Accrington Web - 2020/21 Prediction League; Game 9 v Swindon Town (away)

Swindon Town

Accrington Stanley

2020/21 Prediction League; Game 9 v Swindon, Marlborough and Andover Railway FC (away)

So what Denmark does to mink, England does to Football Managers – cull them! ............. Ben Ghazi – no, sorry, Ben Garner – was appointed as Brizzle supremo when Graham Coughlan moved to Mansfield; Coughlan lasted 315 days, and Garner’s now gone after 327 days in charge (losing 4-1 at home to Fleetwood certainly didn’t help, but nor does a 3-3-5 record for the season). My guess for next Gas Board Manager would be John Sheridan – or that nice Mr Westlife ..... or Warnock ........... and on the same day, Phillip Cockup got the golden bullet from Derby (expected to be replaced by Colleen Rooney – or maybe Wayne, which might make the press conferences more interesting, even if a lot shorter, because he’ll have used up all the words he knows in about six or seven minutes)........ Tony Pulis is now in the hot-seat at Hillsborough, as you’ll have seen (appointed on Friday 13th November, so I hope he’s not supersuspicious – you know, putting his left sock on first, or wearing his lucky pants on his head on match days, that sort of thing) ........ never been relegated, Mr Pulis, apparently; but then, he’s never managed the Owls before ....... Mwahahahahahaha!

On a different topic, does anyone know the connection between Swindon and the Evening Star? It’s not the local evening paper, as you might think; it was actually the last steam engine built in the UK, back in 1960. During the first half of the 20th century the railway works was the town's largest employer and one of the biggest in the country, employing more than 14,500 workers. The works' decline started with the Evening Star, after which the works lost its locomotive building role and took on rolling stock maintenance for British Rail. In the late 1970s, much of the works closed and the rest followed in 1986. What had been a railway town ceased to be one .......... It had really begun in 1841 with the building of Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Swindon Works, constructed for the repair and maintenance of locomotives on the Great Western Railway (GWR). The GWR built a small railway village to house some of its workers, and – well ahead of its time - from 1871, GWR workers had a small amount deducted from their weekly pay and put into a healthcare fund; GWR doctors could prescribe them or their family members free medicines, or send them for medical treatment. In 1878 the fund began providing artificial limbs made by craftsmen from the carriage and wagon works, and nine years later opened its first dental surgery. In his first few months in post, the dentist extracted more than 2,000 teeth. From the opening in 1892 of the health centre, a doctor could also prescribe a haircut or even a bath. The cradle-to-grave extent of this service was later used as a blueprint for the NHS. Well I never knew that!

The Anglo-Saxon settlement of Swindon sat in a good defensive position on top of a limestone hill. It’s referred to in the 1086 Domesday Book as “Suindune”, believed to have derived from the Old English words "swine" and "dun" meaning "Pig Hill" or possibly “Sweyn's Hill”, Sweyn being a Scandinavian name akin to Sven and the English word “swain” meaning a young man. If that’s right, then the King at the time would likely have been any of the pre-William of Normandy Saxon Kings, whose rule was ended by that self-same William of Normandy ....

“It’s William of Normandy, up to his tricks,
Cried Harold at Pevensey, 1066”

.... who included such luminaries as Cnut the Great (Canute, you’ll know him as), or his bastard son Harold 1st, who pinched the crown from his non-bastard half-brother Harthacanute while he was fighting the Danes in the away leg and then died three years into his reign, weeks before Harthacanute was due to invade to regain his throne (Harthacanute’s revenge was to have his body dug up from Westminster Abbey, beheaded, and thrown into the Thames), but I sort of hope it might have been Athelstan, who was buried in Malmesbury in Wiltshire (but only after he died, of course ..........well’ I say “of course”, but you never know .......”

Swindon is a town in northeast Wiltshire, 35 miles west-northwest of Reading and the same distance east-northeast of Bristol 'as the crow flies' (if you can get a passing crow). The three places form a sort of “Wiltshire Triangle”, a bit like the Bermuda Triangle, but more like ham than jerk chicken ...it’s also 26 miles southwest of Oxford, 65 miles south-southeast of Birmingham, 71 miles west of London and 60 miles east of Cardiff. As far as I can tell, it has nothing to commend it to any potential visitors .......And what’s more, it doesn’t have a prison (The nearest one is HMP Erlestoke at Devizes .........

As for the football club, it was founded as Swindon AFC in 1879, becoming “Spartans” the next year, before finally settling on the name Swindon Town in 1883. Their first officially recorded fixture was against St Mark's Young Men’s Frienly Society in November 1881 (a Desmond, I gather) .... They turned professional in 1894, playing in the Southern League and later the Western League, and they were elected to the Football League in 1920. They remained in the third tier for 43 years, finally securing promotion into the Second Division in 1962–63, where they remained for just two seasons. Most famously, they lifted the League Cup, beating Arsenal 3-1 in the 1969 final, and went on to win promotion at the end of the 1968–69 season with the help of talismanic winger Don Rogers. GreasyPoled over the years, they won the Fourth Division title in 1985–86 and secured a second successive promotion the following season under Lou Macari.

They eventually won promotion to the First Division in the 1993 Play-Offs, beating Tranmere 5-4 on aggregate, and then doing Leicester 4-3 (courtesy of a Paul Bodin penalty on 84 mins) to secure a place in the top-flight for the first time in the club's history. Starter for Ten; who opened the scoring for the Robins in that game?(he was their Player Manager for a while) ........Actually, they’d reached the Playoff Final in 1990, which they won 1-0 against Slumberland, but they were denied their Time in the Sun because of “irregularities”, and Sunderland went up instead.

They lasted just the one season in the Premiership, going down with 30 points from 42 games, with 5 wins, 15 draws, 22 defeats and 100 goals conceded (a GD of -53), ten point below Oldham and Sheff Utd ...... they lost 7-1 (Newcastle), 6-2 (Everton), 5-1 and 5-0 three times - but at least they had their Moment of Glory

They were most recently promoted at the end of Covid Season 2019/20 as champions of Ligue Deux with a PPG figure of 1.92 (69 points from 36 matches) We last met in the League in 2017/18, winning 2-1 at ours’ (goals by Billy Whizz and Kayden Jackson), but losing 3-0 at theirs’ in the last game of the season – not that it mattered by then .... at the end of this last season they released, free transferred or MutuallyConsented with, 13 players, the best known being Eoin Doyle (who joined Bolton Trotters, so he did) and GK Luke McCormick, who moved to Plymouth ..... they signed eight, including MF Diallang Jaiyesmi from the Canaries (a canary to a robin, eh? Good trick!), retired Big Band leader Jack Payne from the Imps, striker Brett Pittman from Pompey, LW Joel Grant from Plymouth and Middlesbrough GK Joe Fryer, and they’ve LoanSigned five, three of whom are called Smith, and one of whom is a Czech GK from Man U called Matěj Kovář (which is easy for you to say!)

Current form gives them three wins, one draw, six defeats and 10 points, leaving them in 20th place, one point above Oxford who have a game in hand ... wins are against Rochdale 3-1, Burton 4-2 and Hull 2-1, and all at home, and the draw was on Saturday at the Pointy-Nosed Furry things, coming from 2-0 and 3-1 down to share six goals and snaffle a point ..... they’ve scored 16 and conceded 21 (only Burton (23) have shipped more, and although they’ve won 3 of 5 at home (9 points), they’ve only taken one point away (the 3-3 on Saturday); leading scorers are seven in number – all of whom have two goals each; Hallam Hope, Joel Grant, The Three Smiths (Jonny, Matthew and Tyler), Brett Pittman and Anthony Grant (that's a Full House, Smiths on Grants); ............ they lost 2-1 at home to Darlington in the FA Cup First Round, 3-1 at home to Charlton in the EFL Cup, and went out of the Troffy at the Group stages on GD to Vegan Greenpeace

They play at the County ground (and have done since 1896), and the current manager (see last thread) is John ReallyUseless Sheridan ......... Famous managers include Welsh winger Ted Vizard, who played for Bolton for 18 seasons, was known as the Vizard of the Ving, and was a member of the side that won the FA Cup in 1923, 1926 and 1929; John Trollope (the famous author) who played for Swindon for 20 years and amassed 770 League appearances (including 368 without a break – well, he got a cup of tea at half time, I suppose), Lou Macari, Ossie Ardiles, and Paolo di Canio (who, if you read his wiki page, sounds like a nominee for the David Icke award) ........... Players? Well, there’s Septimus Atterbury (1903/07), Arnold D’Arcy (1956/64), Jan Aga Fjortoft, Glenn Hoddle, Chris Kamara, Lou Macari, Mel Nurse ...... need I go on? Household names, every man jack of them!

And your Second Starter for Ten; on 20th February 2007 Swindon lost 1-0 at Barnet in a League game; why was that game a very special milestone?

Deadline for entries is (Choirboy please note!) scheduled kick-off time, which is 7.00pm on Tuesday 17th November ........... all the goalscoring records at Swindon belong to Harry Morris, who played in the 20s and 30s .... most goals in a season (48), most League goals in a season (47) most goals in a game (five, which he did twice, against QPR on Boxing Day 1926 and Norwich in April 1930), most goals in the League (216), highest goalscorer in the club’s history (229 goals in 279 games, or 0.82 goals per game) ........... The first time they reached the “Proper” rounds of the FA Cup was 1906 (lost 3-0 to Brighton), their biggest League win was 9-1 at home to Luton (1920) and their worst League defeat by Loughborough in 1896 (0-8) ... and if you look it up, Charlton are still the form side (15 points from their last 5 games), but next – 12 points from a possible 15 – come Pompey, Fleetwoof and The Stanley ............. and if we can win four of our last five, we can win five of six – can’t we, lads? Bob the Builder time ....... “Yes We Can”

And the first goal in the Playoff Final against Leicester was scored by Glenn Hobble – no, hang on, Hoddle; and the defeat at Barnet in 2007 was remarkable because that game meant that Swindon had played home and away League games, over their years in the League, against every team which in that (2006–07) season made up the Premier League, le Championnat, League One and League Two.

Good luck to everyone! ........... Stay Safe and Keep Well! .......... And thanks for playing!

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