Eightsome reel of Wessex clubs have made notable contributions the English game, and all could be in League One next season
Although League One's Carlisle are accustomed to regular travels to what must seem like the ends of the earth, the club's daunting 700-mile-plus FA Cup third-round trip on Saturday to Torquay's palmy riviera at least rewards them with a scenic route to a fresh destination.
The most far-reaching English league football fixture would be Newcastle v Plymouth ? though 30 seasons ago I recall a minor back-page stir when the respective residents of the distinct and very distant St James' Parks, Newcastle and Exeter, met down south in a fifth?round replay (the travellers being rudely dispatched by 4-0).
Romantics can box up the Wessex league clubs into a neat little eightsome reel ? Plymouth, Torquay, Exeter and Bournemouth along the coast, Yeovil in the middle and, to the north, Swindon and the two Bristols. In fact, if Torquay put on a spurt to win promotion from League Two, and if Bristol City slump to relegation from the Championship, then all eight of them could be playing next season in League One. Just a thought.
As a boy in north Gloucestershire ? no Cheltenham Town of any significance then ? we always considered Bristol Rovers "our" county team: City played across the Avon in dreaded Somerset. Working on the desk of the Bristol Evening World more than half a century ago my favoured trip was always to more pastoral, earthy Eastville.
The World's football man then was David Foot and in his disarming new memoir, Footstep From East Coker (Fairfield �15), our own octogenarian confirms the ingrained disparity in the demeanour of the two clubs: City with its miscellany of dictatorial, thirsty and snobbish directors, and Rovers' "much humbler survivors with a loyalty of fans, however restricted, perhaps unmatched in affectionate feeling".
Fidelity remains an appealing western trait: both Bristols still cherish memory of two immense and faithful goalscorers: City's John Atyeo (314 goals between 1951 and 1966) and Rovers' Geoff Bradford (245 between 1949 and 1964); and just up the road at Swindon don't forget John Trollope uniquely logging 770 appearances for a single club in the two decades from 1960.
Yeovil, of course, are forever notched by history for their FA Cup defeat of Len Shackleton's Sunderland in 1949. Around that time I saw my own first FA Cup tie, when Dad took me to the County Ground. We stopped for a wee at that olde-worlde hotel in Cirencester's market square and ? wow ? there were the then high-flying Cardiff City strutters finishing their slap-up, meat?and-two-veg, sit-down lunch. Within hours, Wiltshire's cocky Robins had sent the Bluebirds packing in extra time. I can still recall the delirium; it was the first overwhelmingly exultant throng I'd ever been part of.
Arsenal and England's lynchpin left-back and captain in the 30s and 40s, Eddie Hapgood, was a Bristol Rovers colt. Further up the same Highbury touchline sprinted the wing racer "Boy" Bastin, Hapgood's Wessex confr�re signed at 17 from Exeter.
Another Bristol Rover, Nigel Martyn, was the first goalkeeper ever transferred for �1m (to Crystal Palace in 1989), but I'd say the best from the west between the sticks remains Exeter-born Dick Pym, Bolton's flat-capped and unflappably cheerful last line in three FA Cup finals ? 1923, 1926 and 1929 ? without letting a goal in.
Moderns may consider Plymouth-born Trevor Francis the west's most famous, but he never actually played for Argyle, Birmingham snaffling him at 16. True-great Hapgood captained England 33 times (including wartime) and won five league championships and two FA Cup winners' medals; Bastin played 21 times for England and won the same glinting stash of medals as his captain ? posting his first FA Cup medal back, with thanks, to his Exeter elementary school headmaster.
Alas, Arsenal's "Boy" hero ended up deaf and disillusioned and running a down-at-heel cafe in the capital's dreary Neasden. Wessex's two other footballing figures of grandeur left the madding crowds behind to return to their native heath and hearths. Thomas Hardy himself could have immortalised both of them ? for poor Hapgood was to finish as a bitter, brooding warden of a dingy Weymouth apprentices' hostel while Pym, more happily, left Bolton for Exeter and home, and a full, rich and contented long life minding different nets as a wise and successful fisherman out of Topsham harbour.
Mind you, bravest Wessex attempt at the big time must remain Bournemouth & Boscombe's name change in 1970 ? to AFC Bournemouth so they could head the whole league, alphabetically at least. A grand idea ? till someone pointed out the fates of the original Accrington and Aldershot clubs.
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