By Dave P
March 19 2005

Time for a delve into the history books today as we have never met Manchester City on 19th March in the past. We will instead have a look at some matches that took place on this day many years ago. Time for a delve into the history books today as we have never met Manchester City on 19th March in the past. We will instead have a look at some matches that took place on this day many years ago.

Back in the early days of Association Football a lot of the teams in the south were very Public school as opposed to the working mens sides of the North and indeed our first ever game on 19th March took place in 1895 at home (Northumberland Park) against the Old Carthusians side made up of Charterhouse School old boys. This was a London Challenge Cup match (also known as the London Charity Cup) and unfortunately we lost the match 3-0, not that this was that surprising as only 3 days earlier the same team knocked us out of the Amateur cup by a 5-0 margin so we were at least improving.

A year later in 1896 we played host to a military team from the Royal Ordinance and drew 2-2. Bob ‘Topsy’ Clements scoring both of our goals. Bob Clements was the player that scored our first ever goal in the Southern League against Sheppey United on 5th September 1896 and it is Sheppey United that feature in our first ever victory on 19th March. This was in 1898, once again at home, and the score on this occasion was 4-0. All four goals were scored by Bill Joyce. We have talked about Bill Joyce and his amazing goalscoring feats before (93 goals in 115 games) and he liked to score four or even five at a time. Indeed in that 1897/98 season as well as scoring four against Sheppey, he also scored four in the Southern League against Wolverton in a 7-1 win, and four against Southampton in a 7-0 Western League game.

Our First Southern League Championship was in the 1899/1900 season and we were again in action on the 19th March when our visitors were Bristol Rovers, a game we won 5-1 with goals from T Morris, J Cameron (2), R Stormont and J.Kirwan. John Cameron, the double scorer on that occasion was our then player manager who led the side to our first ever FA Cup triumph a season later.

All of these matches were home games and so to find our first away match on 19th March we have to move forwards in time to 1904 when we travelled to West Ham to play a Western League Match. The game ended 0-0 but we did win the Western League that year whilst West Ham finished bottom. In second place in the Western League were Southampton who were that seasons Southern League champions. We were runners up.

Having mentioned a four goal hero in Bill Joyce on 19th March 1898, 57 years later on 19th March 1955 a certain Johnny Gavin also scored 4 goals. This time against Sheffield United in a 5-0 victory, with the other goal being scored by Johnny Brooks.

Brooks was an inside forward who scored 51 goals for Spurs in 179 league and Cup games between 1953 and 1959 before moving to Chelsea for £20,000 as part of the deal that saw Les Allen arrive at Tottenham. He gained three England caps during that period and scored in his first two against Wales and Yugoslavia.

Just over a year after that game against Sheffield United Johnny Brooks was on the scoresheet with a penalty as we beat Manchester City 2-1 at White Hart Lane on March 24th 1956, Bobby Smith getting the other one. Both Brooks and Smith were again on the scoresheet two years later as we beat Manchester City 5-1 on 24th February 1958 . A Smith hat-trick and a goal each for Brooks and George Robb sealing the win on that occasion.

Manchester City, a team we have a good record against in the Premier League losing only 2 of the 15 games, 9 of them going our way. Goals from our regular scorers or a March 19th set of four? Either will do so long as we get a result eh!


Come on you Lillywhites.