BURST BALL

Poor Walter Ponting, of Chesterfield FC, failed to get a deserved goal, when he shot, towards the Burnley goal. The ball hadn't quite gone across the goal line, when it burst before entering the net. The law says "No goal", so the Division 2 game against Burnley at Saltergate on September 5th 1936, ended in a 4-1 win for the home side. It might have been 5. Walter might have totalled 27 goals that season.

Walter was a centre-forward who started his career with Humber United, having been brought up in Grimsby. From around 1930 he spent 6 years at Grimsby Town in the First Division and was then transferred to Chesterfield for just over a £1,000. In his first season he scored 28 league goals in 39 games. An agreement was that if he managed to help Chesterfield get into the 4th Round proper of the 1936-7 FA Cup, the club would have benefited from another £200 added to his fee. They were drawn against Arsenal and didn't!
On November 5th 1938 he was playing his final game for Chesterfield Reserves when his scored against Sheffield United Reserves in a 1-1 draw and helped Chesterfield stay top of the Central League. Despite this, he had a disappointing time with the Spireites and he moved on.

In 1938 he went to Lincoln City in Division Three North, contributing 19 goals in 26 games. In his 10 league seasons Walter played in 116 matches and scored 53 goals. War then got in the way and he guested, when at home, for both Grimsby and Lincoln. Walter died at only 47 years old in 1960.

50 years later, Chesterfield had a good start to their 1987-88 season with 4 wins and a draw between August 15 and the 31st. One defeat came in a League Cup game.
However, on September 5th the Spireites happy start came tumbling down, when they got hammered by Gillingham 0-10 in a Division 3 game. Chesterfield went on to finish 18th in the Division winning 15, drawing 10 and losing 21.

On another September 5th, in 1998, Chesterfield and Gillingham met again with a home win, 1-0, for the Spireites in a Division Two match.