News Silver lining for football club?
History has proved it down the years. Some of the darkest clouds give way to a silver lining - even in football.
When it became clear last week that Goole FC face a winding-up order because of an old tax debt and the prospect of starting their new Unibond season with a ten-point deduction, chairman Des O'Hearne sounded a note of defiance. Despite that penalty, he said, he did not see why the team could not sustain a challenge for honours.
Pessimists may take a different view of what the consequences of an instant points deficit will be, but the long history of senior football in Goole shows that Chairman O'Hearne may have a point. Down the years some of the town club's best achievements have come against a background of struggle or adversity.
Take the 1949-50 season for the Goole Town club, which ended its days in 1996. Pre-season hopes were high when the club signed inside-forward Harry Clifton, an England international against Scotland in 1938. So much so that a crowd of 2,000 was at the Victoria Pleasure Grounds for the club's final trial match.
But Clifton suffered a knee injury in the opening Midland League match and did not play again, though Town had to pay his wages for the rest of the season. On top of that Goole were soon firmly lodged at the bottom of the league. Yet great times were just around the corner.
In the FA Cup qualifying rounds, against all expectation, Town overcame one hurdle after another to reach the first round proper for the first time since 1915.
Along the way they attracted a crowd of 3,500 for a home tie with Bentley, and collected a princely £337 as their share of the receipts from a drawn fourth qualifying round match at Scunthorpe - then in their pre-Football League days.
In the first round proper that year, Goole lost 4-1 at Chester. Yet the gloom which had settled on the club at the start of the season was banished for the rest of the campaign. Losing only four of their last 23 matches, Town rose from bottom of the Midland League to finish ninth.
Another Cup run born out of early setbacks in the league was that of 1955. After a thrilling 4-2 win at Selby in the final qualifying round - Selby had led 2-0 inside the first quarter of an hour - Goole faced Halifax Town in the first round proper. In front of a VPG crowd of 5,000 they were woefully unlucky to lose 2-1.
Then, in 1956-57, clouds gathered at the bottom of the Midland League gave way to the glorious sunshine of Goole's best-ever season in the Cup. Overcoming Wigan away in the first round proper, and then winning a second-round replay at Workington, at a time when the Cumbrians were a major force in the old Third Division North, Goole eventually went out in the third round at Nottingham Forest - but only after their exploits had won nationwide acclaim.
It was not only in the FA Cup, however, that the old Goole club surprised the doom merchants from time to time. In 1950-51, for instance, despite their modest resources and lack of 'star' names, the club just kept on surprising everyone in a Midland League which was then one of the strongest competitions outside the Football League. Winning 20 of their 42 league matches, they finished third.
That remarkable achievement stirred memories of the days before World War I. For the 1912-13 season, the original Goole club decided to leave the West Yorkshire League and take on bigger fish in the Midland League. There was no great optimism to begin with and, financially, the season was one long battle for survival. Yet Goole finished sixth out of 20.
The Goole Town club which went under 12 years ago was formed in 1925-26. Again, only the diehards had any real optimism for early success in the Yorkshire League, yet Town won the championship in 1927-28.
They repeated that triumph in 1936-37, and again in 1948. Demonstrating how the club then spread its wings, Town's reserve side won the Yorkshire League title in 1950.
Sometimes, down the years of struggle, when the battle for league points and basic survival went hand in hand, Goole's footballing fortunes emerged from the shadows just long enough to provide a memorable reprieve.
At the start of 1954, for instance, Goole were third from bottom of the Midland League. Then came a truly halcyon period as they beat Scarborough 4-1 at home; won 3-1 at Peterborough, in their pre-Football League days; and followed victories over Frickley and Hull City reserves by hammering Denaby 8-2 and Halifax Reserves 6-2.
A miraculous turn-round? Well, at the time, talk of miracles did not seem entirely out of place, for the inside-forward who inspired those successes was the Rev Norman Hallam, then Vicar of Rossington.
Form slumped, alas, when the man of the cloth was injured and, without him, Goole suffered a string of defeats. Even then a home match against Nottingham Forest Reserves drew a crowd of 1,700.
Football has changed in many ways since those days more than half a century ago, when VPG spectators paid just 1s 3d a head (in today's currency less that seven pence). What has not changed, though, is football's facility for providing surprises. So while Goole will start the season by taking it on the chin, they could still finish with heads held high.
Published on 7th August 2008 in News.
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