OK, if you can't quite get yourself over to SUEPA Facebook, here is our latest SUEPA season-by-season membership review for your delight as you await this evenings entertainment at Wealdstone ....
"As we prepared for the 1973-74 season, we were all going a bit soppy - Donny Osmond topped the charts with ‘Young Love’ closely followed by David Cassidy’s ‘Daydreamer’. Those cringy pop tunes though masked life in reality – the IRA stepped up their UK mainland campaign with the Guilford pub bombings and targeting a coach of soldiers on the M62, we all go shopping for candles and are on a three-day week due to coal strikes, and the government is left in limbo-land as the February 1974 election leaves us with the first Hung Parliament since 1929. It’s all too much for Lord Lucan who decides to bog off. In better news, Bagpuss airs for the first time on TV.
In the 1973-74 club handbook Chairman Bill Rubin speaks of his disappointment with the previous campaign, though Mr Rowley himself rebuts that a couple of pages later by retorting “we handed out some pretty good thrashings”. Whatever, expectations for the campaign ahead were high. Nelson L Mitchell, who first watched SUFC in 1910 at the original Roots Hall, stepped up to become Club President (when did we stop having Club Presidents?). The handbook reassuringly goes on to say that trainer/physio John Lattimer’s hobby is ‘watching football’ and advertises annual membership of the supporter’s club for a fee of five new pence.
In the end the campaign ends up being a bit ‘meh’. We again finish ‘middle-diddle’ in the league, and though the annual assault at Wembley starts off with a promising ‘damn good thrashing’ of Boreham Wood (and a bit of a ruck on the terraces), we end up losing to Posh in Round Three and our League Cup form follows the tradition of falling at the first hurdle.
We do though welcome a new goal-machine, as Stuart Brace jets in from Grimsby and proceeds to feed off the commanding presence of Chris Guthrie and bag 22, most of them from less than two yards out. We caught up with Stuart two yards outside Home Park (where he has a season ticket) a couple of seasons ago – he still looks exactly the same.
Steaming down the wing (albeit puffing a bit) is another new face, the red-cheeked Willie Coulson, who does show us flashes of his undoubted talent especially with the dead ball. Arfur certainly liked recruiting them from Newcastle – Dave Elliott, Chris Guthrie and Terry Johnson were all, like Willie, tempted away from St James’s Park to the soon-to-be-extinguished bright floodlights (due to power saving regulations) of Roots Hall. Indeed, the dressing room back then had a distinctly northern feel – Alan Moody from Middlesborough had joined the season before, Ilkeston-born Dennis Booth came from Blackpool, and our scouts swooped on Brechin City to bring down south wee Davie Cunningham who couldn’t be understood by anybody. Now, Dave still lives in Southend, and is a regular at Micky Gee’s pub in the city, but we still have yet to tempt him to be our match day guest, so if anyone can have a word do tell Dave to get in touch as we’d love to bring him back to Roots.
Another new man up front as we struggled a bit to find our feet in a post Billy Best era was Peter Silvester. He joined part way through and certainly showed some real class, scoring in the 85th minute on his debut in a 3-3 thriller away at Aldershot and ending up with six goals from 17 starts. ‘Silvo’ was one of our guests at our ‘Smithy’s Army Day’ back in March 2019 – “I’m not sure why I’m here today” he told us – “Smithy didn’t really like me and transferred me out almost as soon as he arrived!”
At the back we welcomed three new players who all went on to serve the club with distinction. Andy Ford came in on a free from Bournemouth and made 155 appearances in four years, Neil Townsend, who once scored a goal from the half-way line, arrived from Northampton Town and made 178 appearances before moving to Bournemouth in 1979, and then there was Dave Worthington. Dave arrived at Roots Hall with quite a bit of experience having started off at Halifax in 1961 and, via Barrow, amassing over 300 appearances at Grimsby (where he struck up a friendship with Stuart Brace and Gary Moore). He was just one of those no-nonsense players whose enthusiasm was infectious, and he would frequently wave his fists at the West Stand to get the crowd noise going. Another to wear the SUFC shirt on more than 100 occasions, Dave was just one of those players who (unlike his brother Frank) rarely hit the headlines (he did though hit a few opponents) but just had a special aura about him. Since SUEPA has been in operation we’ve had the pleasure of catching up with Dave, Neil and Andy each on more than one occasion, and it’s always great to hear their stories on footballing life in the 1970’s.
That just leaves us with one last, but certainly not least, new 1973/74 face to mention – Webby (no, not Dave – he was still busy battering anyone who looked his way at Stamford Bridge back then). Malcolm Webster was signed from Fulham part-way through the 73/74 campaign and instantly made the number one jersey his own, saving a last-minute penalty away at Plymouth to earn us a point and earning himself a reputation as a keeper who could pull off some spectacular saves. Another to get a ton-up as a Shrimper before leaving for Cambridge United for whom he is rightly inducted into their Hall of Fame, Malcolm went on to have a distinguished coaching career. He is another who we’d love to get back to Roots Hall as our guest one day.
So, 1973-74 gave us a squad full of top names and we say with pride that every one of them still alive is a SUEPA member. On the pitch things were up and down, and we had to wait until the last home match of the season to stuff anyone in the league when Grimsby were dispatched 4-1, but there were some interesting moments. One such came on 24 February 1974 when we played our first ever Sunday match as the government relented to pressure to allow clubs to seek new ways of trying to improve revenue in the daylight whilst there was a ban on turning on those big humming bubs. However, at the time the 1780 Observance Act prohibited charging entry to matches on a Sunday, so that rule was circumvented by inviting fans to buy a team sheet (in addition to the match programme) on the way in. Anyone recall that or taking advantage of the turnstile that had to let you in for free if you decided not to take up the team sheet purchase?! The match attracted Roots Hall’s best crowd of the season of 10,054."
