Greaves reaches milestone

THE TV cameras were at Burnden Park to film Wanderers’ First Division clash with Tottenham – but it wasn’t Bill Ridding’s Bolton they were interested in.

The BBC’s Sports Report team got their timing just right, getting a clip of Jimmy Greaves, pictured right, netting his 200th goal in league football as Spurs scored a classy 3-1 win.

But the Football League weren’t happy. No one at the Beeb had asked permission to have cameras at the game and the zealous way League secretary Alan Hardaker protected the game from television intrusion meant he was not going to let this flagrant contravention of the rules go unpunished.

The general feeling, though, was “Well done the man who got the scoop”. Unfortunately for Wanderers fans, it was a case of “Well done Spurs”.

Greaves, Jones, White, Dyson and the imperious Dave Mackay put on quite a show, although struggling Wanderers made a significant contribution to an entertaining afternoon’s football.

In fact the Bolton Evening News correspondent, Haydn Berry, suggested that “on this form Wanderers would have been good enough to have beaten a lesser side”.

Nevertheless, these were difficult times at Burnden as they struggled to keep their place in the top flight, and the mood was not helped when the draw for the FA Cup third round gave them a trip to the winners of the Wimbledon-Bath replay.

It was a draw Ridding described as “catastrophic” when he weighed up a trip to non-league opponents put Wanderers in a position in which they had nothing to win and everything to lose.

The Football Association disciplinary panel were so fed up with Denis Law’s antics they suspended Manchester United’s Scotland international for 28 days – a ban which would rule him out of six games including the second leg of the European Cup Winners’ Cup tie against Tottenham and the FA Cup third round at Southampton.

Law was sent off for kicking an opponent in United’s game at Aston Villa and was told by the panel his record of misconduct had contributed to his heavy sentence, which meant he would lose a month’s wages.

It was reported the Old Trafford striker would return to his home in Aberdeen to spend Christmas and Hogmanay with his family.

Law signed off with an object lesson in good behaviour and devastating finishing, scoring four goals in United’s 5-2 hammering of Stoke City.

Milan claimed the title of Europe’s number one football city after its two teams, AC and Inter, reached the quarter-finals of the European Cup.

Boxing promoter Harry Levene announced the triple heavyweight title fight between Henry Cooper and Brian London would take place at Belle Vue, Manchester, the following February. They would fight for the vacant European title as well as Cooper’s British and Empire belts.

30 Years Ago

FRANK Worthington scored one of the most memorable goals of his brief but spectacular spell with Bolton Wanderers – and ended up being fined by his manager Ian Greaves.

Worthy scored two goals in Wanderers 3-1 win at QPR – one of which he has always claimed was superior to his famous televised goal against Ipswich Town at Burnden later in the season.

But he was also booked for dissent in an incident which also led to allegations of punching and spitting, and Greaves was having none of that.

“At this club we have a standard fine for everyone – the tea ladies, the players and the manager – for dissent,” he said.

The Division One game at Loftus Road was watched by a crowd of just 11,635 and a protest from angry home fans prompted Rangers’ chairman of 14 years, Jim Gregory, to announce he was ready to stand down.

Rangers were level on points with Wanderers who were fourth bottom of the table after 18 games. Chelsea were bottom and Liverpool were leading the title race.

England’s cricketers beat Australia by seven wickets in Brisbane to draw first blood in the Ashes series.

Dismissing the Aussies for a paltry 116 in their first innings, Mike Brearley’s side never looked back and won the first Test when they reached the target of 170 for the loss of just three wickets – Derek Randall scoring an unbeaten 74 – well before tea in the final day.

Buster Mottram saved Great Britain’s blushes in their David v Goliath clash with United States in the Davis Cup final.

Despite being two sets down and facing match point for defeat in the third, the 23-year-old British number one fought back in the blistering heat of Palm Springs to beat Brian Gottfried 6-3 in the final set.

20 Years Ago

PETER Barnes, the former England international, vowed never to play for a foreign club again after Wanderers rescued him from a nightmare spell in Portugal.

The ex-Manchester City and West Brom winger had reportedly been sacked by Sporting Farense but blamed his rejection just two games into a two-year contract as “political”.

Claiming he had been ripped off by Farense, he turned to the PFA to salvage something from the financial wreckage.

Six years earlier, he’d joined Spanish club Real Betis – only to get caught up in the post Falklands War sentiment. “They pelted me with bananas,” he complained.

Now Phil Neal – desperate to get Wanderers out of the mid-table doldrums in Division Three – was hoping to harness the talent that earned Barnes 22 England caps.

Latest in a string of disappointments came at Brentford where Richard Cadette scored twice in a 3-0 win that left Wanderers cursing their woeful finishing.

They went some way to redeeming themselves when Steve Thompson netted a late penalty to earn a 1-0 win against Preston at Burnden in a Sherpa Van Trophy qualifier.

It wasn’t much of a derby, though, according to Preston boss John McGrath who said: “If that match had been played in my garden, I’d have shut the curtains.”

Way down the football ladder a Bolton policeman was spearheading a campaign to clean up the town’s top amateur league. DC Steve Ford – player manager of the Bolton Combination’s top club Park United – laid down the law: any player sent off for violent conduct, be it a team-mate or an opponent, would be arrested.

“I would have no hesitation,” said the goalscoring detective, sympathising with referees.

“If I saw a player wounded on the field, I would make an arrest, whether it was one of our players or not.”

Centre-forward Ford had played 16 years in the local leagues and never received so much as a booking. But he was so concerned with the trend of violence and “moments of madness” in the game that he persuaded his own club to back his get tough policy and wrote to the Bolton Evening News to get other clubs to support his stance.

Ford had stepped up as player-manager of Park after former Wanderers star Peter Nicholson hung up his boots after suffering severe facial injuries when he was attacked by an opponent in a Hospital Cup tie.

Ford said: “It was a very serious attack and was very sickening. I was Peter’s assistant then and that was when I decided we had to do something.”