Tuesday October 2nd 1962
Barnsley v Wrexham
Football League Division 3
Programme Price: 4d
Last week I was given the opportunity to collect a load of football programmes and books from a fellow Salopian, Stuart Davies, who lives in a village called Yockleton, not too far from my home in Westley near Shrewsbury. There were lots of programmes and I can see I am going to have great fun going through them all. I think it goes without saying that the programme I have chosen for today’s review comes from that haul of programmes collected last week.
I really like these smaller booklet style programmes and I now have a small number of them in my collection. Before I get into this issue the first thing I would like to talk about is the price, because if you are like me and were born after 1971 you probably won’t know how much 4d was. Until 1971, British money was divided up into pounds, shillings, and pence – One pound was divided into 20 shillings, one shilling was divided into 12 pennies and one penny was divided into two halfpennies or four farthings. There were therefore 240 pennies in a pound. Pennies were somewhat confusingly abbreviated to ‘d’. This is because the Latin word for this coin was ‘denarius’. So, to end this short history lesson and by using a currency calculator, the price of 4d would be worth approximately 35p in today’s money – good value for a programme in my opinion!
It’s about time that I started reviewing the programme! This issue consists of 20 pages from the front to back cover and is a decent enough read throughout those 20 pages. Added to this, for a programme that will be 60 years old later this year, it is in really good condition still.
With page 1 being the front cover, page 2 advertises two hotels in the Barnsley area with the following page providing a list of club officials at Barnsley and news about the recent draw for the Third Round of the League Cup. Back in October 1962, the Chairman was Mr J. Richards whilst the manager was J. Steele. Meanwhile, the draw for the Third Round of the League Cup saw Barnsley being drawn at home to play then Second Division Luton Town.
Page 4 features several adverts with page 5 providing words written by the Barnsley Manager Johnny Steele. The ‘gaffer’ looks back with pride at his team’s performance against the Second Division Grimsby Town in the Second Round of the League Cup, a win that he hoped would help Barnsley to kick on in their own domestic league campaign.
Page 6 advertises Barnsley’s next away fixture which would be away at Bradford City on Saturday 13th October. Rail travel was being provided with trains departing Barnsley at 12:27 pm with arrival at Bradford set for 1:43 pm.
Page 7 sees a welcome to Wrexham, a short history about the club and several player profiles. The club was founded in 1873 and they were one of the original members of the Third Division on its formation in 1921. With regards to the player profiles, it is written that goalkeeper, Kevin Keelan had been signed from Kidderminster Harriers in November 1961 having previously made several first team appearances for Aston Villa. Meanwhile, left half, Tecwyn Jones was a local lad and at the age of 21 was already in his fourth professional season with the club.
Page 8 provides several adverts with the following pages showing details of the next games to be played at Oakwell, the home of Barnsley FC. On Friday 5th October (18 years later to the date yours truly was born) Barnsley were to entertain Coventry City in League Division 3 with a 7:15 pm kick-off. The following day, the club’s Junior team were to have a game against their counterparts at Wolverhampton Wanderers in the First Round of the N.I.L. Cup.
Pages 10 and 11 show the team lineups for Barnsley and Wrexham with the referee named as F. Cowen from Manchester. This is followed by several adverts on page 11.
Page 13 shows the standings in the Football League Division 3 up to and including Saturday, September 29th, 1962. In the 24-team division Barnsley were sitting in 22nd place whilst their opponents, Wrexham, were in 14th position. The following page provides further adverts.
Page 15 provides a list of previous results and forthcoming fixtures for Barnsley in the 1962/1963 season. The club started their campaign with a 1-1 draw at Oakwell against Swindon Town. The same is shown for the reserves at Barnsley in the Central League. The second XI also started the season with a draw, 1-1 at Sheffield United reserves.
There are more adverts on page 16 with page 17 providing news from the Barnsley Supporters Club. A bar had been introduced on what is described as the ‘popular’ side at Oakwell but the supporters club secretary, Maurice Brown, had been disappointed with the sales within the first month of the bar’s existence.
Page 18 is titled ‘Oakwell Echos’ and provides information on several topics. Firstly, it is written that the music to be played at this game against Wrexham comes from records that have been loaned to the club by Messrs. Alwyn Isherwood Ltd. of Market Street Barnsley. Next, it is reported that 5,408 people attended Oakwell for Barnsley’s recent League Cup win against Grimsby Town. There is news on the club’s Colts team who back in 1962 played in the Sheffield Under 18’s League. Their recent results included a 3-0 against Rotherham United, a 3-5 loss to Charlton United and a 4-4 draw with Sheffield United. This was followed by players’ appearances and goals scored during the 1962/1963 season for Barnsley’s first team and reserves team respectively. The top appearance makers for the first team were Brookes, Winstanley, Hosie and Leighton who all had twelve appearances to their names. Meanwhile, the first team’s top scorer was O’Hara who at the time of writing had scored five goals.
This near 60-year-old programme is then completed by two pages of adverts. For the record, I have managed to ascertain that Barnsley won this game against Wrexham, 2-1 in front of 7,484 spectators
