The Peterborough Evening Telegraph
The incredible record of an inspirational man
Won a promotion at Wembley? Check. Led a team into the second tier of the Football League for the first time in the club’s history? Check. Played in a side which achieved the highest Football League finish in the club’s history? Check. Captained a Third Division team to a famous cup win over Liverpool? Another check, of course.
There isn’t a lot Mick ‘Scouse’ Halsall didn’t achieve in his seven seasons at Posh. He even finished as the club’s top scorer in the 1989-90 campaign with a dozen goals which killed the lie that the midfielder was a worker and a tackler rather than a gifted all-round footballer.
But ask the great man what his proudest Posh moment was and his reply is instant.
“Drawing 2-2 at Chesterfield to win promotion from Division Four,” Halsall replied.
“I was a footballer who started off at Liverpool, spent six seasons there, but had fallen down the divisions to such an extent I was just trying to stay in the Football League.
“To start achieving things (he was almost 30 when Posh played that decisive match at Saltergate in 1991) was just fantastic. That promotion was the first of my career so it was a massive moment for me and as I always say if we hadn’t won that first promotion we wouldn’t have won the second one at Wembley!
“It was the best moment of my career during the best time of my career.
“I’d moved from Liverpool to Birmingham and then on to Carlisle and Grimsby. I was relegated from the second tier with both Carlisle and Grimsby so to finally win something was special and to achieve it with a special group of players and people made it even better.”
It wasn’t always sunshine and light at London Road for Halsall though as he explained to Alan Swann.
EARLY POSH DAYS
“I was looking to leave Grimsby (it was June, 1987) and I’d spoken to Bolton and Preston when a mate of my father-in-law said he knew (Posh manager) Noel Cantwell and he’d get him to speak to me.
“Mick Jones (Cantwell’s assistant) made the first contact and I met Noel in Birmingham and he persuaded me to sign for Posh.
“The money for the transfer fee (£25k) was in place after fans had got behind a fundraising plan (‘Cantwell’s Crusade’)
and myself and Mick Gooding both signed. I was made captain.
“It took a while to get going at the club though. Noel left the following summer and Mick Jones took over as the club knocked around in Division Four.
“Back then we used to train in fields near the rowing lake andonemorningMicktoldme he wanted me to play as a leftback in a game.
“I was surpised, but for 45 minutes I bombed up and down the wing and Mick was so impressed he said if I carried on as a left-back I’d be sold one day for a lot of money. He didn’t know I’d spent threeand-a-half seasons playing left-back for Liverpool reserves so I knew the role!
“Mick had signed Milton Graham and David Harle to play in midfield, but I told him midfield was my position and those two players weren’t going to keep me out of the side so the first chance I got I ran all over them in a game and as I walked off the pitch I just said ‘I told you so’ and Mick was furious. We had a blazing row in the car back to the ground, but fair play to him he picked me in midfield for the first game.”
START OF SOMETHING SPECIAL
“I didn’t really start to feel valued by officials at Posh until Mark Lawrenson came in as manager. He knew me a little from Liverpool and looked after me. He gave me the confidence I needed.
“Lawrenson laid the groundwork for when Chris Turner came in, but we couldn’t have dreamed what was about to happen.
“In Chris’s first training session he let us play a five-aside game and after we’d finished he asked if we’d enjoyed it. We had and then he said ‘good because that’s the last