21years ago

And Villa in the simod Cup, 5 nil...

Halcyon days

 

It doesn't hurt though. It reminds us what can be achieved with a little bit of arrogance and ambition.

 

Of course as fans we would like better, not sure fans can demand it, how could success be guaranteed.
Why would happy clappers want to hang onto the past most of it has been in divisions 3 and 4 as your dad he'll tell you.

 

An unbelievable scoreline, that was the season we beat Newcastle at Valley Parade (I believe Gazza played) then drew Southampton at home where Andy Townsend had a great game and Dolan pursued him along with Keith Curle but as we know Jack wouldn't sign them.

 

Same night as the Kings Cross disaster that one

 

Terry Dolan was a very underrated manager. We almost hit the top division under his management, Townsend and Curle would probably made the difference. As it turned we only signed up Micky Kennedy who it turned out was carrying a back injury. Dolan went to Hull City when they were skint and did a good job there, he brought Gregg Abbott out of non league football and got another 100+ games out of him as a dominant central midfield player. I think he even signed Dean Windass for Hull City.

 

I was there, in the kop, going delirious when Wetherall's header went in. Great scenes.

But the irony is that staying up was probably the worst thing we could have done. Had we gone down we'd have avoided Richmond's 'six weeks of madness' which led to ten years of decline and relegations to the khazi league. We'd have probably walked L1, or whatever the Championship was called then, and gone straight back up to the PL without the massive debt incurred during our second PL season.

On the other hand, we'd never have had Collimore's sublime volley against Leeds.

 

Spot on. The real reason we remember these games isn't for nostalgia, its to remind ourselves of what we could be. We could be so much more than cheap tickets and 'just be grateful we have a club'

 

He signed Brian Mitchell for them too. Actually he did a fantastic job working under some very trying conditions. As you say, very underrated as a manager but I thought he was excellent for us.

 

Brian Mitchell...now there's the type of pro we could use. Nothing flashy, just solid / dependable / reliable and all the other similar descriptive terms.

I know the sci-fi code means you cannot mess with the past, but it would be nice to go back in a parallel universe, give Dolan the players he wanted, and see if our 'nearly' team would have become the 'did it' team. I think we would have.

RCB

 

I go back into a parallel universe after a few whiskies on a Saturday night.

 

Ditto, we were 7 rows from the Sky commentators and they keep shouting out to us Southampton 1 - 0 Wimbledon, Southampton 2 - 0 Wimbledon etc so we knew as long as we didn't get beat we stayed up.

 

Richmond dared to dream and left a legacy at VP with the 50% new ground with the stands etc.
He took us from division 2 to the premier league and kept us there in what 4 seasons? Playing some of our best football we have ever seen and will see again with that promotion side.
Yeah he had 6 weeks of madness but without the dodgy dividend payments and the itv digital collapse I think we’d have been alright with a good chance of coming back up or at least competing at the top end of the championship for a while and with that probably come a chance of further investment.

 

Seems we are both wrong. According to eiki we didn't play at all on 18rh Nov 1987

 

I think Wiki has got that wrong, and @StaffordBantam is right. Frost also has that date for the 0-0 away at Reading in the League Cup.

RCB

 

Fits with there being a replay for sure, and wiki isn't infallible

 

11v11 has stafford right