Phil Yelland dips in to the history books to examine our previous record on visits to Scunthorpe United.
Tuesday night sees us head to North Lincolnshire to play Scunthorpe United. It will be our twelfth visit to the town but will be our first to Glanford Park. Our previous meetings have all been in league games but have taken place at the Old Show Ground.
The Iron only joined the Football League in 1950 having been a strong side in the old Midland League for a number of seasons. At that time, they were known as Scunthorpe & Lindsey United. Our first visit took place in January 1951 when we lost 1-0.
Our first goal didn’t come until our third visit when Billy Gordon struck twice to give us a 2-1 win and that meant we had completed the double that season, having won by the same score earlier in the season at Holker Street.
United were a strong side in Division Three North in the mid to late 1950s and might have won promotion before they did had there been more than one promotion spot. Four of our next five visits ended in defeat.
After the 1957/58 season we did not meet them for ten years as they made it up to Division Two (now the Championship). We met in our first season in Division Three back in 1967/68 and, whilst we were going well, they were struggling against relegation. On that occasion in February 1968, we recorded our second win at the ground, triumphing 4-2 and unusually we had four different scorers in Malcolm Edwards, Tony Field, Jim Mulholland and David Storf.
We met them in each of our last two seasons in our first spell in the Football League. In September 1970 we picked up our last point at their place with a 1-1 draw. The goal came from Bobby Svarc, once of Leicester City, who had joined on loan from Lincoln City. It was our first away point of the campaign at the fourth attempt.
The following season The Iron were going for promotion and the meeting in February saw them record a 2-1 win. However, we gave as good as we got on the day and might have had more than just Jim Irvine’s goal to show for our efforts. United took the final promotion place at the end of the season.
So two wins, three draws and six defeats to date - let’s hope we can improve on that on Tuesday night.