Today I'm going back 44 years to 1978 and York City's Fourth Division fixture against Wimbledon. The match was played at Bootham Crescent and was attended by 3,329. The game was only my 22nd ever football match and 9th time watching the delights of York City.
Wimbledon were competing in only their second season in the Football League's basement division after promotion from the Southern League in 1976/77. Manager Dario Gradi had only been appointed in January 1978 and in this, his first full season in charge, he managed to steer the club to 3rd place and promotion to Division Three for their first time ever. Gradi was born in Milan to an Italian father and an English mother and moved to the UK aged just four years old. His career as a player was exclusively non-league at clubs such as Sutton United, Tooting & Mitcham United and Wycombe Wanderers before moving into coaching. Gradi's first coaching appointment was as an assistant at Chelsea at the age of just 29 and he had a further spell as an assistant coach at Derby County before being appointed as Wimbledon's manager in 1978. Following promotion with Wimbledon, they were quickly relegated back into the Fourth Division but Gradi was well on the way to gaining an immediate bounce back when he was invited to take over at First Division strugglers Crystal Palace. He was unable to save Palace from the drop and resigned within a year of his appointment. His next position was the one that he is most renowned for. He arrived as the new Crewe Alexandra manager in June 1983 and remained in position until 2007, becoming the longest serving Football League boss at the time. Gradi's model of careful talent spotting, player development and then the subsequent sell-on of promising players for a profit enabled Crewe to move slowly up the Leagues and, by 1997, they had reached the unprecedented heights of the second-tier (now known as the Championship).
Sadly, Gradi's tenure at Crewe is not without controversy. It was during his tenure that another coach and notorious pedophile (Barry Bennell) committed various indecent acts with the boys under his charge. Whilst Gradi has never been accused of pedophilia himself, it is felt that he must have known what was going on and that he didn't do enough to prevent it from happening. As such, Gradi was suspended indefinitely from all football-related activities. It was a deeply sad ending to an otherwise long and successful career but not half as sad as the ordeal suffered by those kids.
Going into the featured game, the programme shows York City in 10th position in the table after ten games whilst undefeated Wimbledon were sitting proudly at the top of the table after seven wins and three draws. The Dons were not about to slip up at Bootham Crescent and found themselves two-up at the break following goals scored by Steve Parsons and Ray Knowles. Wimbledon's decisive third goal came just four minutes into the second half and was scored by John Leslie with Alan Cork grabbing their fourth in the 82nd minute. York's sole consolation was a goal from David Loggie.
Wimbledon were joined in the end-of-season promotion places by champions Reading, runners-up Grimsby Town and Barnsley. York finished the season in 10th spot, ten points clear (under two points for a win) of the re-election positions which were occupied by Darlington, Doncater Rovers, Halifax Town and Crewe Alexandra, all of whom were subsequently re-elected
CRB Match No. 22.
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