To keep you entertained during these times I’m going to be taking you down memory lane and having look back at the 1986/87 championship winning season.
November 8 – Northampton Town 3 Preston North End 1
PRESTON North End were the third great name from the past to visit the County
Ground following Wolves and Burnley. And the Lancashire club were despatched with equal ease to the others in front of a crowd of 6,537, the biggest since Aston Villa in the FA Cup four years earlier.
Indeed, Preston had to resort to boring, negative tactics, which had Graham Carr
lamenting. I was disappointed with the way Preston played it. “The rest of the promotion pack were now a distance away, 10 points separating the Cobblers and their nearest challenger, Swansea.
Ironically an injury to the unlucky Russell Wilcox, which brought on Eddie McGoldrick,
proved the turning point. As soon as play re-started Preston let in Ian Benjamin to score the opener. Preston drew level with their first shot of the second half one of only two in the half from Steve Taylor.
McGoldrick began to tease and torment the Preston defence and finally they cracked in the 65th minute, Keith McPherson heading home before Richard Hill scored a brilliant
third. Preston became desperate to stop the Cobblers near the end and Oshor Williams
got his marching orders for fouls on Morley and Hill.
Phil Chard made his second penalty miss of the season, but the crowd, the 16th biggest
in the entire country, went home convinced that the Fourth Division championship was
heading for the County Ground for the first time in the club’s history.
November 29 – Crewe 0 Northampton 5
A PILE-UP on the M1 thwarted some attempts to get to Gresty Road. But there was no stopping the Cobblers goal machine as yet again Richard Hill inspired them with a supreme hat-trick.
Flu ravaged Crewe were even sicker after the game as the Cobblers restored a massive
10 point advantage and notched up their sixth win of the campaign. Hill went on the rampage in the 24th, 73rd and 86th minutes and Ian Benjamin and Keith McPherson supplied the other goals.With the Cobblers two up, Hill struck and sabotaged any chance of a fightback with a header from Dave Gilbert’s free kick.
A volley brought Hill his second, and by now the Crewe defence had totally
disintegrated. Loan man Irvin Gernon, who has never scored a League goal, was denied by the goalkeeper but four minutes from time, Hill was given the freedom to run 20 yards to
complete the scoring.
December 2 – Northampton Town 4 Exeter City 0
FIFTY UP! Irrisistible Cobblers turned on the style for 6,639 fans to make a mockery of
Exeter’s Scrooge-like defence. It had conceded only 11 goals prior to meeting the Cobblers, but no defence is safe when the attack clicks into top gear.
Exeter came to frustrate and irritate, and even when they were three goals down they
still didn’t have the wit or invention to do anything different. It took the Cobblers just 18 games to top the 50 mark, and who else but Richard Hill was on hand to record the landmark.
Trevor Morley opened the scoring, Eddie McGoldrick drove in the second and Hill cashed in on goalkeeper John Shaw’s mistake for the third. The last was the icing on the cake – and
yet one more reminder to Maurice Evans of Oxford of his capabilities. Evans, who was later to move for Hill, and beleaguered Chelsea boss John Hollins, could only sit and admire along with the other fans as the tall, elegant midfield man strode past one feeble challenge before sliding the fourth goal wide of Shaw.
The one black-spot was a spate of three bookings in five minutes Ian Benjamin, Aidy
Mann and Irvin Gernon. Said Carr: “We knew about their sweeper system before the game, and knew they would try to slow it down. So we just tried to keep it moving quickly at free kicks and throw ins to disorganise them.”
December 13 – Northampton Town 2 Wrexham 2
THE Cobblers came within six minutes of not only losing their 100 per cent County Ground League record, but losing the game as well. The 2-2 draw suggested there was something of a Welsh jinx, since Swansea were still the only side to beat Graham Carr’s men in a Division Four game.
Five bookings were ample illustration of Wrexham’s determination to stop the Cobblers
at any cost. Jim Steele has developed a knack of scoring against the Cobblers and he maintained his record with both goals.
Russell Wilcox notched his first for the club with a snapshot from the edge of the box, and
Ian Benjamin salvaged part of the Cobblers record with the equaliser, after Richard Hill and Trevor Morley had worked the opening. A Liverpool director · was at the game apparently to run the rule over Hill, which only brought a Carr insistence that his star goal scorer would not be allowed to leave until the summer at the earliest.
Make sure you keep an eye on our social media for many more looking back articles plus much more. Keeping you entertained during this time. Much of this information has been found from Frank Grandes records and Northampton Chronicle and Eco.