ON THIS DAY: 15 February – Red cards & new managers
Own goals, red cards, managerial changes, Saturday night football and the occasional victory have been the major talking points during Reds’ matches on the 15th February in previous years…….
2003 Bamber Bridge (home) 3-3 Reds’ good disciplinary record unravelled on an eventful afternoon at Borough Park. We picked up five yellow cards and had two men sent-off by a referee who had a torrid ninety minutes in the middle.
Richard Prokas (35) and Glenn Murray (57) were the red card recipients with Bamber Bridge reduced to ten men after seventy minutes. Reds were actually in front at 3-2 thanks to Tony Hopper’s first goal for the club but the Preston side equalised just before the final whistle and a point apiece was a fair outcome.
Reds’ first goal was via a Simon Woodward OG with Robert Ennis netting our second.
2000 Worksop Town (home) 1-0 A superb effort from Reds took them into the last sixteen of the FA Trophy after they knocked out Worksop Town in a 4th Round replay. The win was achieved despite skipper John Kay’s dismissal on the hour, following a lunging tackle on Town’s Johnson.
Reds were already in front at that point thanks to good combination play between Jeff Henderson, who provided the assist, and Darren Wilson who applied a confident finish.
The pitch was an awful mess, so bad, in fact, that Worksop didn’t want the game to go ahead.
Our heroes left the field to rapturous applause from the majority of the 1,029 crowd.
1997 Radcliffe Borough (away) 1-5 Keith Hunton’s first game as manager didn’t get off to the best of starts with Boro ahead inside two minutes, three in front by half time and 5-0 up before Reds’ grabbed a consolation goal.
Substitute Ian Milburn headed our sole response via Simon Parry’s corner.
1992 Caernarfon Town (home) 0-0 This was George Norrie’s first home game of his tenure in the Borough Park hot seat and the new manager was unlucky not to be celebrating a victory after a dominant first half display.
The Welsh side, on their last visit to Borough Park, shaded the second half but couldn’t find a way past Keith Hunton who had just been appointed Reds’ new skipper.
New signings, Sean Sunderland and Jason Brierley, made their debuts for the hosts.
1986 Matlock Town (home) 1-0 Tony Chilton, wearing the number ten shirt and operating in midfield, scored his first goal for the club and it was sufficient to secure the points against a solid Matlock side who had beaten us in Derbyshire a month earlier.
1975 Torquay United (away) 1-2 The Devon club used to play their home games on a Saturday evening, long before Sky had even been thought of, but it didn’t make any difference to Reds whatever time the game kicked off. We always lost at Plainmoor – ten visits, ten defeats!
Torquay’s Phil Sandercock scored for both sides in this particular game – opening the scoring for the Gulls with a penalty in the first half then putting through his own goal for Reds’ consolation.
1969 Chester (home) 0-0 Reds had won the away game quite comfortably but drew a blank in the return although we did finish above Chester in the Fourth Division table.
1958 Gateshead (away) 0-3 This was the final season of ‘regionalised’ football with the Third Divisions North and South becoming the Third and Fourth. We finished 19th with the defeat at Redheugh Park one of nineteen suffered, Gateshead were four points better off and mid-table.
