Today I'm going back 17 years to 2005 and York City's Tuesday night visit to The Lamb Ground, home of Staffordshire side Tamworth for a National League (or Nationwide Conference if you prefer) fixture. The Ground was named after The Lamb Inn public house which stood at what is now the entrance to the club's car park but is no more. The official attendance on the night was 1,005.
York went into the game in a relatively healthy 5th place after ten games, four points off of top spot which was occupied by Grays Athletic. Tamworth were struggling near the foot of the table just two points clear of bottom side Crawley Town. Tamworth's player manager Mark Cooper selected himself as a substitute in the featured game and indeed entered the fray before the end of the match. Cooper is the son of a famous father: Terry Cooper of Leeds United and England. Son Mark's career never hit the same heights as his father's had done and his 22-year playing career took in an incredible 17 different clubs. As you might expect, Mark Cooper didn't spend terribly long at any of his club sides and his longest spell anywhere was this one at Tamworth where he made 104 League appearances out of a career total of 457 League appearances (scoring a respectable 115 goals from midfield). Following the end of his playing career Mark went into management and, so far, he has taken the reigns at 10 different clubs! As a manager, Cooper won the FA Trophy with Darlington in 2011 and gained promotion into the Football League with Forest Green Rovers in 2017. He is presently out of football management having parted company with Barrow earlier this year.
Talking of famous father-son relationships, Tamworth also had James Francis, son of Trevor, in their side. I can't trace much information on James so I think that it's safe to say that his football career wasn't as fruitful as that of his father, famed for being the first £1,000,000 footballer.
According to the York Press, going into the game, City manager Billy McEwan had been fuming at the reported slur by Mark Cooper that City were the easiest opponents that Tamworth had faced the previous season. I sometimes wonder whether players and managers have any brains at all when they make such pronouncements as it's almost certain that their comments will be pinned to the dressing room wall and used as motivation the next time that the sides meet. Such "trash talking" is a regular occurrence in boxing where the aim seems to be to sell more tickets but I doubt that it works in the same way at a football ticket office. Irrespective, City appeared to be very well motivated in the featured game!
City were made to work hard in the first half but got their noses in front after 28 minutes when Clayton Donaldson had two bites at the cherry in order to score the first goal of the evening. It was a different matter after the break however as York dominated the rest of the match and scored twice more. Donaldson grabbed his second goal in the 57th minute when he was first to react to a loose ball following a save by Tamworth keeper James Dormand and headed the ball home from close range. Three minutes later City had a decisive third goal when Mark Convery's shot from 25 yards hit the inside of Dormand's left-hand post before creeping over the line. 3-0 to City and the supporters sarcastic cries of "Easy! Easy!" were surely not lost on Cooper who hopefully learned to keep his innermost thoughts to himself in future.
Sadly, York's National League challenge was to fade and they ended up finishing in 8th place, eleven points short of Morecambe who occupied the last Play-Off spot (5th). Things were even worse for Tamworth who finished 20th (of 22) and escaped relegation by just one point from Scarborough. Interestingly, although Scarborough finished one place above bottom of the table Altrincham, they were relegated because they couldn't satisfy the Conference's financial guidelines. Altrincham ended up being reprieved because of the expansion of the National League to 24 clubs and the financial problems at Scarborough and Canvey Island (who took voluntary relegation despite finishing 14th). Champions that season and returning to the Football League for the first time since 1962 were Accrington Stanley with Hereford United winning the Play-Off final against Halifax Town 3-2 to secure their own place in League 2 for the following season.
CRB Match No. 1455
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