On this day – 11 April
A look through the archives to see what was happening to Reds on 11 April in years gone by………
Our 1963-64 promotion campaign was into its final two weeks and five clubs – Carlisle United, Gillingham, Exeter City, Bradford City and Reds – were still in contention, chasing the top four places.
There was a significant day for us on this day, a home clash against Gillingham who would, eventually, win the title.
The Gills were employing all the gamesmanship tricks in the book in an attempt to knock us out of our stride but we kept our composure and Dave Carr’s winner secured a very satisfying 1-0 victory. It was his 21st league goal of the season which pleased the bulk of the 6,536 attendance.
Our only other Football League success on that day had been two years earlier when two ever-presents, Charlie Wright and Frank Kirkup, combined to help record a 1-0 win over Wrexham. Goalkeeper Charlie kept a clean sheet and Frank scored the only goal of the match.
Some decent results have been churned out during the last forty one years of the non-league era.
One of the most impressive was a 4-1 home win over Northwich Victoria in 1979 with man-of-the-match Graham Gill scoring one of the goals and playing a part in the others for Keith Armstrong (2) and John Reach.
At the end of that season, Reds finished 14th, Netherfield were 15th and Barrow 16th.
In 1981 we recorded a best ever win at Matlock Town with Paul Handley, pictured, (2), Barry Diamond and John Smith sharing the goals in a 4-0 success.
A home match against Stafford Rangers in 2006 would end in disappointment for the Workington supporters but there was some significance in Neil Grayson’s match winning goal. At the tender age of 42, he became the oldest scorer in a Conference North fixture at Borough Park.
Reds have been successful in each of their three most recent outings on this day.
Gareth Arnison scored both goals in a 2-0 home win over Worcester City nine years ago, Matty Tymon and Scott Allison netted in a hard fought 2-1 victory at Belper Town in 2015 while Dav Symington and Josh Calvert (inset) found the target in a 2-0 home success against Buxton in 2017.
I suppose any defeat in a semi-final is a disappointing experience so not sure what the feeling was like in the Reds dressing room back in 1928. They had just suffered an 8-1 reverse against Middlesbrough Reserves at Ayresome Park in the semi-final of the North Eastern League Challenge Cup.
When we returned for a league match a fortnight later, the 2-0 defeat felt like a positive result!
And our 1936 win over Eden Colliery Welfare is worth noting if only for the fact that the 6-1 success was the second such score in consecutive days. Twenty four hours earlier we had beaten Carlisle United by the same margin with both games staged at Lonsdale Park.
