A Look Into Histories

A LOOK INTO HISTORY TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTY FOUR

ALTRINCHAM’S MOST UNFORTUNATE DAY

In 1986 Automatic promotion was offered to the Champions of the Conference but prior to that 4 clubs at the bottom of the lowest Football League divisions had to seek re-election and the champions or runners up in the mainly Southern, Midland and Northern Premier Leagues would be selected for election. Most seasons would find the League clubs elected but, since the Second World War up to and including 1978-79 success came for Shrewsbury Town, Scunthorpe United, Workington, Peterborough United, Oxford United, Cambridge United, Hereford United and Wimbledon. In 1977 the F A put forward just two clubs but Northern Premier League champions Altrincham polled only 12 compared to Wimbledon’s 27 knocking out Workington on 21. At the end of season 1978-79 Altrincham runners up to Mossley were offered up again but only polled 13.
Our story is for season 1979-80 and this time, Altrincham had been promoted to the Alliance League in its inaugural season and were Champions ahead of Weymouth. With this accolade they were put up as the only non-league contenders for a Football League place. There are various accounts of this scenario but the voting went Darlington 49, Crewe Alexandra 48, Hereford United 28 and Altrincham receiving 25 to Rochdale’s 26 this was considered especially unfortunate as the club had been promised the votes of Grimsby Town and Luton Town, but the Grimsby Town representative was prevented from voting by being in the wrong part of the meeting room, whilst the Luton Town representative arrived back from “lunch” after the vote had been taken so Altrincham missed out on being elected to the Football League.

Our Match Programme, priced 15p, reflects on this scenario and is for the League Cup Final on April 24th 1980. Opponents at Moss Lane were Northwich Victoria and 2,850 watched a 2-1 first leg victory but the second leg saw Northwich Victoria the victors by 1-0 and 4-3 on penalties. Their League campaign would still have two games to go, a 2-0 win against Redditch and 2-0 at Gravesend. The significance of the programme nevertheless is in the editorial which states that throughout the club the directors had pushed for votes with many miles travelled all over the country to meet the chairmen of the First and Second Division League clubs involved in the voting procedure to be held on June 7th. Response had been quite phenomenal with nothing left to chance. The Programme also contained All results, info on the visitors, line-ups and a News Desk reiterating everything the editorial had told readers so as I have mentioned in my first paragraph the outcome must go down as one of the most catastrophic days in the life of a major football club.

In 1980-81 Altrincham applied again but only got 15 votes – the damage was done to the Football Club we never saw in the Football League.