MIDDLEWICH SELECT XI TEAM 1985

From the Mike Jennings Classic Collection comes this precious relic of sporting times past at Seddon Street; the Middlewich Select XI Team of 1985. 

BACK ROW (l to r):
Norman 'Nudge' Smith, Mike 'Jake' Jennings, Mike Hatton, Paul McAleer, Tom Beevers, Mike Tully, Dave McIvor, Gordon 'Torchy' Kay, ???*

FRONT ROW (l to r):

Gary Dawson, Glyn  Fletcher, Chris Dodd, Dave Myles and Dave Hardman

* can anyone supply the missing name?

Update: Martin Spurr has been suggested for the missing name. Both the name and the face ring a bell. Can anyone confirm? -Ed.

Mike says, 'This match was held on 20th April 1985 at Seddon Street, when our opponents were Endeavour F.C. from Middlesbrough.  It was one of our annual matches against our friends from Middlesborough, a team we played at home and away throughout the 1980s. Below is a copy of the programme cover.

The kit was the Boars Head Argyle's strip from the 1977 season. It was an Admiral kit from the same batch made for England in the 1976 European Championship Finals. They failed to qualify and so never used it - But Boar's Head Argyle did!'

And so, it seems did the Select XI!

Stretching the meaning of the term International Soccer ever so slightly, here's the cover of the programme for the game (photo: Mike Jennings)

And here's a report on the match, presumably from The Middlewich Chronicle or The Middlewich Guardian 
Note the Boys Own Comic-ish tale of 'Mick' Tulley (sic) who 'just happened to be standing on the sideline with his boots' and was brought on for the second half to score a hat-trick and help the team win a glorious victory  over Middlesborough Endeavour.
Well known experienced official Phil Hitchen refereed, his final whistle no doubt being the signal for an epic evening of celebration at the Boar's Head.

Mike has a lot more information on this series of friendlies which he promises to publish as a series in the near future.

UPDATE: (6/10/2015) Just when we thought we had this one sorted out (after several attempts) and had settled on 1989 as the year of the photo (which would, if the date is correct, have meant that this match took place on the same day as the Hillsborough disaster) our old friend and correspondent Geraldine Williams chipped in with this:
'My nephew, Mike Hatton, says that the year couldn't have been 1989, as his mate Dave Hardman went to the Isle Of Man in 1988. Mike thinks it is more likely 1986'.
So the jury is still out on the actual date of the main photo. It could, in fact, have been taken any time after 1977, which is the year the strip was first worn, and there is no proof that the two pictures featured here were taken on the same occasion. We'll leave things as they are for now, and await further information! - Ed

UPDATE: (16/10/2015) In the light of the above information, Mike's now revised the year once again, this time to 1985. It's not clear whether the press cutting and associated information still relates to the main photo, but we've left it there until someone tells us differently - Ed

Note: This is a revised version of a Middlewich Diary entry, originally published on the 3rd October 2015 under the title 'Boar's Head Argyle F.C. circa 1978', re-published on the 6th October under the title 'Middlewich Select XI 1989 and then re-published again on the 16th and 20th October as 'Middlewich Select XI 1985. Thanks to Mike Jennings and Mike Tully for amended information - Ed

FINAL UPDATE 20/10/2015

NIGEL and BILL SAGA - 1 THE CONGLETON COUNCIL HANGING BASKET SKETCH

SEND THEM SOME MORE HANGING BASKETS!

by Dave Roberts

There's a perception in Middlewich - maybe it's more than a perception? - that the town is pretty hard done by when it comes to local government services and amenities.

It was, of course, ever thus. There are those who would say that, with the latest council re-organisation, Middlewich  merely progressed from being the 'forgotten town of Congleton Borough' to being 'the forgotten town of Cheshire East'.

Back in August 1985  the old Congleton Borough Council, of which Middlewich was an anomalous, unlikely and (as far as its people were concerned), somewhat unwilling part, was only eleven years into its thirty-five year history.

Many people thought that Middlewich was getting 'a raw deal' from Congleton, paying high rates (forerunner to the present Council tax) and getting little in return.

At that time, it so happened that I had recently been studying the art of comedy scriptwriting - the rhythmic sequence of a scene; conciseness, the importance of characterization and all the rest of it.

One of the exercises was, unsurprisingly, something along the lines of  'write a short comedy sketch involving two characters and tackling a topical issue in a humorous way'.

So I had a go, and Nigel and Bill were the result. In the first draft, they were called Neil and Clive, fact fans, but the names didn't sound authentic. 'Nigel' of course, is a name just made for local government and 'Bill' became his partner as an oblique reference (it says here) to the fact that 'Bills' were all you ever seemed to get from the council.

I was reasonably pleased with the result, gave it the title 'The Congleton Council Hanging Basket Sketch' and decided to send it to the editor of the Middlewich Chronicle (being careful, as always, to retain the copyright) to see what he thought.

To my (slight) embarrassment, rather than giving me his opinion, good or bad, said editor merely published the entire thing on the letters page.

The hanging baskets mentioned were an early attempt to 'smarten up' the town centre at, it seemed to me, minimal cost to the council.

Thus the council could be seen to be 'doing something' about the eternal shabbiness of poor old Middlewich.

The trouble being, of course, that the hanging baskets were the only idea they seemed able to come up with, and the town soon became festooned with the things. 'One trick pony' is the phrase that springs to mind.

The 'Hanging Basket Sketch' was just the first in a whole series of Nigel and Bill sketches published in the Chronicle, featuring ever more elaborate council schemes aimed at doing poor old Middlewich down and keeping all the money in Congleton. 

One sketch was written for radio and was recorded by myself and a member of the town council for broadcasting on community radio (this was long before the days of the now-defunct Cheshire FM).

But this is the sketch everyone remembers. At the time and ever since, when the subject of Middlewich and its place at the bottom of the Council pecking order has been raised, 'Send Them Some More Hanging Baskets!' was, and is, the cry.

To its eternal credit one department of the old Congleton Borough Council joined in with the joke and sent out Christmas cards featuring hanging baskets one year (presumably 1985). Or so I was told. I never saw one of these Christmas cards. If anyone has one, I'd love to borrow it.

So let's go back  twenty-seven years to remind ourselves that the more things change the more they stay the same,with the original sketch which kicked off the Nigel & Bill Saga:

THE CONGLETON COUNCIL HANGING BASKET SKETCH

(IT IS coffee time at the Congleton Borough Council. Nigel and Bill are talking of this and that.)

BILL: By the way, I've received another letter of complaint from Middlewich?

NIGEL: Middlewich?

BILL: It's a small town on the edge of the borough.

NIGEL: Oh yes, I remember. I thought we'd demolished it.

BILL: We tried, but they will keep building new houses.

NIGEL: Yes, it's a hard life in local government. What's their problem now?

BILL: They have this absurd idea that because they pay high rates they're entitled to the same amenities as the rest of the borough.

NIGEL: The very idea! Send them some more hanging baskets!

BILL: They say they're fed up with hanging baskets.

NIGEL: Ungrateful wretches! Those hanging baskets don't grow on trees, you know.

BILL: They say they'd rather have a swimming pool.

NIGEL: For Heaven's sake! Why?

BILL: Because they have two canals and three rivers running through the town. they think their children should have easy access to swimming lessons.

NIGEL: They do have a point, but think of the expense. Send them some more hanging baskets!

BILL: They say they can't get down Wheelock Street because of all the hanging baskets, and if we send any more they'll throw them in the river.

NIGEL: You know, Bill, I sometimes wonder why we bother. Anything else?

BILL: They want to know what we intend to do with all the derelict land in Lewin Street.

NIGEL: The Council has earmarked that land for a very special purpose. We're going to turn it into a nursery and grow lots of flowers.

BILL: What on earth for?

NIGEL: To put in the hanging baskets, of course. I do wish you'd think sometimes, Bill. Anyway, back to work. I've been asked to design a new logo for the council.

BILL: And what have you come up with?

NIGEL: It's an enormous great hanging basket on a blue background...

(All characters are fictional. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is coincidental)

First published in the Middlewich Chronicle on 22nd August 1985

©Dave Roberts 1985/Salt Town Productions 2012

MIDDLEWICH HERITAGE SOCIETY

Photo: Middlewich Heritage Society

As part of our policy of linking up with as many local organisations as possible to promote the study of Middlewich history and heritage, here's another obvious link to make - the Middlewich Heritage Society


MIDDLEWICH HERITAGE SOCIETY

I have a particularly soft spot for the society, not least because I was one of its founders, back in 1985, with my then wife, Anita, and Ian and Margaret McQueen. I was also, for quite a few years, editor of the 'MHS Newsletter' where I did very much the same thing as I'm doing now - publishing photos of items of interest to Middlewich people with my own ( admittedly, sometimes, idiosyncratic) commentary on them. The difference in the technology used then and now is, of course, immense and, I don't think, requires a lot more comment. Suffice it to say that the days of cutting and pasting (literally) material for photocopying, and typing on an old, ex-ERF Imperial typewriter are long gone. The other difference, of course is in the method of distribution. We now have the power to distribute material world-wide at the touch of a button. I very much hope that everyone concerned in promoting Middlewich , past and present, will want to link up with us. As this never-ending series continues, I'll be re-visiting some of those early 'MHS Newsletters' and finding out what's changed, for better or worse - Dave Roberts

Facebook Feedback

Jude Kelly Is that the Kings Lock I spy? Where, thanks to Lizzie Rosenfield and Co, I began to build up my confidence to start singing again three years ago? Great pub!!

Dave Roberts Quite right, Jude. That's the place. Now under new management and being run by Simon Affleck with assistance from Josie Hewitt. They plan to re-introduce food as soon as possible. We wish them every success.