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Pre Season Memories The Texaco Cup
Pre Season Memories The Texaco Cup
Tuesday, 3rd Aug 2010 20:50

Back in the 70's there were some great little pre season tournaments.

Saints may just have been relegated from the top flight but they had their eyes on silverwear, so instead of a programme of friendlies in pre season 1974 they augmented the Ted Bates Testimonial by entering the Texaco Cup.

The tournament was divided into regional sections and in Saints group were Luton Town who had just been promoted to Division 1, by passing Saints in the process, West Ham Utd who had stayed up by the skin of their teeth finishing only 1 point ahead of Saints and fellow Division 2 side Orient (in the 70's they had dropped the Leyton monicker).

Saints first game was at Luton on 03/08/74 and a fairly large travelling support was present in the crowd of 8,455 at Kenilworth Road, the game finished 1-1 and was notable for the fact that Saints substitutution (only one allowed in those days) was a goalkeeping change with Eric Martin coming on for Ian Turner and the fact that Saints scorer was Lew Chatterley.

Chatterley was the pre prototype Antony Pulis, although his 10 (3) appearances for the club are virtually testimonial demanding when compared to Pulis, Chatterley of course did enjoy long spells at Saints as a coach and one game as joint temporary manager after the sacking of Branfoot and enjoyed a one game/one win run.

A 1-1 draw against Luton was creditable and Saints had looked the better side, setting the scene for the first of two home games, it was Orient first on 06/08/74 and Saints had the game safe within the first 20 mins as Peter Osgood and a Mick Channon penalty awarded after that man Chatterley was brought down put Saints in the driving seat in front of a decent 9,932 mid week crowd and although the East london side pulled one back on the stroke of half time the score remained the same after 90 mins.

The final group game was a Saturday afternoon game on the 10th August and it was the Hammers who were the visitors with 11,364 in attendance, also there were six of the 12 who would be on duty in another cup competition at Wembley 21 months later, as Saints showed that they were clearly out to impress, In fact 8 of those dozen would play at least one game in this trio of games, plus Nick Holmes would feature later in the tournament as well as Mel Blyth who would sign in September, meaning the only two Wembley Saints not to get a Texaco Cup game in 74 were Jim MCalliog and Peter Rodrigues who would not arrive till 1975(Feb & July respectively)

Impress they did with a 2-0 win Paul Gilchrist opened the scoring and then Brian O'Neil made sure in the 65th minute as Saints looked to be playing flowing football employing a then rare 4-4-2 formation.

These three unbeaten games meant that Saints topped the group and were now in the Quarter finals to be played in the Autumn when Glasgow Rangers would be the opponents, but that of course is for another day.             

Photo: Action Images



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