Enjoy our latest Take 5 as our match reporter and Tweetmeister Gareth Evans uncovers some more interesting facts about Blyth Spartans.
- 1. So, the last trip of the regular part of this season will be our most northerly one?
Indeed. Having kicked off the campaign on 5 August by visiting Spennymoor, the National League North’s second-most northerly outfit (back in the day when the Brewery Field pitch was still fit for playing on), our final scheduled adventure on the road before the play-offs will see us call on Blyth Spartans, who, along with ‘Spenny’ and under the guidance of much-loved former County striker Alun Armstrong, were promoted from the Northern Premier League last term.
- 2. ‘The most famous non-league football team in the world’, too – according to some?
Former FA Secretary Ted Croker (who held office from 1973 to 1989) originally coined the phrase, and it has stuck. Everybody, of course, knows the club’s instantly-distinguishable name, but Croker’s epithet would never have been earned without the Spartans’ bold footballing deeds. After playing friendlies for the first two years of their existence, the Spartans began competitive life in 1901, since when they have been members, and won titles, of the East Northumberland League, the Northern Alliance, the North Eastern League and the Northern League – prior to joining the Northern Premier League in 1994. And they have only ever been relegated once: when their first stay in the (then) Conference North came to an end after six years during 2011/12.
Impressive though it is, their league exploits do tend, however, to get overshadowed by their FA Cup adventures. The Spartans have played in no fewer than 51 ties (excluding replays) at the ‘proper’ stages of the competition – most famously reaching the Fifth Round in 1977/78 – and left a trail of slain Football League opponents along the way. Twelfth Man Representatives of a certain age will remember County as one of them, following a single-goal Second Round defeat at Blyth’s Croft Park during 1971/72 – although we have been successful on the three other occasions when the two sides have been drawn against each other (most recently at Edgeley Park in 1995, when our line-up included in its strike-force a certain ‘A Armstrong’!).
- 3. Ah, Croft Park won’t be a new ground for absolutely everyone when we visit Saturday?
Not as such – but any Hatters who did make the trek up to Blyth more than 46 years ago, or, less probably, for either of County’s other previous Cup-ties there in 1934 and 1958, will notice, when the time comes for the final away-fixture of our campaign next April, that the ground has undergone extensive redevelopment since. Gone is the old ash terracing, to be replaced by concrete – and all four sides are now covered.
Croft Park has been home to the Spartans since 1909, when the club was 10 years old. By way of neat historical symmetry, both the very first game there and a Centenary Match in 2009 involved friendlies against Newcastle United – with the ‘Magpies’ winning 4-2 on each occasion.
- 4. How about County players with a link to the Spartans… apart from the obvious one?!
Well, just so as not to ignore the obvious one, Gateshead-born ‘Super Al’, of course, with 160 appearances and 49 goals between 1994 and 1998, was a firm favourite at EP, before generating our record transfer sale when he joined Middlesbrough for £1.6 million. However, Blyth’s current boss, who assumed the managerial reins just over a year ago, never took to the field for the Spartans – despite having settled back in his native North-East, and featured briefly at non-league level (for the now-defunct Newcastle Blue Star, in 2007), towards the end of his career as a player.
But going back much further in time reveals one player who did ply his playing trade for both clubs. Billy Newton, a wing-half, was a pre-Great War Spartan in 1913/14, as well as a post-Great War Hatter over two spells from 1927-31 and, as a 40-year-old, in 1932/33. He was later also County’s caretaker manager twice, in 1952 and 1960.
- 5. Reckon we can earn something at Blyth, to boost our play-off position further?
Quite possibly – but don’t bet on a draw. The Spartans have managed just the one all season!
