EDGELEY PARK ACADEMY Report of the Inspector – Year 1993/94 Back in my day job, (I worked for the local Council from 1975 – 2000), there was a huge move to compose annual reports for all sorts of activities as the 90’s dawned. It struck me that this a ‘discipline’ which could form the basis […]

KEVIN FRANCIS – THE FACTS Not The Crerand Fiction On Saturday March 5th 1994 we best Hartlepool 5-0. BBC GMR had an after match phone-in, with the resident expert being one Paddy Crerand, a good player in his time at Old Trafford, but totally possessed with the concept that nothing good emerges in football unless […]

LOAN STARS (Lots of Anonymous Nonentities) For TTP 33 I settled for a look at how our playing staff was no longer reliant on loans from other lower division clubs – players who in general added very little. By 1994 there was little need to think about that market, but in the 1980’s it was […]

FRIDAY NIGHT ISN’T COUNTY NIGHT I was, and, if truth is known, am still a firm believer that Friday night should be County night.  I do however recognise that it has hardly been practical in the last decade or so, given that we have been in semi-professional, part-time football.  I know that I am regarded […]

ONE KEVIN FRANCIS , THERE’S ONLY ONE KEVIN FRANCIS We had just beaten QPR in the FA Cup, and Kevin Francis performance that day had been broadcast to the nation.  Transfer talk had started, and Brendan Elwood had talked about a £2m valuation.  I tried to put things in context and demonstrate why this was […]

READING IMPRESSIVE BURNLEY SUBMISSIVE AN ALTERNATIVE VIEW OF THE PROMOTION RACE My piece for TTP 30 reflected on a trip I had made to watch Burnley play Reading – two of our competitors in the Division 2 title race.  Reading it back 27 years later and placing it in the context of how that season […]

CHRISTMAS CHEERS FOR COUNTY – BUT NOT IF THE FOOTBALL LEAGUE CAN HELP IT It was coming up to Christmas 1993 so I thought something seasonal would be a way to mark the festive edition of TTP.  Boxing Day has always been the best football day of the year for me, but at that time […]

GETTING IT IN PERSPECTIVE … AGAIN In TTP 27 Steve Lomas had penned a piece which reflected on his years following County.  There was one sentence which caught my eye.  “For the last 2 or 3 years it’s been OUR turn to have success”. Spot on I thought – which got me thinking back to […]

IN DEFENCE OF MURPHY TTP Issue 20 included an article entitled “Colin Murphy  – Hero or Villain”. It was written by the editor Dave Espley who at the end of it invited us to let us know what we thought about his article.  It took me a while to get pen to paper before I […]

FRIDAY NIGHT IS COUNTY NIGHT – BUT FOR HOW LONG? Friday night football was a cornerstone at Edgeley for over 20 years.  It was the strapline – “Friday Night is County Night”.  My piece in TTP 12a reflected on the announcement that we would be moving away from it.  I recall at a fans meeting […]

THEY WORE THE NUMBER 9! This was my first piece for the Tea Party. It was written in early 1992 we had by then been blessed with the advent of Kevin Francis a  number 9 who actually scored goals. It got me thinking at the time about the centre forwards that we had seen during […]