BOROUGH PARK MEMORIES: Reds’ first ever NPL trophy

Borough Park became our new home in late 1937 but the first team didn’t win too many trophies to adorn the boardroom at HQ.

Indeed, apart from a handful of Cumberland Cup successes, there was very little silverware which found its way to Borough Park which is probably why our NPL President’s Cup success in 1984 was greeted with so much enthusiasm.

Entry to the President’s Cup was by invite, via the NPL hierarchy, and usually based on the league’s top eight from the previous term. In our case, we finished 7th at the end of the 1982-83 campaign and so would play in the competition, along with seven others, the following season.

The format of the competition was playing your opponent home and away with the aggregate winner, over two legs, progressing to the next round.

First up for us was Chorley and a 0-0 draw, away, followed by a 2-1 victory in the return at Borough Park. Allan Carruthers and John Reach scored the goals which took us through.

The semi-final tie would pair us against Burton Albion and, because of the travel distances involved, both clubs agreed to play their home tie on a Sunday, twenty-four hours after the normal scheduled Saturday league game!

So, after a 3-1 defeat at Gainsborough Trinity on the Saturday, Reds hosted Burton Albion on home soil next day. Midfielders Carruthers and Reach scored the goals to give us a 2-0 lead for the trip to Eton Park.

Before the Sunday jaunt to Staffordshire, we inflicted a 2-0 defeat upon Matlock Town. Not surprisingly, we looked a bit jaded next day and fell to a 1-0 defeat against Albion but progressed to the final after winning 2-1 on aggregate.

Marine had gone through the other side of the draw and would be our opponents in the final – with the first leg staged at College Road, Crosby.

Both games in the final were played on a Wednesday evening, 18th April and 2nd May respectively.

Trailing at the break, ‘captain fantastic’, John Reach, equalised in the second half to take a 1-1 score into the second leg. There was a good following of Reds support in a crowd announced as 301.

It was a busy schedule between the two legs with Reds playing Friday, Saturday and Monday over the Easter weekend and the following Saturday.

There was great interest for the second leg and a crowd of 1,125 (our league average at that point was just 243) gathered in the seats and on the terraces to witness a tense 0-0 draw.

The punters even had to suffer a nerve-racking dose of extra time but after 210 minutes we were declared the winners – on the ‘away goals’ rule, so the only away goal we scored, John Reach’s effort at Marine, was enough to win us our first Northern Premier League trophy.

Reach, Martin Gaffney, Neil McDonald, Allan Carruthers, Graham Gill, Keith Glover and Martin Harris played in all six games of the competition with Gerard Fisher, Graeme Quinn, Vaughn Williams, John Smith, Gary Benfold, Keith Sawyers, Terry Davies, Keith Hunton, Wayne Harrison, Gary Messenger and Ian Johnston all featuring throughout the tournament.

Fittingly, John Reach lifted the cup after emerging as our best player over the six matches with Joe Wojciechowicz the first Workington manager to land a trophy in the non-league era.

After so many barren years, the President’s Cup success in 1984 was memorable for so many reasons.