ON THIS DAY: 17 December – A day of first goals

Our record as a Football League club on the 17^th December was poor but we did manage a few victories when we reverted to ‘non-league’…….

Defeats at Halifax Town (0-2) in 1955 and Bradford Park Avenue (0-4) five years later came in the midst of a poor run of form but it got even worse in 1966.

One draw and ten defeats preceded our trip to Grimsby Town and it didn’t get any better at Blundell Park where we lost 4-1, having also lost by three goals there in a League Cup tie two months earlier.

We were able to grab a consolation goal during the 1966 visit to the east coast with John Ogilvie scoring his first for the club.

Eleven years later, in 1977, Reds hosted Great Harwood Town and a 2-0 win should have provided some pre-Christmas cheer after obtaining only our fifth win in the Northern Premier League.

And the man who kept that rare clean sheet, Gordon Livsey, was the reason for the subdued mood around Borough Park.  Gordon was our goalkeeper at the time, and also our player-manager, but shocked the supporters by handing in his resignation after the game.  

In the game itself, Ian Johnston converted a penalty to register his first goal for the club with Barry Endean scoring his first NPL goal a few minutes later.

Reds visited Alfreton Town in 1988 with only a handful of Workington supporters (in the ‘crowd’ of 87) witnessing a 1-0 victory thanks to a Gary Messenger goal.

And one goal was sufficient in 1994 as we claimed the points against Atherton LR – Martin Henderson the match winner.

The winning theme continued in 2011 with another ‘first and last scenario’ in our 3-0 Conference North success at Eastwood Town.

It proved to be our last visit to Coronation Park and our opening goal was Mark Boyd’s first for the club.  A good, solid performance was cemented by further goals from David McNiven and Gareth Arnison.

We also visited Corby Town for the final time in 2016 and marked the occasion with a hard-fought 3-1 victory.  Man-of-the-match Joe McGee opened the scoring, the hosts equalised in the second half but late goals from Elliot Newby and Scott Allison secured three welcome points. Twelve months ago, Charlie Bowman and Nathan Waterston scored for Reds in a comfortable 2-0 League Cup win over Mossley.