Nineteenth March-an exciting day

 On this day 19th March in 1932, Stanley Matthews made his debut for Stoke City at Bury in a 2nd Division match. 6,900 saw him play. Stoke won 1-0. He played his last League matches 33 years later, following a career at Blackpool and back at Stoke for his "swan song" and of course for England. Matthews was my hero being brought up to enjoy football in the 1950s. I had a day with him at Charterhouse when he visited with a fellow teacher, who knew his family well. We arranged a match at the school on our "historic pitch", between the school's Old Carthusians FC and an XI made up from local well know amateur footballers. Stanley managed the Invited XI.

On This Day in 1995, Notts County were in the Anglo-Italian Cup and the dream was watching them play against super clubs such as Juventus or Inter-Milan. County of course have their own history. Founded in 1862, it is the oldest professional club in the World and predates The FA itself.

The 1994–95 Anglo-Italian Cup was the seventh Anglo-Italian Cup competition. The European competition was played between eight clubs from England and eight clubs from Italy. English side Notts County lifted the trophy after beating Italian side Ascoli 2–1.

Group A

Notts County
Swindon Town
Tranmere Rovers
Wolverhampton Wanderers

Ascoli
Atalanta
Lecce
Venezia

Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
Ascoli	4	3	1	0	6	2	+4	10
Atalanta	4	2	2	0	6	2	+4	8
Venezia	4	2	2	0	8	6	+2	8
Notts County	4	1	3	0	6	5	+1	6
Wolverhampton Wanderers	4	1	1	2	3	4	–1	4
Lecce	4	1	0	3	4	5	–1	3
Swindon Town	4	1	0	3	4	7	–3	3
Tranmere Rovers	4	0	1	3	2	8	–6	1

Group B

Derby County
Middlesbrough
Sheffield United
Stoke City

Ancona
Cesena
Piacenza
Udinese

Team	Pld	W	D	L	GF	GA	GD	Pts
Stoke City	4	3	1	0	10	2	+8	10
Ancona	4	2	2	0	9	6	+3	8
Derby County	4	2	1	1	11	5	+6	7
Sheffield United	4	1	2	1	10	8	+2	5
Udinese	4	1	1	2	4	7	–3	4
Middlesbrough	4	0	3	1	2	4	–2	3
Piacenza	4	0	3	1	3	7	–4	3
Cesena	4	0	1	3	3	13	–10	1

The reality was a tad different - the four matches they played in the two seasons they took part in the competition, were all against English sides! Notts County were a little more fortunate. They did play Italian sides on the way to reaching the final of the competition in both 1993/94 and 1994/95 although they weren't the Serie A giants - they were Serie B clubs. In 1994/95 they visited Ascoli and Atalanta and hosted Lecce and Venezia in their qualifying group with fewer than 9,000 fans in total turning up for those four matches. 

Crowds picked up for the two legs of the English semi-final against Stoke City and then it was on to a Wembley final. A year after County had been beaten 1-0 by Brescia in front of 17,185 fans at Wembley they were back at the national stadium on Sunday March 19th 1995 when 11,704 fans witnessed them play Ascoli again and record a 2-1 victory. So Notts County had tasted European glory at Wembley - and they then went on to be relegated to the third tier of the Football League at the end of the season! 

Semi-finals

English semi-final

24 January 1995

Notts County	0 – 0	Stoke City

31 January 1995

Stoke City	0 – 0 (2 – 3 pens)	Notts County

Italian semi-final

14 December 1994

Ascoli	0 – 1	Ancona

30 December 1994

Ancona	1 – 2	Ascoli

Ascoli won on away goal rule.

Final

19 March 1995

Notts County	2–1	Ascoli
Tony Agana  13' Devon White  45'	Report	Mirabella  33'

Wembley Stadium

Notts County
GK	1	Steve Cherry		74'
DF	2	Chris Short
DF	3	Michael Johnson		74'
DF	4	Phil Turner
DF	5	Shaun Murphy
MF	6	Gary Mills
MF	7	Paul Devlin
FW	8	Tony Agana		87'
MF	9	Michael Simpson
FW	10	Devon White
MF	11	Andy Legg
Substitutes:
GK	12	Paul Reece		74'
DF	13	Michael Emenalo		74'
DF	14	Tommy Gallagher		87'
Manager:
Howard Kendall NOTE!!