at home to bottom of the league Leicester City two days before, the Foxes' only away win of the season. In fact since Forest had beaten Newcastle on Saturday, there had been no fewer than ten first division games to complete the Easter programme. There wasn't much good news for Forest. Everton had won again at Manchester United, 2-1 with both goals from Bob Latchford, to close the gap to just one point (but Forest now had four games in hand.) This was the toffees' third consecutive win and their form certainly meant Forest needed not to slip up at Middlesbrough.

Trevor Francis scored two more too, in their 3-0 win against West Ham, to keep his chase going to be the league's top scorer. Francis had now scored eight goals in as many games.

10 matches played earlier that week

So the table looked like this as we drove north for the match that afternoon...

Everton just one point behind now
(actually there's an error in this table - it doesn't include Derby's 4-2 win over Liverpool)

Ayresome Park - not Paradise, but a proper football ground

Memory plays tricks on you and I was under the strange impression I hadn't gone to this match until I checked my original records. I must have made a data entry error in my database as it hadn't come up when I did my usual searching.

Proof (to me at least) that I did go to Middlesbrough 40 years ago from my hand-written original records

So, this would be my 42nd English league ground visited.

42nd Ground

Ayresome Park was a proper football ground, surrounded by terraced housing, pretty much in the middle of town. It was built, in 1903, right next to the previous ground of another Middlesbrough club, that had recently been disbanded, the splendidly named Middlesbrough Ironopolis, whose ground was even more splendidly named - "The Paradise Ground!"

Middlesbrough Ironopolis were founded by some frustrated Middlesbrough players who wanted to go professional. The other lot were amateur at the time so they formed their own club in order to go pro. Ironopolis only existed for about five years and, along with Bootle F.C., share the distinction of playing just one season in the football league. They did make it to the F.A. Cup quarter final that season too.

The entire Football League History of Middlesbrough Ironopolis

At the end of the season they resigned from the league and were disbanded, never to be seen again.

Middlesbrough F.C. themselves joined the league a few seasons after that but their first four years had been played elsewhere - at Linthorpe Road West cricket ground, if Wikipedia is to be believed.

But the question on my mind is why didn't they just make Paradise Park their ground now that Ironopolis had been disbanded. It would have been nice going to Paradise for a match.

Anyway, in 1902, when Middlesbrough won promotion to the first division in their third season, it was decided they needed a bigger ground and so Ayresome Park was built.

Ayresome Park in the 1930s

The smoggies live here

Of course, to us Forest fans, this was sacred land. It was the original stomping ground of Old Big 'Ed 'imself. As he writes in his autobiography, he lived less than a mile from Ayresome Park. Handy when he started playing there.

Cloughie's House on Valley Road

The jog young Brian used to make when going to Ayresome Park, both long gone now.

The packed terraced housing around the ground reminded me a bit of Derby when we parked and walked towards it. Maybe this is why Peter Taylor thought Derby was a "proper" football town.

Once inside, though, it felt different: It was a lot less claustrophobic but still had great atmosphere as it was filled with passionate fans.

The record attendance at Ayresome Park was 53,596 for a first division match with local rivals Newcastle United in 1949. Both teams were challenging for the championship that season in one of the closest title races ever.

Exciting Season! - Boro's record crowd after doing the double over Newcastle in two days

The game was played on 27th December. The day before, Boxing Day, the two teams had met at St James' Park. Boro fans had a very happy Christmas that year as they did the double over their Geordie rivals. A double in two days after Christmas - both were 1-0 wins.

The Old Boro club entrance

The ground was also used to host three World Cup games in 1966.

Here's a clip from the first one, USSR v North Korea...

Ayresome Park was a World Cup venue in 1966

And here's North Korea's famous 1-0 against Italy on the same ground, a week later.

Forest's record there was very poor as we'd only ever won once, 24 years earlier in a second division match.

Sadly, the ground was demolished early in 1997 as the club decided to build a brand new all-seater stadium by the river Tees.

The old location of Ayresome Park

Here's some sad video compiled just before the final demolition occurred. The land was sold off to developers to build housing, inevitably, I suppose.

Fittingly, many of the street names in the area where the ground once stood have football related names, such as Clough Close, The Holgate and The Turnstile.

New streets named appropriately, at least

Here's a recap of the league history of Middlesbrough compared to Forest's. As I described last time, Boro had a better record than us before the 1977-78 season. Our average absolute position in the league was 24th, theirs 20th. Forest had finished higher in the league than Boro 25 times (biggest margin 1966-67 when we finished 2nd and Boro were 44 places below us, 2nd in the 3rd division). Boro had finished higher than us 43 times (greatest margin in 1938-39 when Boro finished 4th in division one and Forest 20th in the second division, 38 places below them.)

Middlesbrough had a better record overall than us too, in first division games. Before this season had started they were 22nd in the all-time First Division table. Forest were four places below them.

Boro's best three year period, though, was a long time ago.

Boro's best three-year period 1936-39

Despite this superior record than Forest, overall, we had won more silverware than Middlesbrough. Indeed Boro, in their 102 year history, had won almost bugger all.

Middlesbrough, the best team (in 1978) never to have won silverware?

When Forest lifted the League Cup last week (40 years ago) after beating Liverpool at Old Trafford it took our overall trophy record to the total of three. Two F.A. Cup wins and, now, a League Cup win. In 113 years, three trophies isn't great but it's better than nothing, which is precisely the number Middlesbrough had won at this time.

If one measures how good a team is by their last final league position, this would make Middlesbrough the best team in England at that time to have never won a major trophy. Although, to be fair, Coventry City probably deserved that ignominious title more, as they were currently higher placed than Boro in the league.

Best teams to have won nowt, in 1977

It got me thinking though. Middlesbrough had won other titles - they'd won the second division three times, in 1927, 1929 and in 1974. Winning a divisional title surely counts too, right? I mean for the fans of that club even winning the fourth division title would mean as much, if not more, than a big club winning, say, the League Cup. So I decided to include all divisional championships too to see if it helped Boro's reckoning in the silverware table.

It didn't really, other than actually getting them onto the ladder.

If you include all divisional champions trophies on top of F.A. Cup and League Cup (I'm still excluding stuff like the Anglo-Scottish Cup here - which both Boro and Forest had actually won) you get the following table.

Forest are actually helped as much, by these inclusions, as Boro as we'd also won three divisional titles - the second division in 1907 and 1922 and the Third Division (South) title in 1951. We sat in 20th place in the table, Boro down in 42nd.

Having added all these clubs to the English trophy winners table begs a new question - so which league teams, in 1977 had won nothing, not even a divisional title, ever?

The list was now down to just these ten clubs, in order of their final league position in 1976-77. Interesting to see current premier league members Bournemouth in the list.

Ten clubs, in 1977, who had never won anything

On another reckoning, Boro were better than us - they'd been relegated from the first division fewer times. The last time for Boro was 1954 in fact.

So, going into this game, having just lost at home to Leicester a couple of days ago and been dumped out of the F.A. Cup in the 6th Round against Orient, the thought of winning trophies must have been far away from the minds of most Boro fans.

Not us - not that season, anyway. We needed points to keep Everton at bay.

The Teams

For me, the main man in the Boro team was Stuart Boam, ex-Mansfield and local hero to us being from my home town of Kirkby-in-Ashfield. In fact, I recently realised the street he used to live on was just a short walk from mine.

Here's a snapshot of his career record...

I'd forgotten he had a couple of years at Newcastle before returning to Mansfield and had a go at being player/manager without success. After 17 years he finally hung his boots up and worked as a manager at the local Kodak factory and ran a newsagents in Kirkby for a while too before retiring.

John Craggs, Ian Bailey, David Mills, John Hickton, Graeme Hedley
Jimmy Greenhalgh (coach), Peter Brine, Stuart Boam (captain), Pat Cuff, Jim Platt, Alan Ramage, Billy Woof, Willie Maddren.
Terry Cooper, David Armstrong, John Neal (manager), Tony McAndrew, Graeme Souness

Boro were unchanged from their match at home to Leicester on Monday.

Viv Anderson had to miss out and was replaced by Ian Bowyer in the right back position. John O'Hare continued for John McGovern so Forest were hardly at full strength.

Middlesbrough
1 David Brown, 2 John Craggs, 3 Ian Bailey, 4 John Mahoney, 5 Stuart Boam, 6 Alan Ramage, 7 David Mills, 8 Stan Cummins, 9 Billy Ashcroft, 10 Tony McAndrew, 11 Dave Armstrong.
Goals: David Mills (13 min), Stan Cummins (22 min).

Nottingham Forest
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Ian Bowyer, 3 Frank Clark, 4 John O'Hare, 5 David Needham, 6 Kenny Burns, 7 Martin O'Neill, 8 Archie Gemmill, 9 Peter Withe, 10 Tony Woodcock, 11 John Robertson.
Goals : Tony Woodcock (20 min), Martin O'Neill (54 min)

Attendance: 25,445

The Game

I don't remember much about the game at all and just have vague memories of standing somewhere down the side of the ground opposite the main stand in the opposite end to the Holgate End (I think).

It was a bit of a disappointing attendance, considering we were top of the league and it was the triumphant return of Brian Clough, surely one of Middlesbrough's favourite sons. Still, it was their sixth highest league crowd, 18% above the average.

Boro's home crowds this season

So, what follows is the account from the ever reliable John Shipley and his handy book "1977-78 Champions Nottingham Forest". Buy it here.

Martin O'Neill had the first serious shot of the game around ten minutes but three minutes later Forest found themselves a goal down. Dave Armstrong beating our stand in fullback Ian Bowyer a bit too easily, cutting inside before laying a ball to David Mills who rifled in a shot off Shilton's body.

Woodcock almost grabbed the equaliser with the next action before doing so a few minutes later, rounding the goalie to slot home.

No time to relax here as Boro swept back into the lead again two minutes after that. A free kick by Armstrong was met by Billy Ashcroft, beating David Needham in the air. He directed a neat header to Stan Cummins who fired in past Shilton from close range. 2-1.

Forest stormed back and Robbo fired a shot that was blocked by Alan Ramage. Ramage then almost lobbed the ball into his own net before Ian Bailey cleared a shot from Martin O'Neill off the line. Half-time.

Mills almost made it 3-1 early in the second half but fired just wide. Then Martin O'Neill equalised after Peter Withe had combined with Ian Bowyer. Forest then went for the jugular and Robbo slammed a shot against the crossbar.

But with the last seconds of the clock ticking away, Ashcroft sent over a long cross into the box which seemed to be perfect for the incoming David Mills. Apparently with a the whole goal to aim at ("an empty net gaping wider than a whale's mouth" according to Shipley) he put it the wrong side of the post.

The final whistle blew and Forest had escaped with a point and their unbeaten run in the league still intact.

Here's an alternative account of the match and some great Boro-related anecdotes... (by guest writer Andrew Smales.)

Forest 40 Years Ago – An Opposition Perspective (Part II)

Regular readers of Algis’ blog may just remember that he invited me to contribute some memories from the game between Forest and Middlesbrough (my team) back in October.

Those of you who actually read my contribution will recall that I padded out my limited recollections of the match itself with a few paragraphs of history and philosophy, and I’m going to do a bit more of the same here.

A bit more about Boro and me

Throughout my time at Nottingham University, I was known by the name of my favourite football team. I was originally given the nickname ‘Boro’ by the first group of friends I made there – none of whom were really into football – allegedly because I talked about nothing else. Let me explain why this perception may have arisen…

In my earlier piece I gave a brief potted history of my time following the Boro, having been taken along by my Dad from a very early age. While that tale focused very much on events on the pitch, one thing I didn’t really talk about was how big a part the football team played in everyday life.

I grew up on the outskirts of Middlesbrough, in what was then a fairly small village called Marton-In-Cleveland. Historically, it is best known as the birthplace of Captain James Cook, the first Yorkshire captain to tour Australia successfully (ho ho). In later years it was the birthplace of an extraordinarily successful youth football team, Marton FC, which in its 35 years of existence has produced more than 60 professional footballers, including England internationals Jonathan Woodgate and Stewart Downing.

My parents were originally from Middlesbrough itself. My Mum was from the working class suburb of Grove Hill, where she went to school with Brian Clough. Probably employing a bit of hindsight, she claimed that she never liked him because he was ‘a bit too full of himself’. The least enthusiastic football fan in our family, she had a season ticket with the rest of us throughout the 70’s but claimed that she only really went to feast her eyes on captain Stuart Boam’s lovely long legs.

My Dad was from the more middle-class suburb of Acklam, and was actually a good standard rugby player, but even he lived and breathed the football club. He was also a business associate and friend of the Boro Chairman, Charlie Amer, who owned a hotel in Marton, while in later life he became friendly with Alan Peacock who was Clough’s first striking partner (and, by many accounts, a better all-round footballer).

On the street where I grew up we had the Boro right back Alec Smith as a neighbour, while living just around the corner was one of Boro’s finest servants, Harold Shepherdson. For those unfamiliar with the name, Shepherdson was officially ‘Trainer’ for the England World Cup winning side, effectively Alf Ramsey’s number 2, and he fulfilled a similar role for Boro over many years. I went to school with his daughters, one of whom married another Boro footballer, Frank Spraggon.

During the summer I played cricket for Marton juniors, where our most feared opponent was a chap called Alan Ramage. He was 6 feet tall at 12 years old, was rumoured to ‘offer out’ any opposition who beat his team, and he went on to play professional cricket for Yorkshire and football for Boro – he was in the team both times we played Forest in 77/78. (Since you ask, I also played cricket against England international Bill Athey and once hit him for four through midwicket)

And my experience wasn’t that unusual in Middlesbrough, a small town where everybody took an interest in the football club and where the players were part of the community. So going to University, where I was suddenly surrounded by people who weren’t all that bothered about football, was a bit of a culture shock.

My relationship with Nottingham Forest

I described in my earlier piece the agony of watching Boro lose at Forest in October 1977, and as I said in that piece “in the coming months as the nightmare of Forest’s title win came to pass, I raged and argued and bet with people that they would fail.”

The strange thing was, though, that the people I argued with weren’t actually fans of Nottingham Forest. I had briefly known Algis, but he left the University before I really got to know him. None of the other students that I knew were from Nottingham, and the members of staff that were from the area didn’t really follow football. But as Forest’s success became more and more obvious, so everybody started talking about how nice it was that the local team was doing well. “No it bloody isn’t, they don’t deserve it!” I raged to the world.

It was during this period that I had a brief relationship with a student nurse called Ruth, who turned out to be the daughter of the Forest Chairman, Stuart Dryden. We didn’t talk much about football, although she would occasionally drop into conversation that she had been chatting in the players’ lounge with Tony Woodcock or Kenny Burns, but it did temper my raging a little and inspired me to actually go and watch them a few times at the City Ground. [Which in later life would allow me hypocritically to impress people with tales of how ‘I was there’ during Forest’s glory years.]

But I digress…

Boro v Forest, March 1978

The game between Boro and Forest represented (for me at least) the last opportunity to salvage something from the season. I had by this time accepted that Forest were going to win the league, but maybe we could still have the satisfaction of ending their long unbeaten run.

Unfortunately, we came into the game under a cloud. While Forest had been running away with the league and winning the League Cup, Boro had given us hope by advancing to the FA Cup 6^th Round – but that hope had been dashed by a demoralising defeat at 2^nd Division Leyton Orient. To put this in context, at the time Boro had never progressed beyond the 6^th Round in their history. We had only ever got that far twice before 1970, but this was the 4^th time in 8 years that we had done so and had been by far our best chance of progressing.

That defeat had effectively ended our season, although a fixture backlog meant that the match against Forest was our 5^th game in just 2 weeks since it had happened, the most recent of which had been a depressing home loss to Leicester just 2 days earlier on Easter Monday.

So no great expectations for the match, but if I remember correctly there was a fairly decent crowd there. And I recall that the home fans gave a fairly generous (over-generous in my bitter mind) reception to the champions elect before the game. No doubt some residual affection for Cloughie, although he had spoken harshly about Boro’s fans over the years, but more a genuine appreciation for the team itself.

I don’t recall too much about the game itself, to be honest, and had to look up the goal scorers. Stan Cummins got the first (which I vaguely recall as a crisp half-volley from close to the penalty spot, although I may be thinking of another game!) while David Mills got the second.

Just a brief word on the two scorers, as each had a place in Boro history. Cummins had come into the team as a 17-year-old, he was only 5 feet 4 but had dazzling feet and a big heart and was inevitably compared to the equally diminutive Wilf Mannion (Boro’s original Golden Boy). If that wasn’t pressure enough, before he had even broken into the first team his manager (Jack Charlton) had publicly predicted that he might go on to be the first million-pound footballer. He never quite lived up to that, but the fans loved him, and he was even forgiven when he moved to Sunderland (for a club record £300,000 rather than a million).

The other scorer, David Mills, did actually break a British transfer record, becoming the first ever half-million pound footballer when he moved to West Brom. Unlike Cummins, Mills never really won the hearts of Boro fans despite being part of the legendary promotion-winning side of 1974 and being our top scorer on multiple occasions in the top flight. But we all felt it was a disgrace that he never won an England cap above Under 23 level.

Back to the game: I remember the ecstatic celebration of each goal, but Forest seemed to equalise fairly effortlessly on each occasion. Late on I remember a couple chances on the break, but both fell to Cummins who didn’t have the energy to make anything of them. So Forest remained unbeaten, and I remained frustrated. My only small consolation was that it was during the Easter holiday so I was back home in Middlesbrough, and I was still there a few weeks later when Forest clinched the league title. I was almost able to pretend it wasn’t really happening.

In Conclusion

Having been given the opportunity to contribute to this great piece of nostalgia, I can’t pass up the opportunity to give credit where I have stubbornly refused to do so for forty years. So here goes:

Peter Shilton – you were the best goalkeeper I ever saw, from your game at Boro as a teenager with Leicester in 1969, to the penalty save you made as Plymouth player/manager against Boro at the age of 42 in 1992

Viv Anderson – you went from ungainly colt to cool classy full back before my very eyes

Frank Clark – well done, old man

Larry Lloyd – I still don’t like you, but you were solid as a rock

Kenny Burns – what a transformation from flashy striker to unbeatable defender

John McGovern – let’s just say your skillset was obviously too sophisticated for me to understand

Martin O’Neill – I loved your energy and understated contribution as a player

Archie Gemmill – you were world class and I’ll never understand why Derby let you go

Peter Withe – your trophies speak for themselves

Tony Woodcock – for me you were the most typical and likeable Clough player ever

John Robertson – I still don’t know what your secret was, but you made all us non-athletes believe that we could have been professional footballers too

Brian Clough & Peter Taylor – I’m obviously really proud that you were made in Middlesbrough, if only you had pitched your tents there rather than in Nottingham

Algis – well done old chap, my carping at your team’s success over the years was only ever jealousy of course, I’m glad you got to enjoy it all.

Cheers,

Boro

Marton-in-Cleveland. In case anyone else wanted a reminder of its geographic location

And here's the account from the Guardian.

Other Games

Playing the same night were three other games but there was no significant change as all of them ended in draws.

So Forest at least stretched their lead a little - back to two points with three games in hand.

Lead back to two points

David Mills' goal kept him in the frame at the top of the first division goal scorer's table.

David Mills, Boro's top scorer

But the battle to be the league's top scorer was really hotting up with Bob Latchford and Trevor Francis both scoring goals for fun.

Bob Latchford v Trevor Francis

Mind the Gap

Forest had now been top of the league since beating Ipswich Town 4-0 at the City Ground on 4th October. That was 176 days, or 23 games, ago. 

Here's a chart of some selected teams in the first division and how they'd progressed over the season so far. Note how Manchester United started well, but quickly fell away. Everton started badly (beaten by Forest at home on the opening day) and recovered to be our biggest title challengers. Manchester City, apart from a dip in form in the middle also challenged. Liverpool and Arsenal hovered around the top six most of the season as did Leeds. Chelsea struggled. Derby started badly but after appointing Tommy Docherty rose to mid table. Leicester struggled after a bright start and Boro bounced around mid table all season.

The gap at the top increased up to six points for a while but in the last few weeks, Everton had closed the gap significantly, albeit while Forest were playing in the cup, usually.

Forest had led the table for 174 days but the gap was narrowing

But Everton, thanks to a four match winning streak, had finally knocked Forest off the top of the  current form table.. we slipped to 3rd.

Our unbeaten run in the league was building nicely though. Now at 16.

Forest now unbeaten in the league in 16 games

Hopefully Forest could keep this unbeaten run going and also get back to winning ways in their next match, in four days time, at home to struggling Chelsea.

The Programme