ON THIS DAY

World Cup qualifiers between England and Scotland at Wembley are always going to well talked about but when the two countries met on November 11th 2016 all the talk seemed to be about….poppies! The match was played on Armistice Day and England players, as well as the Scots, wore armbands displaying poppies, a minute’s silence was held, the Last Post was played, there was a display of poppies on the big Wembley screens and poppy T-shirts were handed out to the fans. The trouble was FIFA had a ruling banning ‘political and religious’ symbols and displays at matches and they considered poppies to be just that! Ridiculous or what! England were 3-0 winners but were fined a little over £35,000. 12 th November

Mick Newell gained a bit of a reputation of having a go at match officials when he was manager of Luton Town. After Luton had been beaten 5-1 by Preston in February 2006 he described the fourth official as an incompetant who couldn’t do his job – he received an FA warning for those comments. But after Luton’s 3-2 home defeat against QPR on Saturday 11th November 2006 he hit the headlines after criticising the ref and one of the assistant refs who failed to award Luton a penalty. The assistant referee in question was Amy Rayner in the early days of women officiating in the Football League. Mick Newall said about her “She shouldn’t be here. I know that sounds sexist but I am sexist. This is not park football, so what are women doing here?” Wow! Condemned across the board he later apologised to Amy Rayner and received a warning from his club and a £6,500 fine from the FA.

A First Round FA Cup tie between Barrow and Bristol Rovers at Holker Street saw the first player in England to be jailed for an incident during a football match. After half an hour Barrow defender James Cotterill punched the Bristol Rovers forward Sean Rigg, breaking his jaw in two places. The match officials hadn't seen the attack but Match of the Day cameras had and Cotterill was charged with causing grievous bodily harm, found guilty and sentenced to four months in prison.

A few names from the past. England played Yugoslavia for the last time in a competitive match, winning 4-1 in Belgrade in a Euro 88 qualifier. Peter Beardsley, John Barnes, Bryan Robson and Tony Adams scored the goals in the first 25 minutes to see England top their qualifying group, dropping just one point from six matches and with a goal difference of +18. It left England with high hopes for the Euro 88 finals in Germany - where they lost all three matches!

When the first Football League matches were played in 1888 it was very much a northern competition with the first London club to become a member – Woolwich Arsenal – not doing so until the 1893/94 season. The next London clubs to join the League were Chelsea and Clapton – now Leyton – Orient in the 1905/06 season and it was when those two clubs met in that first season that London fans witnessed the first all-London Football League encounter. That match was played on Saturday 11th November 1905 at Clapton Orient’s Millfields Road ground with Chelsea winning the Second Division match 3-0. It took almost two more years for the first all-London match in the top flight which was played on Saturday 9th November 1907 at Stamford Bridge with Chelsea recording a 2-1 victory over Woolwich Arsenal in the First Division fixture.