My focus must have wavered in December as with one eye on the fixture list – or so I thought – I booked a trip to see our son in Toronto this spring. I had decided it would all be over one way or another by the Shrewsbury game but I have no idea why I booked to miss the Northampton final home game of the season!

So this RRD will be the final one of the season, with it still undecided if it will continue next season. As time is tight, I have made this a bumper double header covering both the Exeter and Northampton games. Coincidentally, the first of those sides was the first Football League team we met in the FA Cup while Northampton were the first we beat in the FA Cup, both when we were playing in the Southern League.

Exeter was a first-round match at Town Meadow on Saturday 20^th November 1971 in front of a crowd of 3,053 who witnessed a tense 0-0 draw – which we could have won when a great chance was missed by Phil Basey to set up the replay at St James Park on Wednesday 24^th November. Sadly that was where our run ended, and after a brave performance we succumbed 2-0 in front of 3,967, which included a coach load of us Red Devils fans, supplemented on the six-hour journey back (we arrived home after 4 a.m.) with a few of the players.

Exeter Montage FA Cup November 1971

Fast forward twenty years to 16^th November 1991, again at Town Meadow and again a first-round match, where we came up against Northampton Town – as with Exeter, a Division Four (now League Two) side. Between those two games we had had little FA Cup success, but on that day we finally came good and ran out comfortable 4-2 winners (Cliff Cant, Tim Hulme. Craig Whitington, 2) in front of 3,370 fans to set up a second-round away match against Hayes, who had beaten Fulham in another first-round giant-killing.

Northampton FA Cup November 1991 Obby

Northampton FA Cup November 1991 Richard Neale Tribute

Northampton that day were managed by former player Theo Foley, who would leave at the end of that season when the club went into administration with huge debts.

Fellow long-time Red Devils fan Rick Oxlade gave me a bunch of programmes recently, and amongst them was one from season 1964/65 in the FA Cup third round of Chelsea at home to Northampton, in which Foley featured as a player, this time in the Northampton side. In another coincidence, in the programme notes of the visitors I saw that Foley had started his Football League career with Exeter City in 1955 and had joined Northampton from them in 1961.

Chelsea 4 Northampton 1 FA Cup 3rd round 9th Jan. 1965 programme cover

Although Northampton lost that cup game 4-1, the club were in the middle of an amazing rise through the divisions under manager Dave Bowen. They had started the 1960/61 season in Division Four but by the end of the 1964/65 season, despite losing 4-1 at Chelsea in that FA Cup tie, they had gained promotion to the First Division, finishing second in the Division Two (Championship these days) table to Newcastle United.

1964/65 Northampton Town with future Red Devils

Unfortunately the fall was as rapid as the rise and by the 1969/70 season they were back in Division Four.

There were several other links to Crawley Town in that Chelsea programme, starting on the front cover with future Crawley player (and local resident) Marvin Hinton, far right of the Chelsea players, training ahead of an away game at Blackpool. Marvin would play regularly for us over a couple of seasons (1978-80) when we were in the Southern League lower division.

Crawley Town 1979/80 Marvin Hinton back row 3rd from left.

Further into the programme and yet another link with the Red Devils in a photo of the Chelsea players relaxing after a training session with manager Tommy Docherty. Also in the photo is future Crawley manager (in the 2000s) John Hollins. Note future Arsenal star and manager George Graham in the shot as well.

Chelsea players relaxing including John Hollins

In the previously mentioned Northampton Town team photo, as well as Theo Foley, there are two players who in the near future would feature for the Red Devils. Derek Leck, who joined Northampton from Millwall in 1958, signed for us in 1968, playing around 90 games, and was a major part of our promotion-winning side in 1968-69 and again during our one season in the Southern League Premier Division the following season. He would also feature in 1970/71 when we reached the FA Cup first round for the first time. We had battled through from the qualifying rounds and were drawn away against a strong Folkestone Town side in the final qualifying round. Having gained a 0-0 draw away – thanks largely, as I remember it, to the heroics of keeper John Maggs – we came out on top 3-2 in the replay at Town Meadow in front of a 1,449 crowd, with Leck scoring a crucial goal and Colin Blaber weighing in with the other two in one of those epic nights under the lights.

Derek Leck 1970/71 FA Cup 4th Qualifying round

Derek Leck 1970/71 FA Cup 4th Qualifying round

Sadly, the first-round draw pitted us against another non-league side in Chelmsford City, although at the time they were arguably the best non-league side in the country. After narrowly failing to beat the odds in the first game, a 1-1 draw (Basey) at Town Meadow in front of a 2,616 crowd, we were blown away 6-1 (Micky Griffiths) in the replay in front of over 6,000 fans in probably the best non-league performance I have ever seen (he says grudgingly!).

The other future Red Devil in that 1964/65 Northampton team was centre forward Charlie Livesey, who they apparently paid a “fairly substantial” sum for from Watford the previous season. Charlie would sign for us ahead of the 1969/70 SL Premier Division season after playing over 120 games for Brighton, having moved there from Northampton at the end of the 1964-65 season.

From memory, I would say we didn’t see the best of Charlie, who had been a consistent goal-scorer for Southampton, Chelsea, Gillingham and Watford at the peak of his career. However, now at the end of his career and in a side struggling against the odds playing the top non-league sides in the country, his meagre total of three league goals was one of the reasons for our relegation after just one season, despite crowd favourite Phil Basey weighing in with 17 goals to finish as top scorer. Continuing the FA Cup theme, though, I do remember Charlie scoring his first Red Devils goal in a 4-0 home FA Cup tie against Dorking Town in September 1969 (Vic Bragg, Basey, John Leedham the other scorers).

Chelsea v Northampton Teams

All four of those future Red Devils were listed in the team line-ups, while another future link with Crawley I noticed is the Chelsea and England goalkeeper Peter Bonetti. Bonetti famously had to stand in for Gordon Banks against West Germany in the 1970 World Cup quarter-final in Mexico, after Banks came down with a last-minute bout of “Montezuma’s Revenge”. At the time we were probably the second-best team in the world after Brazil (the best and most exciting team I have ever seen). Having taken a 2-0 lead against Germany, we then proceeded to throw it away, not helped by manager Alf Ramsey taking off Bobby Charlton, allowing Franz Beckenbauer to roam free for Germany and orchestrate the comeback which saw them win 3-2. Perhaps unkindly, Bonetti was also partly blamed by some for the defeat (me included at the time, as I threw my England scarf went out the window in disgust). That was his last game for England but he did have a distinguished career for Chelsea, playing 600 games over two spells, and was still turning out for an Old England XI in charity matches in the 2000s.

As for Bonetti’s link with us, he did play at Town Meadow many years later, in May 1987, in the testimonial match for Steve Breach, another in our long line of outstanding centre backs, which a Chelsea XI won 4-2 (Darren Champion and Gary Julians) in front of a Town Meadow crowd of 1,159.

Steve Breach and Peter Bonetti

You can also find Steve front row far right in the photo of our 1979/80 side featuring Marvin Hinton. Maybe older readers can try to name all the others?

Amazing what threads you can weave together from just one programme! Hopefully, for those still awake, they were of interest, even if not about players or events you remember or maybe you weren’t even born then.

Hopefully we can end the season on a high note these last few games after our magnificent performance at Birmingham on Good Friday (if only we had a goalscorer!). I will be watching on iFollow from North America, and we here’s hoping we can generate a bit of positivity ahead of what looks like a return to League Two.

See you next season.

Mick Fox – mjfjo@yahoo.co.uk