BOROUGH PARK MEMORIES: The Football League Cup
- Paul Armstrong
- 7 days ago
- 3 min read
During our time as a Football League club, we experienced some wonderful matches in the Football League Cup. Over seventeen seasons, we established a fine reputation as cup fighters - emerging as giant killers on numerous occasions, holding First Division opposition three times and actually knocking out a top flight opponent in a replay on their own ground.
The first match to take place at Borough Park was in September of the 1961-62 season, twelve months after the competition had been launched.
Coventry City were a Third Division team at the time and became Fourth Division Workington’s maiden opponents at our ground. And our home debut in the new competition produced a giant-killing act when we knocked out Coventry 3-0, with Mike Commons (2) and Frank Kirkup scoring the goals to register our first win.
Our reward for that first ever win in the competition was a home tie against First Division Blackpool, the first of six top flight clubs to come to Workington under the League Cup umbrella. The Tangerines, who finished 13th that season, were considered fortunate to knock Reds out of the Cup (0-1), before a 10,000 plus crowd. However, they progressed to the semi-final stage.
Mike Commons scored Workington's first League Cup goal at Borough Park (v. Coventry City), Ron Walker netted the last (v. Oldham Athletic). Kit Napier and David Carr scored against Chelsea in 1964.
During the ’63-64 campaign, we twice made the headlines for knocking out higher-ranked teams. Second Division, Huddersfield Town, were despatched 1-0 in the Third Round and then we ended the interest of Colchester United, then of the Third Division, at the next stage.
Reds’ best win as a Football League club was the 9-1 drubbing we inflicted on neighbours, Barrow, in the First Round of the ‘64-65 tournament. It was our record win in the competition and a competition record which stood for nineteen years when West Ham United crushed Bury 10-0 in 1983.
The 64-65 campaign was Reds’ finest hour in the mid-week competition. We held First Division Blackburn Rovers 0-0 in front of an 11,000 attendance (before recording our best ever result in the Ewood Park replay, a 5-1 victory) and then put Second Division Norwich City 3-0 out in the Fourth Round.
What followed, on 25th November, 1964, was one of the greatest nights in Borough Park history. First Division Chelsea got the shock of their lives when Third Division Reds held Tommy Docherty’s First Division’s superstars (including Peter Bonetti, Ron Harris, George Graham, Jim McCalliog, Eddie McCreadie, Marvin Hinton and Barry Bridges etc) to a 2-2 draw, with our boys denied a winning goal by a dubious offside decision.
Bridges’ two first half goals had given yellow-shirted Chelsea a two-goal lead but Dave Carr reduced the arrears before half time. Kit Napier levelled matters early in the second half but referee Ken Dagnall then disallowed what the bulk of the 17,996 crowd thought was the winning goal.
Second Division Ipswich Town were also held to a score-draw the following year before a near 9,000 turn-out.
Fulham were a First Division outfit when they visited us in 1967 and another commendable effort produced a 2-2 draw against Johhny Haynes, George Cohen and Co.
The following year, it was Burnley’s turn to represent the First Division in Cumberland and they mastered the dark arts that night to pinch a 1-0 victory.
Our last act of giant-killing was in 1972 when Preston North End became a Workington scalp, Alan Tyrer’s goal proving sufficient to dispose of the Second Division outfit.
Between 1961 and 1968, Reds were unbeaten in twelve home ties and their overall record in the competition on home soil read: Won 9, Drew 8 and Lost 6 with 33 goals scored and 14 conceded.
The League Cup era, another wonderful chapter during the Borough Park years, attracted over 150,000 spectators to the stadium throughout the sixties and seventies.
