JANUARY 6th. TWELFTH NIGHT.

Bill Shankly, on January 4th 1954, took over the manager's role at Workington FC. a team from the North-west which played in the Third Division North at Borough Park. In those days, the manager didn't just look after the players and their strategy, but he had to look after the office and pay the bills. He discovered, on his first day, that there was no electricity at the club that was gas powered!

Shanks,born in Glenbuck, Ayrshire, went on to play for and manage clubs only in England; Carlisle, Preston (won the FA Cup in 1938) and managing at Carlisle, Grimsby (note Ian Holloway is there now!), Workington, Huddersfield and then Liverpool. He did play 7 times for Scotland though!

The Yom Kippur (MiddleEast) War in 1973 caused all sorts of problems nationally, including the installation of the "Three Day Working Week". It is possibly a coincidence that things are not too secure in the Middle East at present. The Miners' Strike in February 1974 didn't help.

To help with the football industry having to survive without using any electricity for floodlights in winter, Sunday "day" matches were finally approved, with early kick offs. The first Third Round FA Cup tie between Cambridge United and Oldham Athletic being played a morning game, on Sunday the 6th January.

Two weeks later on the 20th Jan 1974, the Football League staged a dozen Sunday games were played around the country, including one Second Division match between Millwall and Fulham in the morning. To get round the "Sunday Observance Act" of 1870, programmes were sold at the entrance gates and this allowed supporters into the ground. Bolton Wanderers had a crowd of 40,000 watching their tie, one wonders if the club printed that number of programmes! Question also the payment of people working at the ground, the club's staff, police presence, ambulance and so on. Was this all voluntary??

On the 27th January 1974, the first First Division game on a Sunday was held at Stoke City v Chelsea, where Geoff Hurst scored the only goal, in daylight!

Darlington played two games over the weekend against Stockport at home on the Saturday 26th and Torquay at home on Sunday 27th, both drawn, 1-1 and 0-0.

Bob Wall, the administrator at Arsenal for nearly 50 years, stated that "making a profit on a Sunday is wrong!". He was concerned about disturbing the peace and quite of the local people in Highbury!

Another great manager made his debut in charge at Nottingham Forest on this day...Brian Clough who took over from Allan Brown in 1975.

In 1990 Cardiff played QPR in the Third Round of the Cup gathering over £50,500 from admissions, but not being able to bank it until the Monday morning. It was stolen from the club's "safety" at Ninian Park over the weekend.