Cheer up Roy, we’ve found a team who were worse than your lot (and they stayed up!)
JIM MCCALLIOG may have scored one of the most famous goals in the history of Scottish football but a Wembley winner against England was little use to him at the Shay at the start of the 1990-91 campaign.
McCalliog was manager of Halifax Town when they started the season without a goal in eight games in the old Division Four.
it remains a record in English football, although Crystal Palace are closing in. They have not found the net in their opening seven Premier League games and face champions Chelsea next.
‘ i was always an attacking player,’ said McCalliog. ‘i thought getting goals would be one of the strengths of my team but nothing went in and we suffered a dreadful crisis of confidence.
‘if i’d been a few years younger i would have loved to get out there and help out but there’s not a lot you can do from the dugout. The players have to take responsibility. That’s still the case. i feel sorry for Roy Hodgson whenever i see him.
‘in fairness to Halifax supporters, they came and supported us as well as they could. They knew we had some different players and it would take time to settle.
‘i kept saying, “it’ll come when it comes”. Football is about psychology. They needed confidencebuilding as much as anything. There was no point running them with a big stick.’
Stockport, Lincoln, Doncaster, Darlington, Peterborough, Torquay, Northampton and Scunthorpe all shut Halifax out.
They picked up two points during the drought and remarkably scored twice against manchester United in the League Cup, a dream tie for McCalliog, who had a year at Old Trafford as a player.
‘The place had changed since my time,’ said McCalliog. ‘They’d signed players like Paul ince and Neil Webb, Bryan Robson was there and it was great for me to go back and meet Alex Ferguson. it was the basis of the team who won the title a few years later.’
United won 5-2 on aggregate over two legs but Halifax’s luck changed when McCalliog negotiated a swap, trading Tony Fyfe for Steve Norris from Carlisle.
Norris arrived at the Shay in early October and ended the season as Division Four’s top scorer with 35 goals. Only Teddy Sheringham scored more in English football with 38 for millwall in the old Division Two.
McCalliog’s team finally found the net in a 3-0 win at Carlisle on October 13. Full back Billy Barr scored the first and striker Norris grabbed the second, one of those footballing inevitabilities, on his second Halifax appearance against the team who sold him.
‘From there, i just went on a scoring run and finished up winning the Golden Boot for Division Four,’ said Norris. ‘it is still sitting proudly by the kitchen window.’
Halifax finished the season in 22nd place, above Aldershot and Wrexham with 59 goals. Norris scored 30 of them, his other five coming for Carlisle early in the season, and earned national exposure with an interview on Saint and Greavsie.
‘i’d seen Norris a couple of times and i thought he’d score goals for us,’ said McCalliog. ‘We got a few grand as well. Fergie would have been proud of that bit of business.’
McCalliog had been working as Halifax’s community officer and running a pub when chairman Jim Brown turned up at the bar and asked him to take charge when Billy Ayre was sacked with the club in the relegation mire at the end of 1989-90.
‘i didn’t even talk money with the chairman,’ said McCalliog. ‘He said, “i’ll pay you the same as Billy Ayre”. i said that’s fine. i had to wait for my first wage-packet to find out how much that was.
‘The first thing i did was to take the players away from everything for a game of golf to take their minds off it all. We stayed up and they offered me a two-year contract.’
When Halifax sacked him in 1991, McCalliog returned to the pub trade and now runs Langside Bed and Breakfast in Fenwick, Ayrshire, with his wife Debbie.
Guests still want to talk about his career, which included winning the FA Cup with Southampton in 1976, 10 years after losing in the final with Sheffield Wednesday, and reaching the 1972 UEFA Cup final with Wolverhampton Wanderers, when he scored against Tottenham.
The goal for which McCalliog will be for ever remembered north of the border, however, was Scotland’s third in a 3-2 win against world champions England at Wembley in 1967. He was 20 and it was his international debut.
‘it comes up every day, especially since i’ve been back living in Scotland and with the 50th anniversary this year,’ said McCalliog . ‘it’s like a singer with a great hit. it keeps coming back.’