A trawl through the record books

I'm not sure whether this has been done yet, but I had a bit of a trawl through the record books to see if we had ever won 5 on the bounce without conceding before. We certainly won 5 on the bounce at the start of both Sniffer and Danny's promotion seasons, but not with clean sheets. So I started working my way backwards from 1997.

The first streak of 5 victories without conceding goals was at the start of the 1986-87 season. Unfortunately the victories were for the opposition. We lost 3-2 at home to Palace and then the next 5 without scoring, so it has certainly happened against us!

2 years earlier we had a run of 6 games without conceding, but only won 4 of those (all 1-0!). This was a part of a 15 game unbeaten run that came after losing the first three games of the season. So what happened from the 4th game to bring about the change then? A certain short mustachioed keeper made his debut, that's what!

A few years earlier we went 5 without scoring, although we only lost 3 of those. The surprising thing being that, had we won the first of the defeats, at home to Norwich, we'd have been promoted to the first division at the end of the season. So we could even be rubbish in our best seasons.

Going further back there are more streaks of not conceding and not scoring (mainly not scoring!), but just when I was beginning to think it'd never happened before I found it. 1954-55, the year we won the third division (north). Starting at the beginning of March, after beating Tranmere 1-0 away, we then beat Stockport, Hartlepools, Gateshead, Darlington, Chesterfield and Bradford home and away (the day after each other), all without conceding. 8 in total, so we've a few games to go yet.

I went back to the beginning of time and it never happened again, but then again, pre-war all the games ended 7-4 or something (apart from our cup run in 1912, when we kept 10 clean sheets on the way to winning the cup. 10. TEN!!! Surely that must be a record which can now clearly never be beaten. Unless Shaw Lane Aquaforce win the cup next season.

So there's no record to be beaten tomorrow, but it will become only the second time we have won 5 without conceding in our league history (unless I haven't checked the book carefully enough or have missed an unlikely winning streak by ignoring the post-Premiership years). Then again, when on the cusp of something great the Reds have a tendency to **** it all up. 3-0 to Walsall then?

 

The last five times we have won five on the bounce have all happened in promotion seasons as well. The last occasion was the opening of the 1996-97