Longest day in Hatters history
Looks back to a record-breaking tie in 1946
SUPPORTERS of any football club must from time to time summon up all possible powers of endurance with a view to seeing through a standard – but, for their team of choice, an especially laborious – 90-minute game.
This truism applies as much to Stockport County as it does anywhere else – and, during the Hatters’ lean spells (of which there have been a good – or, rather, bad – few over the years) often more so.
Yet 70 years ago, on a warm early spring Saturday afternoon, almost 13 thousand were in attendance at Edgeley Park to witness what turned out to be the longest match ever played.
The second leg of County’s Football League Third Division North Cup-tie against Doncaster Rovers on 30 March 1946 was stopped after 203 minutes, following more than an entire game’s worth of additional time that nevertheless still left the contest ultimately unresolved.
With the score on 90 minutes at 2-2 - and repeating the result of the first leg at Doncaster’s former Belle Vue ground two 10-minute periods of extra time were played, but failed to produce a further goal that would have separated the sides.
Having then established with the Football Association by telephone that the tie should continue until one side scored - almost half a century before the ‘golden goal’ method was formally, and relatively briefly, written into the Laws of the Game - Referee Baker ordered proceedings back underway. And once resumed, they just kept on going!
For members of one family still in the area, the event has a special resonance.
Phil Burrows remembers nothing about the match - understandably, given that he was still nine days away from being born at the time! But his late father Arthur played for County that afternoon.
The connection is further enhanced by Phil’s uncle Norman - now 90 and, like Phil, living in Bramhall - who as a 20-year-old stood and watched the extraordinary events from the ‘Pop Side’ terrace.
Arthur, a utility player who made over 100 appearances for the Hatters before, during and after the Second World War, passed away in 2005. But he left his son - a professional in his own right during the 1960s and ‘70s at York City, Plymouth Argyle and Hereford United - with a rich catalogue of memories from ‘the longest day’.
“My father actually played as a part-time professional,” says Phil.
“He was a pattern maker for an engineering firm - and would have had to work on that Saturday morning before getting himself ready for the game... or, rather, what turned out to be two and a quarter games!”
As the match progressed beyond normal and initial extra time, there would have been many a concerned household awaiting the return of those who had gone to Edgeley Park much earlier in the afternoon.
And with some good reason, too. Only three weeks previously, 33 had died and hundreds were injured following a human crush at Burnden Park then the home of Bolton Wanderers - that occurred during Wanderers’ FA Cup-tie against Stoke City.
“My mother was at our house near Vernon Park, and heavily pregnant with me,” says Phil.
“Fortunately, though, a friend of my father’s called in to tell her that the match was still going on, so Dad would be late back.”
Tales have quite famously been told in the past of County fans who went home for their tea while the match was still in progress, before returning to Edgeley and watching it until the end. And they are entirely true, as Norman recalls - although he was not one of those who left the scene!
Norman was at the game with his own father, and Phil’s grandfather also called Arthur, and himself a former right back for County from the early 1920s.
“We lived in Portwood at the time, so it was a little too far for us to go home, have tea and then come back,” says Norman.
“Some people started leaving the ground in extra time, but I spotted a good few of them return later. And a number of others who had not been at the game before just walked through the gates to watch when they saw there was a game being played.”
The installation of floodlights at Edgeley Park was still over 10 years away, while substitutes would not be introduced to domestic football until 1965. And both factors were to have a bearing on what followed during the latter stages of the ‘timeless’ match.
“Players were suffering from cramp - but couldn’t be replaced. And the ref was struggling with it, too,” recalls Norman.
“It was also getting dark - not helped by a smoky haze from the Edgeley engine shed.”
Mention of this prompts Phil to add: “My father always said it was rumoured that if County were losing, and the visitors were defending the Railway End, the train drivers would shunt up and down to impair the away-keeper’s vision with clouds of smoke!”
At quarter to seven in the evening, the combination of fatigue (not least in respect of himself ) and fading light prompted Mr Baker to call the County and Doncaster players off the field. The decisive goal had not arrived - although County had seen one ruled out after 173 minutes when Les Cocker (later to work with England’s 1966 World Cup squad, and as coach at Leeds United) fired a shot home, only to be penalised for handball.
“We couldn’t believe it had been disallowed,” remembers Norman.
“Even some of the Doncaster players looked disappointed at that!”
Arthur Burrows had more than played his part in the contest, after being fouled for a penalty that put the Hatters ahead just five minutes into proceedings. And he also had the battle scars to show for his endeavours over three hours later.
“The club used to buy boots that were two sizes too small,” explains Phil who, after his own playing career ended, was to establish a third-generation Burrows association with County by managing, and sometimes turning out for, the Hatters’ reserve team in 1986.
“The players were expected to sit in water, and get the boot-leather to stretch. But their boots remained tight, and my father’s feet were absolutely covered in blisters after the Doncaster game.”
Were they, in the event, worth it? In one sense, sadly not from Arthur’s and County’s points of view.
The toss of a coin following the record-breaking match determined that a replay should take place at Belle Vue the following Wednesday afternoon - which the Hatters lost 4-0!
But they were historymakers, who had gruellingly played themselves into the record books. And with a penalty shoot-out now the order of the day when it comes to settling a deadlock, they are likely to remain there forever.