| Davenport's Diary |
taken from the Gloucester City v's Evesham United (FA Trophy) matchday programme - Tuesday October 4th 2003 |
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| They say that everyone knows what they were doing when JFK was shot, or when Hilda Ogden left the Street. But such events pail into insignificance when you mention City’s 3-0 victory against the Robins in the FA Cup 15 years ago. Well locally they do, unless you are a Cheltenham fan, when the chances are you didn’t even know there was a football club in the town until the words football league started appearing in the Echo, in the Echo. We have gone our different ways since then, but what price a first round draw this season? 10, 15 and 25 years ago the teams were more likely to meet in the FA Cup qualifiers |
| 1978 |
| City Manager Bob Mursell comes out of hospital after being on traction and proves his fitness by running the New York Marathon in 25 minutes. |
| A Dick Pepworth goal earns 4th placed City a 1-1 draw at home to Alvechurch. Following the game City sign former Wimbledon, Cheltenham, Cinderford and Dulwich Hamlet midfielder Selwyn Price. |
| City’s next game is more remembered for events at the end of the match than anything on the pitch. Gary Mockridge collapsed and was only saved by John Evans administering the ‘kiss of life’. On the pitch City’s unbeaten home record went as they crashed 3-1 to Enderby Town. A Steve Scarrott penalty was scant consolation for the Tigers. |
| 1988 |
| The sun tentatively peered over the horizon before pouring its golden yawn across the embracing landscape. The peaceful calm was momentarily broken by a fox, bolting from an upturned dustbin. The morning orchestra skipped a note, before the daybreak symphony once again built up slowly. Cocks crowing, cows lowing, milk floats slowing. |
| Me, I saw none of this. 15 pints of fighting juice was the only way I was ever going to get any sleep on the eve of the biggest match yet for me at Meadow Park. Only the hessian cry of a neighbour screaming for a mid morning fag rose me from my paradisic dream. |
| A happy dream. One in which Mike Malpas had slammed in a first half penalty in front of 1,730 fans. But there was never going to be any sense of hanging on in this game. This game was made for a King, and Wayne Noble lived up to his name, dancing around fawning defenders on the edge of the box, before rifling home a right royal 25 yarder. Back of the net!!! The rout was completed when Sir Lancelot Morrison of the DM Goalscorers Table beat the Conference chumps with our third (arthured, get it!!) |
| But we all know this wasn’t a dream, as my horse head and sore throat would next day prove. But every story has two sides to it, and even as Wayne Noble was launching his Man of the Match champagne at Steve Talboys head, John Murphy’s resignation was being accepted by the Cheltenham board. |
| Charles Irving, Cheltenham Ladies College, Angela Lansbury, Eagle Star, Eddie the Eagle…….your boys took one hell of a beating!!!!!!!!!!!!!! |
| CITY HEROES: JOHN SHAW, GREG STEELE, MARTIN WILLIAMS, MARTIN LANDER, MIKE MALPAS, NIGEL GREEN, STEVE TALBOYS, BRIAN HUGHES, SHAUN PENNY, LANCE MORRISON, WAYNE NOBLE (IAN HEDGES, STEVE JOHNSON) |
| 1993 |
| City travel away to Chelmsford in a match that comes to life in injury time. 1-0 down, and 6 minutes of added time played, City look to have secured a point as Tommy Callinan intimidates the ball into the home net, much to the chagrin of the pseudo-cockney home fans. Yes, chagrin. However, two minutes later the City fans are left decu after a late winner completes a remarkable last few minutes. |
| The match sees the debut of local Tuffley lad Mike Fletcher, filling in at centre-half for Gary Kemp, out with injured teeth. Despite the kudos that wearing a City shirt has in KCs, the only pull that young Fletch will remember is the one on his hamstring, forcing him off not long into the second half. |
| From the new to the old, Gloucestershire sees the return of City hero Martin Lander, returning in midfield for Bridgnorth Town against Forest Green at the Lawn. The moustachioed midlander sees his new team put their poor league form behind them to record a 4-2 in the Doctor Martens League Cup, first leg. “You’ve been Martin Landered, you’ve been Martin Landered, la la la la. La la la la. |
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taken from the Gloucester City v's Chippenham Town (FA Cup) matchday programme - Saturday October 11th 2003 |
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| When I am introduced to people they often tell me that ‘Davenport means beer at home’. Which is very astute because I do drink crates of the stuff nestled up in Shandy Towers, in front of the Bargain Hunt omnibus, with my dog Rasputin licking my toes. Being barred from every public house within a mile’s radius means I don’t have much choice. But the point is that good advertising sticks in the memory. So when people eulogise about Ronnie Radford’s goal against Arsenal, just think that in 25 years time Jimmy Hill could be foaming at the mouth with the memory of Andy Hoskins waltzing around Sol Campbell before unleashing into the back of the net. But first off we have to win today, or tomorrow’s fish and chip paper will contain the same trials and tribulations handed down over the past 10, 15 and 25 years of being a City supporter |
| 1978 |
| City travel to the low country. No, not the highs of a mid season break to Amsterdam, but an away tie against a Grantham side yet to win at home in the league. But following on from their first home defeat of the season the previous week, City slide to another disappointing reverse, this time a 3-0 spanking. |
| I suppose the only consolation was that Margaret Thatcher was nowhere in sight. A little bit of politics for you there. Let it never be said that this column doesn’t appeal to a wide cross section of society. |
| So, if hedonism is your game, this time 15 years ago you could have whiskied your foxy chick to the back seats of the ABC to watch Grease, before smouldering the rest of the night away at Tracy’s, on Bruton Way. |
| Erm, back to football, and future City keeper John Shaw lines up for Bristol City in a 2-1 home reverse against Nottingham Forest, in the old First Division. |
| 1988 |
| How can you beat a home victory in the FA Cup against Cheltenham Town? City players could be forgiven for feeling a sense of anti-climax, as well as a little bit lost, as the coach headed up the M40, M1, M62, M6 and M42 to bottom club Coventry Sporting, but the Tiger’s semi-professionalism shone through as a 2-0 victory was recorded, thanks to a Shaun Penny brace. It was an interesting journey for the supporters as well, as the Sporting’s main stand was also home to a nightclub. If there was ever an opportunity to make money from a 3am rather than 3pm kick-off then it was there. Imagine, all night drinking and dancing, followed by a football game. Sounds crazy, but if Barcelona can play in the middle of the night then so can City. |
| Think on. |
| Back to life, back to reality, back to the here and now again. The Tigers are once more in cup action, this time in the Westgate Insurance Cup, where a crowd of 316 watch City draw 0-0 at home to Bridgnorth. |
| Elsewhere in the world of sport, Duke McKenzie wins the IBF World Paperweight Championship, and India cancel their tour of India. Football loses one of its favourites sons when Jackie Milburn dies, aged 64. |
| 1993 |
| City’s inconsistent run in the league continues, although this time on the right side of a 2-1 result, at home to Moor Green. It was a close thing, though, as City were 1-0 down with 15 minutes to go. Then on comes SuperSub Mark Boyland to tee up Mark Buckland, before City legend Karl Bayliss slams in a winning rebound from his own shot. 2-1 and life looks rosy again, as Gloucestershire’s #1 sit in 5th above local rivals Cheltenham, with Forest Green Retrievers sitting four off the bottom of the Doctor Martens Midland Division. |
| CITY: Steve Crompton, Paul Bloomfield, Richard Criddle, Mark Buckland, Paul Bywater, Gary Kemp, Tommy Callinan, Graham Smith, Karl Bayliss, Tony Cook, Paul Olner (Mark Boyland, Murray Fishlock) |
| Elsewhere in the County Cinderford chairman Ashley Saunders announces that work is to start on levelling Cinderford’s Causeway ground to equalise a 16ft slope from one end of the pitch to the other. |
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taken from the Gloucester City v's Halesowen Town matchday programme - Tuesday October 14th 2003 |
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| A change of format this week for fans of Davenport’s diary, where I bring you a very interesting article I uncovered when researching the column. The article comes from the Citizen, in December 1978, and is written by well known local journalist Ivor Ward-Davies. However, you could be forgiven for thinking that the article was days rather than years old if you knew no better. So, grab a half-time cup of coffee, three burgers, chips and a snack, buy some raffle tickets, visit the club shop and spend £50, before settling down to read this piece. |
| CITY AIM TO REACH FOR THE TOP |
| Gloucester City aim for the top of the table today against Barry Town, with a dramatic week behind them. |
| It is not often a football club calls a public meeting to discuss the problems arising from success. But that is the move the Gloucester City management decided to make on Thursday. Briefly, the problem is that cash received from supporters at the home turnstiles is not enough to cover the wages, especially now the players receive a bonus, albeit a small one, for being in the top three. |
| This bonus has increased the outlay to about £1,200 a month and the gate money does not cover this. There have only been four home games in the league this season and the gates raised about £500 – some £125 a match. |
| Apart from this lack of support, the club is on a firm financial footing, a point stressed repeatedly by club chairman Dick Etheridge on Thursday. So why is the gate so low? Especially when City’s rating is so high. Its easy to point the finger of blame at individuals but is that the real answer? |
| Inconsistency on the pitch is one reason. To encourage people in with good away results then to play dismally at home is hardly the way to earn friends. One game such as this can lose City an awful lot of supporters. |
| There is a group of sturdy fans, however, who do turn up at every home match. But they need to be organised, and the Red and White Supporters Club has all but disappeared. A request for new members from Thursday’s meeting produced a very limited response. The club must be strengthened, but it is only the supporters who can do it. |
| More advertising of games was one suggestion on Thursday, a good idea to bring in the new faces around the City, and those new faces must be made welcome. Another problem which I meet almost every day is the cynical jibes made about the football club by people who have probably never seen a match there. When the club was at rock bottom too many were too eager to criticise, now they are on top the same people still put the verbal boot in. Attitudes like this can be catching and a few comments can soon put off any would-be fans before they have even seen a match. To people hearing such comments I would like them to challenge the speakers – recent City performances have shown Gloucester can be proud of its club. |
| Cynicism is an easy excuse for apathy and if those who made the remarks turned up occasionally they might realise how wrong the scathing comments were. As is so often said, involvement is the name of the game whether on the pitch or in the stands. |
| Its your football team Gloucester, its up to you to support it, and realise a win today could put City on top of this division. If every supporter brought a friend along to home games then by elementary arithmetic the gate, and so the takings, would double. |
| Reproduced with kind permission from Ivor Ward Davies and the Gloucester Citizen |
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taken from the Gloucester City v's Evesham United matchday programme - Saturday October 18th 2003 |
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| It appears I have been upsetting some of you. The postman’s sacks were bulging this morning and none of it was fan mail. Mrs. Biffin of Thatcher’s Bottom Herts seems to particularly have her nose put out of joint by this column. The words ‘profane’ and ‘irreverent‘ appear in her amongst her spidery scrawlings and inane witterings. I don’t have a clue what she’s on about. No, really, what do those words mean? This is a respectable football club, not vizland, she barks on. Well, you old trout, I’ve got news for you. This is 2003, not 1993, 1978 or 1988. The programme is in the capable hands of well known liberal Mike Dunstan, and in his world there is room for expression. Now get lost. Any other comments on the column will be gratefully received. |
| 1978 |
| City’s ‘Red and White Supporters Club’ is relaunched and City beat Kidderminster at home in the league. That’s all I could find in the Citizen. Honest! Oh, and Everton’s Gordon Lee was named Manager of the Month. |
| If TV’s your game, then you could finish off your Saturday evening by watching Mind Your Language, Dr Who, Little and Large, followed by the Professionals. |
| 1988 |
| There is some speculation that Steve ‘Johnno’ Johnson may have played his last for the club, after storming off to the changing rooms following his substitution against Bridgnorth. It was the fastest he had moved all game. This was confirmed days later when Bilston snapped up the Brummie Bullet for ‘a modest fee’. In a busy week of transfer activity, City also sign Bath City midfielder Ricky Chandler on a free, and Marcus Bray is sent on loan to Western League Mangotsfield. |
| Elsewhere Merthyr Tydfil perform one of the biggest upsets seen in Europe, beating Italian ‘Serie B’ club Atlanta 2-1 in the Cup Winners Cup, in front of dozens of delirious home fans and 3 sheep. Just our luck then that we meet them days later in the FA Cup. City field the same starting eleven that destroyed, pulverised and smashed Cheltenham into a quivering jelly of humanity in the previous round. But, there was to be no repeat of the previous round, though, as Welsh keeper Gary Wager stopped everything that City threw at him. City eventually lost 1-0, in front of a crowd of 1,429 (including Wager’s wife Bet), with Nigel Green named Man of the Match. |
| CITY: John Shaw, Greg Steele, Martin Williams, Martin Lander, Mike Malpas, Nigel Green, Steve Talboys, Brian Hughes, Shaun Penny, Lance Morrison, Wayne Noble (Ian Hedges, Adie Harris) |
| City win 3-0 away to Bridgnorth in the league cup, with Ricky Chandler marking his debut for the club with the opening goal from a free kick. Lance Morrison and Shaun Penny add to the total with late goals |
| 1993 |
| Local beauty therapists are doing a roaring trade as City fans nails are bitten into bloody and bruised calluses by a string of narrow 2-1 victories. The emery boards are out again as City struggle to another 2-1 win, this time against Hastings. Paul Bloomfield’s first goal for City, and a strike by substitute Mark Boyland, take City up to third and preserve the unbeaten home record. |
| A few days later City book their place in the next round of the Westgate Insurance Cup with a 1-1 draw away to Witney, winning 3-2 on aggregate. Tommy Callinan scored for the yellows in a Man of the Match performance, against a Witney side featuring Keith Knight. Anton Vircavs scored for the home side |
| In cricket, Michael Cawdron and Dominic Hewson become the first players from the north of the county to be signed up by Gloucestershire since Jack Russell and David Lawrence. |
| Elsewhere the Gloucester Citizen headline of ‘Killer Crayons’ sees me holing up in our nuclear bunker for two weeks before realising that the point of the article was trading standards, not armageddon. |
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taken from the Gloucester City v's Solihull Borough (DM Cup) matchday programme - Tuesday October 28th 2003 |
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| Many years from now 21st Century football will be revered as a pastime synonymous of our age, in the same way the Elizabethans are associated with dog boxing and subbuteo. Men will wonder at how men took pleasure from striking plastic with their appendages, and the currency of this interest will be football memorabilia. Far from this being a hard sell to entice you into the club shop, and the wonderful range of programmes on sale, this tale has a point. And the point is that one day, when my bones have been ground to dust and my tatty water long since evaporated, a latter day Dickie Davinson will unearth the fabled ‘Chippenham programme’, more valuable than a penny black, and hitherto thought to be a thing of legend. A bow tied boffin will recount the drama of a 4-3 victory against all odds and maybe, just maybe, the programme will fall open at Davenport’s Diary, where the past meets the present |
| 1978 |
| City’s inconsistent run continues as they follow up a 3-0 home defeat against Alvechurch with a 2-1 victory at Corby Town, Doug Foxwell and John Evans netting for the Tigers. A week later these two are back on the scoresheet again as three second half goals see off Wellingborough at Horton Road, with John Turner scoring the other. |
| Up the hill, Cinderford end 300 years without a goal as they beat Highgate 1-0 in the Midland Combination, following this up days later with a 6-0 victory over Stafford Rangers. |
| Meanwhile City Manager Bob Mursell blows his top after the Somerset FA take City player Bobby Perrett for a County Challenge game against both the manager and player’s wishes. I can’t see it myself. What did they do, hold a gun to his head and kidnap him? Utter tosh! |
| 1988 |
| In what is described as a ‘complacent and casual performance’ City progress through to the next round of the FA Trophy with a 3-2 victory over Western League side Frome Town. Man of the match Nigel Green hits two, with Martin Lander snatching the third in front of 524 fans. |
| I had a shock on reading the Citizen sports headline ‘Davenport set to move’, and confronted my parents over their persistent threat to ‘relocate’ me to the coal bunker. On reading further I realise that Peter Davenport is on his way out of Manchester United. Also featured are Gloucestershire lads in league football, highlighting Keith Knight at Reading, Ian Olney at Aston Villa, and David Smith at Coventry. |
| Back in our league I was at the receiving end of a home supporter’s fist at Hednesford. While I managed to keep my feet, though, City went down 2-1 against the league’s basement team. |
| Elsewhere in football Mark Lawrenson is sacked by Oxford for having a dodgy moustache, and Rangers win the Special Brew Cup Final at Hampden. |
| 1993 |
| Hellenic League side Moreton Town incredibly make it into the draw for the First Round Proper of the FA Cup, paired away to Colchester United, but first must dispose of Sutton Town in a replay. The giantkillers from Surrey show that they are equally adept at killing midgets as the Cotswold town’s hopes evaporate in a 2-0 defeat. |
| In the competition that really matters, the Doctor Martens Premier League, City travel away to Sittingbourne. The home side are the wealthiest team in non-league football, and boast ex Welsh International Steve Lovell, ex Norwich star Mark Barham, and rising star Neil Emblen in their ranks. City come away with a creditable 0-0 victory, thanks to good solid performance, typified by man of the match Mark Buckland. |
| CITY: Steve Crompton, Paul Bloomfield, Murray Fishlock, Mark Buckland, Paul Bywater, Gary Kemp, Tommy Callinan, Steve Crouch, Karl Bayliss, Tony Cook, Paul Olner (Mark Buckland, Brian Hughes) |
| Presented with a chance to go top of the table for the first time in over two years, City then fall 4-1 away to Burton. The defensive performance was described as ‘inept’ and was characterised by a bullet header ‘own goal’ from Tommy Callinan. |
| Off the field Richard Criddle leaves City to join Cinderford because their tea bar does tastier burgers, and Chris Townsend returns to Meadow Park to join exiled Newport County. |
