Memory Lane York City - famous anniversary date 10/02/24

[Stuart W]

Saturday’s forthcoming home game against York City will be 56 years to the day when we played the Minstermen in another league game at Roots Hall. That game will be indelibly engraved in all Blues fans memory banks of a certain vintage, as it marked the home debuts of the great Howard Moore….oh yes and also a certain Billy Best.
Moore went on to only play a handful of further games for the club, whereas Best ended up part of Blues folklore.
Sadly we lost that game 1-0 but for all of us 9134 spectators that day, a legend was born.

 

[ozzie]

Bloody hell..56 years ago..i was also at that game,got the prog but dont remember that game..so that was the game a "STAR" was born

 

[B.B.The Legend Lives On.]

Saturday’s forthcoming home game against York City will be 56 years to the day when we played the Minstermen in another league game at Roots Hall. That game will be indelibly engraved in all Blues fans memory banks of a certain vintage, as it marked the home debuts of the great Howard Moore….oh yes and also a certain Billy Best.
Moore went on to only play a handful of further games for the club, whereas Best ended up part of Blues folklore.
Sadly we lost that game 1-0 but for all of us 9134 spectators that day, a legend was born.

Thanks for this Stuart, remember this match like it was yesterday. both Billy's previous two league matches for us were away starting with a 0-0 draw at Chester followed by the famous or rather infamous 2-0 defeat at the mud bath of Somerton Park the former home of Newport County some 10 days later. Billy actually made his scoring home debut a couple of days after the draw at Chester in a reserve match against Luton Town in a 5-1 win. Our forward line-up that particular night was Howard Moore, Phil Chisnall, Andy Smillie, Billy Best and John McKinven. I remember being slightly disappointed at that time as Billy Best was similar in size to Andy Smillie and everyone at that time was hoping for the old fashion big lump of a No.9 for them to play alongside him, something we waited 11 months for when we signed the late great Gary Moore. (In Ernie Shepherd we could always trust). Howard Moore made just 6+1sub first team appearances for us where as Billy Best went on to play a total of 246 +1sub matches for our club amassing a total of 123 goals between 1968-1973. It is now over 50+ years since Billy Best last played for our football club but people still speak to me about his time at Roots Hall with so much love and affection and in Billy's very own words "I just wanted to play regular first team football and Southend United gave me that opportunity to do just that. They paid around £3,000 to sign me and my main task was to score a few goals for the team, something I was able to do with the help of my team mates and to please the supporters who always supported me back then." Billy Best, The King of Roots Hall, a more modest man you are unlikely to ever meet and one of life's pleasure to be able to call him a friend some 56 years later.

 

[shallowshrimper]

Sadly I cant remember the York match. I do remember however BB and Howard Moore in their first appearance at Roots Hall a few days before. We had a convincing win against Luton possibly in the old football combination. I was telling everybody that Howard Moore was the one to watch out for. Billy Best was ok but Moore was my tip for the future.

Back then I was young and clueless and have graduated to old and clueless. This explains why I don't post on here much

 

[Billy Bests boot laces]

Was that the game which was on Southern TV the next day on the Sunday afternoon?.

 

[* ORM *]

Was that the game which was on Southern TV the next day on the Sunday afternoon?.

Southern TV! Kids of today have missed out on so much. We were posh and had two aerials so we could get Thames, Southern and Anglia. We also had a remote control push button channel ITT. or put another way my Dad changed channels using a snooker cue. Hours of fun were had watching the test card.

 

[B.B.The Legend Lives On.]

Was that the game which was on Southern TV the next day on the Sunday afternoon?

Yes Tony it was, below are other matches that were shown on Television back then

The following Southend United matches were shown on Southern Soccer /(Meridian).
1966-67. Southend United v Halifax Town. (1-0).
1967-68. Southend United v York City. (0-1).
1968-69. Southend United v Doncaster Rovers. (2-0).
1977-78. Aldershot v Southend United. (3-0).
1981-82. Portsmouth v Southend United. (0-0).

The following Southend United matches were shown on Match of the Week (Anglia).
1962-63. Peterborough United v Southend United. (1-3).
" Colchester United v Southend United. (3-1).
1963-64. Peterborough United v Southend United. (3-0).
1965-66. Peterborough United v Southend United. (4-2).
1973-74. Peterborough United v Southend United. (F.A.Cup). (3-1).
" Cambridge United v Southend United. (3-1).
1974-75. Southend United v Queens Park Rangers. (F.A.Cup). (2-2).
" Southend United v Preston North End. (1-1).
1975-76. Southend United v Port Vale. (3-3).
" Peterborough United v Southend United. (3-2).
" Derby County v Southend United. (F.A.Cup). (1-0).
" Colchester United v Southend United. (2-1).
1976-77. Cambridge United v Southend United. (2-3).
1977-78. Southend United v Watford. (1-0).
1978-79. Southend United v Bury. (0-0)
1979-80. Southend United v Wimbledon. (1-3).
1980-81. Southend United v Bury. (1-0).
" Southend United v Lincoln City. (0-0).
1981-82. Southend United v Portsmouth. (2-0).

Possibly other Southend United matches were shown in some other reginal areas.??

However while I was doing this research I found out that back in the winter of 1963 (January) when lots of games had been postponed for over 2 months Match of the Week on Angia T.V. showed the following 3 matches.
Sat. Jan. 5th.1963, Cambridge United v Bedford Town.
Sat. Jan.12th.1963. Ipswich Town Reserves v Nottingham Forest Reserves.
Sat. Jan. 26th.1963. Bedford Town v Cambridge United. (BIZARRE or WHAT)??

 

[Billy Bests boot laces]

Yes Tony it was, below are other matches that were shown on Television back then

Incredible research Dave, well done!. I'm somewhat embarrassed to admit that although attending the York City game that i mentioned, i was unable to watch it on Southern Soccer the following day.
This was because at the time i was a member of the 'Crusaders', a type of Boys Brigade/ Scouts set-up, who met on a Sunday afternoon ( Cliff Richard was an honourable member! ).
My dear, now deceased Mum, insisted my younger brother & me attended the Crusaders weekly meet, & that was that!.

 

[ozzie]

Well done Dave,took some hard work.
Only game i was not at (southern/Meridian 5 games) was the Halifax one.
Do you know if you can order/buy any of those games(dvd highlights) from any of those tv companies?
Many years ago you could from Anglia tv.Wanted to get the CUFC vSUFC game (76-77),but sadly didnt buy it

 

[LBBlue]

Bits of the programme.

Sam McMillan was a change instead of injured Andy Smillie. Tony Bentley and Joe Ashworth were also missing because of injury.

Billy ended up scoring 14 in the last 16 games having not scored in his first 4

 

[Mick]

Refwatch for that York game: Ray Tinkler from Boston who went on to referee top matches and particularly in 1971 when he took charge of the Leeds v WBA match when he allowed a goal after a WBA player, Tony Brown, was allowed to run from the halfway line and slip the ball to a suspiciously also offside Jeff Astle to score. The Leeds players had all stopped as the linesman had flagged for an initial offside with the referee standing firm with his decision that the player had been in his own half. The linesman had flagged for a different uninvolved player. (Goodness knows how long it would have taken VAR to sort that out!) Carnage followed and crowd misbehaviour resulted in Elland Road being closed for four matches the following season which were played at a neutral venue. Ray Tinkler is, to the best of my knowledge, still alive at the age of 95 and was actively involved in football administration up to his 80s.

 

[B.B.The Legend Lives On.]

Possibly other Southend United matches were shown in some other reginal areas.??

H.T.V. or Harlech Television.
1973-74. Bristol Rovers v Southend United. (4-0)

 

[My Name Escapes Me]

Possibly other Southend United matches were shown in some other reginal areas.??

H.T.V. or Harlech Television.
1973-74. Bristol Rovers v Southend United. (4-0)

I think I remember seeing brief highlights of that on the Big Match. Bristol Rovers had won 8-2 away at Brian Clough's Brighton the week before so we probably got off relatively lightly.

 

[Billy Bests boot laces]

Remember watching the F.A cup 3rd rd game at Peterborough highlights in Jan 74, on Anglian TV the following afternoon.
When the final whistle blew Me & 3 others who are no longer with us ( Tricky Dicky, Al Vincent & Paul Osborne all RIP ) jumped over the wall of the away end ( there was a poor turnout from us ) & walked a few yds round the touchline to jump over into the Paddock to make our escape. That was because from around 20 mins before the end, loads of them had left the ground & were all waiting outside the away end exit!. We would have got battered!.
And back on topic at the final whistle, the TV cameras were still focused on the pitch, & we were in it!. First time i saw myself on TV, although not in the circumstances i would have hoped!.