Phil Yelland does the homework as we find out how The Bluebirds have got on during previous trips to Scunthorpe United ahead of Tuesday's League Two visit to Sands Venue Stadium.
Tuesday night sees us head to North Lincolnshire to play Scunthorpe United. It will be our 13th visit to the town on league business but will be just our second to Sands Venue Stadium – our previous meetings had taken place at The Old Show Ground.
Last season our trip to Lincolnshire took place on a Tuesday night in December with Rob Kelly in caretaker charge following the departure of David Dunn as boss. We fell behind early in the game, but Scott Quigley’s close-range equaliser looked to have won us a precious point only for The Iron to net a winner in injury time.
Scunthorpe 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 to play them took place in January 1951 when we lost 1-0.
Our first goal at The Old Show Ground didn’t arrive until our third visit when Billy Gordon struck twice to give us a 2-1 win. That meant we had completed the double that season having won by the same score earlier in the campaign 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 faced off in our first season in Division Three (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. It was a 4-2 triumph and unusually we had four different scorers - 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 The Old Show Ground 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, although 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 seven defeats to date. Let’s hope we can improve on that on Tuesday night and record our first win at Sands Venue Stadium.