Inside Track: Accrington in the English League from the very start
Inside Track with Joe Carroll
As regular visitors to this page might know Inside Track’s main interest in the English League is focussed on Accrington Stanley. As was said before, we cannot be accused seeking glamour.
AS are in the bottom tier, and going on early season form are likely to be there for quite a while. A recent result showed we were beaten 3-2 away to Walsall – not a calamity by any means since The Saddlers have made a flying start to the season, winning this and another of their first three games and drawing the other.
Still, we’re three from the bottom, with just a single point from three outings. As the fella used say, we have “a mountain to climb”. There are two Irish in our squad, Séamus Connelly, the captain, and Connor O’Brien.
IT’s two other teams, Inverness Caledonian Thistle and Ballinamallard United fared no better in the weekend under review.
ICT, new to the Scottish Championship this season and finding the going tough, lost 3-1 to league leaders, Stenhousemuior, and are now in relegation territory.
Up north, Ballinamallard drew with Annagh United after a promising start to the campaign, and are now trailing Warrenpoint and Newry Town in the First Division, with Newington – never heard of them either – tipping along nicely, leading Harland & Wolff Welders by a point.
(Rugby League doesn’t get a mention around here, but that’s not to say Inside Track doesn’t have a team to watch. It’s Hull Kingston Rovers. We compete in the Betfred Super League, and have made only an ordinary start to the season, losing as many as we’ve won, one of the defeats a 46-0 trimming from Wigan Warriors.)
Back to Accrington Stanley. We’ve had many iterations, named as just Accrington to begin with. A kind of merger with another of the town’s teams, Stanley United, led to Accrington Stanley.
That all happened after we had been involved in the first-ever English League. That, by the way, was 138 years ago, with first games played around this time of the year. A sign of things to come? Everton beat us 2-1.
Each of the other 11 teams are still kicking football, so to speak – Bolton, Derby, Preston North, Burnley, Stoke, West Brom, Wolverhampton Wanderers, Aston Villa, Notts County, Blackburn and the already-mentioned Everton. Preston won the title.
(Keep all of that in mind, all you quizzers. It could come up some night. Also, Gersham Cox scored the first goal in the league, but unfortunately for him, his goal was against his own team, Aston Villa; in other words, an o.g.)
Teams sometimes get bad names. Us? We were ridiculed – not for results or the way we played, but for just being us.
An ad ran on television in the 1980s, featuring two young boys, both Liverpool supporters. They are in conversation.
Boy 1: Milk. Urght.
Boy 2: It’s what Ian Rush drinks.
Boy 1: Ian Rush?
Boy 2: Yeah, and he said if I didn’t drink milk when I grow up, I’ll only be good enough to play for Accrington Stanley.
Boy 1: Accringston Stanley?
Boy 2: Exactly.
I can only assume we got some money out it, maybe helping us upgrade our grounds, once described as the ‘poorest in the leaque’.