ON THIS DAY: 1 February – Club of the month award & revenge over Rochdale
We were celebrating twelve months ago but that hasn’t always been the case on the 1st February in years gone by…….
2020 Prescot Cables (away) 2-0 This was the start of our seventeen match unbeaten run in the league over two curtailed seasons. We had recently lost at Ramsbottom United so imperative that we returned to winning ways.
The ill-feeling from the Borough Park encounter seemed to spill over in the return and it developed into another feisty afternoon. That was after League chairman, Mark Harris, had presented us with the Club of the Month award for a near perfect December.
Conor Tinnion opened the scoring with a well taken effort in the first half and Brad Hubbold made sure of the points late in the game. We had a scare in between, though, when Cables appeared to have equalised only for Josh Klein-Davies’ goal to be disallowed for offside.
The win maintained our good record (three wins, one draw) at Volair Park.
2011 AFC Telford United (home) 0-1 A game of very few scoring opportunities was settled in Telford’s favour before half time when Sean Newton scored direct from a harshly awarded free kick. AFC would eventually reach the Blue Square Bet North play-offs by finishing runners-up, Reds were mid-table (11th).
2003 Radcliffe Borough (home) 1-3 A mixed afternoon for Glenn Murray who scored a cracking goal to equalise Borough’s opener in a Unibond League First Division encounter but then missed a penalty – his first failure from the spot in Workington colours.
Despite Glenn’s 25th goal of the season, we were second best and a Jody Banim inspired ‘Radcliffe finished worthy winners.
1997 Eastwood Town (home) 1-1 This game was tarnished by a second half ‘fisticuffs’, involving over a dozen players, culminating in red cards for John George and Martyn Chadbourne (Town). It was also a special moment for seventeen years old, Paul Frampton, who scored his first Workington goal two minutes after being introduced to NPL football as a substitute.
1992 Curzon Ashton (home) 2-4 Reds were in the midst of another managerial change – Martin Harris had stepped down and George Norrie hadn’t taken over – so Jackie Hather was in caretaker control. He couldn’t prevent Curzon cruising to a fourth successive win at Borough Park, however, and our goals from John George and Alan Stewart were no more than a late consolation. Former Red, Barry Diamond, was playing for Curzon that day.
1986 Horwich RMI (away) 2-0 Reds had already won at Grundy Hill in the league with a second success ensuring progress in the League Cup. Mark Dobie and Billy Gilmour scored the second half goals which secured the win and Keith Hunton did his bit by saving a penalty.
1975 Reading (away) 0-3 Trips to Reading’s Elm Park invariably ended in defeat which was the case for this particular Fourth Division encounter. Charlie Hurley was in charge of Reading then whilst their former player, Colin Meldrum, was Reds’ boss at the time.
1964 Rochdale (home) 3-0 Our promotion push was gathering momentum in the old Fourth Division with Reds and Carlisle United amongst the favourites to go up. We had been thrashed (0-5) at Rochdale earlier in the season so the revenge we gained was sweet thanks to Barry Lowes, who netted twice, and Bill Hopper.
