Team photo 1965-66

I know this won't mean a lot to many on here, but will mean something to some, like me, who were following this club during some very dark days indeed. At a time when England were winning the World Cup our football club was in dire straits and, the following season, were only saved by that famous £10,000 cash injection by Geoff Buckle and Ernest Dennis. A modest sum now but, at that time, it bought us the 60s equivalent of Carlton Morris and Daryl Dike - Barrie Thomas and Johnny Evans of course.

Maybe not many of you have seen a picture of Sir Alex Ferguson's brother when he played for us. Remarkable likeness - could be twins. Martin Ferguson was a big powerful striker and scored 17 goals for us that season before moving on to Doncaster Rovers the following season. I remember all these players in the picture except one. Bottom right, someone called Brandon according to the caption - anyone remember him? I have no memory of him at all.

 

Oh, another Manchester connection. The player next to George Kerr was ex-Manchester City star forward Joe Hayes (not Haynes). He was a prolific scorer at Maine Road but came to us towards the end of his career and only managed 3 that season.

 

Crikey….I see what you mean about Fergie’s brother Martin. Absolute double of Alex.

 

He is, isn't he. It's always been said that Sir Alex likes us because his brother played for us. Shame he never let us have a few ageing stars on loan over the years. You know, like Best, or Law, or Charlton. That would have been nice

 

I think that side finished in our lowest ever league position 16th in 4th Division

 

That was my very first season as a serious supporter. I used to go to away games then and vividly remember going to Bradford Park Avenue to watch us lose 7-2 and Wrexham to watch us lose 6-3. It sort of puts today's troubles into perspective, doesn't it.

 

I can confirm that you are right about 16th in Division Four but didn't realise it was our lowest ever placing. It was a grim old season and gates slumped below 2,000. Stand-out results included that 7-2 hammering at Bradford Park Avenue with Kevin Hector scoring five for them.

I remember the very last game at home in the May sunshine. Perhaps the players finally decided to wake up from their season-long stupor and we beat Southport 4-0 at an almost empty Oakwell. They had a nervous young keeper called Albert Lord who had a nightmare game and the Ponty End wags piped up with a version of that Cilla Black song of the time, the chorus being "What's it all about, Albert"

 

I remember Joe Hayes scoring a 30 yarder on a quagmire of a pitch in a 5-0 victory over Rochdale in front of about 2,000. The weather was atrocious and the game would probably have been called off in this day and age.

 

He was a class player and it is odd that he scored so few for us having got a hundred and fifty odd for City before coming to us.

 

Great Post and picture POR.
Remember them all apart from Mr.Brandon.
I was on the clubs books as a schoolboy and Bob Parker was the youth coach. He was a beast of a coach. Proper hard work.
Some of our training sessions consisted of running up and down the old East stand for an hour or so at a time. somewhat primitive but boy oh boy were we fit.

 

Yes it does - proper dark days where we were lucky to get more than a few thousand for home matches. Hard to imagine us taking such hammerings as 7-2 and 6-3, although some might argue we've been lucky not to get some of them this season.

 

Could do with him back at Oakwell now given we're a team of 60 minute players.

 

I love that old photo. Thank you for posting it.

 

Thanks - I came across this on a Facebook old Barnsley pics site today and decided to add it to my seasonal collection. I'm trying to get a team photo for every season since I started (first was 1962-63).

I had a spell as an amateur in my mid-teens but never progressed beyond a few training sessions on the Queens Ground which was attended by other young lads like me and the odd first teamer turned up as well. I got my palms properly stung by shots from the likes of Allen Bradbury (if my memory serves me well). I had never experienced a ball coming at me with such force and keepers didn't wear gloves in those days if it was a dry day. On wet days I had pathetic woollen ones - completely useless of course!

I liked Bob Parker. Proper old-school right back wasn't he.

 

It is a good one, isn't it. Some of the old black and white pictures of the team, and action shots, were a lot clearer than later ones in colour. Always nice to put names to faces as well. I didn't need to read the captions until I got to that last one - Brandon. He must have been deemed of first team standard but I haven't a clue who he was. Perhaps an early version of a photo bomber

 

The first time I saw Bob Parker wasn't at Oakwell, but at Holy Rood church (where he was a regular) at the Sunday Morning Mass when I was a child.

 

Nope, it's drawn a blank with me, too.

 

I wish he was still here, so I could shout Let's Go Brandon!!! (I'm easily amused).

 

According to the records Brandon (was he called Ian?) never played a first team game. Joe Hayes had been a top flight player with Manchester City, but never really clicked for us. His best game was that 5-0 thrashing of Rochdale, when he scored twice and it was the only time that the crowd chanted his name to my knowledge. His other goal was away at Wrexham, which we lost 6-3 with both Wrexham strikers, Sammy McMillan (ex Man U) and Keith Webber both scoring hat-tricks. They had done us 7-2 at the Racecourse Ground as well only two seasons before that. Martin Ferguson came as battling wing-half from Partick Thistle, but was quickly move forward to become an emergency striker alongside George Kerr and the two of them ripped defences apart, both netting seventeen goals each before Kerr was sold for £10k to Bury at the transfer window in the spring. It puzzled me that Ferguson, having been sold on to Doncaster Rovers for £10k reportedly, only played three times for Rovers before going to become manager of a team in Ireland. I'd have to check the record to find out which one. When he left, it gave Doncaster a forward line of five forwards who had all been top scorers at various clubs - Keith Webber at Wrexham; Alick Jeffrey at Doncaster; Laurie Sheffield at Newport County; Martin Ferguson with us and Bobby Gilfillan at Southend. Webber and Gilfillan played as wingers in that team, but the penalty area must have been crowded. Barry Swallow was son of Ernie Swallow, a former Reds and Doncaster Rovers player. His opportunities were a bit limited with us because Winstanley was centre half, but he played a good bit at wing half as well before moving on to play for Bradford City and then in his most successful spell as captain of York City in their promotion season. A bit the joker of the York team, the rumour was that the players used to throw Swallow into the team bath to see if the water was too hot. Alan Hill was brave both on and off the field, rescuing a neighbour from a house fire and our defence from several other emergencies before moving to Rotherham and Nottingham Forest, where he was back-room staff after playing for many years including the Clough years. The other point of interest that season was that the players got a bonus for how many goals they scored more than the opposition. There is little evidence that this worked, other than the one game when the players did work out a strategy properly, which was away at Barrow. The strategy was to play like dummies for seventy minutes and then turn it on and play properly. We were 1-0 with twenty minutes to go and then scored five to win 5-1, the players all picking up a handy bonus as well. The same season was the Crewe game when the result was delayed as Crewe had to change their red shorts so as not to clash with our red shirts and then Dick Hewitt, playing on the left wing, hit a shot of such ferocity that, when Willie Mailey the Crewe keeper, fisted it on to the cross-bar, it fell down on top of him and took another fifteen minutes to repair by the odd-job man with a set of step ladders, a hammer and some nails. BBC reported it as Barnsley v Crewe - late kick off. Lots of other memories, but it's late and I'm falling asleep now. Happy memories. Oh! The smell of the woodbines again!

 

Didn't know you were a left-kicker like me! I also remember seeing Bob Parker there. The highlight of my Christmas mornings was saying hello to Barry Murphy.