1961-62 and 1962-63 - Hitchin Town Football Club

1961-62: Tough act to follow
After such a tremendous season in 1960-61, hopes had never been so high for a
new campaign. Distracted by the FA Cup and then the FA Amateur Cup, Hitchin
had missed out on the Athenian League title, but really felt that the new season
would end with some serious silverware landing on the Top Field sideboard. The
local press was also 100% behind the Canaries, claiming that Laurie Scott’s side
would “pick up where they finished last season”, but warned that “there
achievements, many say, will never be equalled.” Overall, however, the North
Herts scribes felt that “Hitchin could have a great year ahead.”
Hitchin’s fans feared, though, that the team considered to be the finest to don the
club’s shirts might start to break up. Charlie Turner was one player being courted
by Luton Town. The Hatters’ manager, Sam Bartram, a goalkeeper for Charlton in
his playing days, knew a good goalkeeper when he saw one and Turner was on
his list. But the Hitchin custodian stayed at the club, preferring to continue in the
amateur game with his pals. “We were very much a family,” recalled Turner.
“After every game we would go out together and were a tight-knit bunch.”
The new season started well, with three consecutive wins, despite something of
an injury crisis.
When the FA Cup got
underway, memories
of last season
came flooding
back. In the second
qualifying round,
Hitchin came from
two-down to beat
Bedford 3- 2, thanks
to a virtuoso
display by Dennis
Randall. “Pure
fantasy,” said the
press. The run
continued with a 2-1
win against Cambridge
City, a side assembled at the cost of £ 35,000 – or so the rumours suggested.
There was to be no fairy-tale run this time, however, for Barnet ended Hitchin’s
FA Cup hopes by beating them by the odd goal in five, that odd goal coming
seconds from the end of the fourth qualifying round tie. League form continued to
be good, but the first signs of a team break-up came when Roger Figg joined his
brother at Barnet.
Two notable scorelines came before the turn of the year, a 5-5 draw at
Hornchurch – the Canaries led 5-2 with 10 minutes to go – and an 11-0 massacre
of Tring Town in the Herts Senior Cup. But by February, things had turned a little
stale, with the FA Amateur Cup providing no thrills and spills this time, and when
Grays came away from Top Field with a 2-0 win, the critics started to question if
time was running out for this Hitchin team. “Is the old Top Field magic fading?”,
asked the newspapers, adding: “Has the shiny veneer of cup and league success
worn thing to reveal a weary team struggling desperately to live up to a past
reputation?”.
Despite occasional bursts of brilliant attacking football - the season yielded 156
goals in 52 games – away form was too patchy to sustain a serious title
challenge. The team was hampered by the loss of Bruce Spavins to ill-health and

was led for long periods by Dennis Gibbs. The overall feeling was that the team
had been tired, injury-hit and lacked a little zest. The Herts Senior Cup was won,
however, for the first time since 1942, and the team was unlucky to lose the East
Anglian Cup final to Cambridge United. There was still some life left in an ageing
team, as 1962-63 would prove.
1962-63: Final throes of a great team
On May 14 1963, Hitchin Town played its last game in the Athenian League, a
lack-lustre 1-2 home defeat at the hands of Hornchurch. It was the end of a
season in which the Canaries went close to reaching their holy grail - the FA
Amateur Cup final - for the second time in three years. It was also probably the
last roll of the dice for a great team, for when the club joined the Isthmian
League, many of those players were either past their peak or ill-equipped for the
new challenge.
Hitchin went into the 1962-63 season with a spate of injuries. They were also
without Dennis Randall, who had made the move to Kettering in the Southern
League. When Laurie Scott rolled out his side for the new season, Peter
Hammond had taken over the striker's role and by the the end of the season,
Hitchin's first England Amateur cap had reached the 150 goal mark for the club.
The critics had forgotten Randall by the time the first league game had been
played, for Terry Waldock netted a ht-trick and Hitchin had beaten Leyton 5-3.
"King Randall having abdicated, there was naturally, a big sword of Damacles
hovering over the Hitchin attack on Saturday," said the press, claiming that the
"loss of goal-machine Randall is not the end of the world."
A workmanlike performance at Hayes, 4-1 in Hitchin's favour, was followed by a
shock defeat at Grays, and another defeat, at Hounslow, cast some doubts over
the team's ability to make a real challenge for the league title. There was no FA
Cup glory run this time around, either, as Bedford won 5-3 at Top Field before
3,713. "Eagles swoop to attack and Canaries crumble," was the headline for one

of the most exciting games see at Hitchin that season.
In late November, however, there was great excitement at Top Field as the
floodlights were switched on for the first time. Arsenal, led by Billy Wright,
provided the opposition, winning 2-1. "The lights are of the latest design," said
the Hitchin programme.
The Amateur Cup provided the real thrill of the season, however. The Canaries
began a campaign that started at Dulwich, postponed for five weeks owing to the
fierce weather of the 1962-63 winter. Hitchin won 2-1 to meet Leatherhead in the
mud of Fetcham Grove. In round three, the Canaries faced Wycombe, and in
another close-run game, won 3-2, thanks to an 80th minute goal from Waldock.
"They almost cut it too fine," said one Hitchin committee man after the game.
"Erratic, nervous but triumphant," claimed the local papers.
That win paired Scott's men with Hayes in the quarter final, and after two games,
Hitchin won 1-0 at Hayes to reach their semi-final. Played at Craven Cottage,
Hitchin faced Sutton United, a side considered to be a "dark horse" for the
competition. Three thousand people travelled to Fulham, but the Canaries were
well beaten. As ever, Hitchin were sporting losers.
"Skipper Bruce Spavins and the rest of the Hitchin players lined up to clap Sutton
United as they left the Craven Cottage pitch at Fulham after this Amateur Cup
semi-final. It was a typically sporting gesture and also, it seemed to me, a public
acknowledgement that, on the day's play, the victory laurels had gone to a better
side."
And so, Hitchin finished in fifth place, a respectable end to their Athenian League
career. A new world awaited, one in which Hitchin would never quite enjoy the
status they held in the late 1950s and early 1960s.