It’s been a mammoth journey of around 20,000 words, but finally, our deep dive on the 1980/81 season is complete. Malcolm Johnson has put a huge amount of time and effort into this piece, illuminating some wonderful days gone by for fans, new and old alike. I’d like to personally thank Malcolm for his tremendous hard work in crafting these articles. 

Part One: pre-season and August

Part Two: September and October

Part Three – November and December

Part Four – January and February

Part Five – March and April

May

As usual, Southend had a home match on the Friday night before City’s Saturday game and although held to a draw by Rochdale this was enough for them to celebrate the championship in front of a five-figure crowd. This however did nothing to dampen the celebratory mood around City’s final home game of the season with the visit of Darlington. It started with the team arriving on the pitch in a coach, the one used by team coach providers Appleby’s in their recent success in the ‘Coach Driver of the Year’ contest. As so often this season it was an unchanged team – although Steve Thompson’s presence was only due to Colin Murphy’s plea for leniency to an FA Disciplinary Commission after the player had accumulated enough penalty points for a suspension. After a lively start the game ended with a third 1-0 win in a row (and the fourth in the last six games) with Tony Cunningham, with a brilliant diving header, again being the man to get the only goal.

After the match it was time for a second pitch invasion in five years to celebrate a promotion to the Third Division, but unlike in 1976 one that could be numbered in hundreds rather than thousands, with the now usual home attendance of just under four thousand being less than a third of those that cheered Graham Taylor’s team. Nevertheless, there was plenty of acclaim for the management team and the players as they appeared complete with champagne in the directors’ box.

The final game of the season came on the May Bank Holiday Monday afternoon with a visit to Bury for a game postponed from mid-January. A team change was forced due to Trevor Peake having missed the second half of the Darlington game with an ankle injury. Substituted by David Hughes the midfielder kept his place with David Carr moving to left back to allow the release of Phil Neale for cricketing duties with Worcestershire. The direct replacement for Peake was Gerard Creane for his only start of the season, and likewise making his first start of the season in place of Wayne Biggins was Craig Ramsay in what would be his last game for the club. Making his debut was 17-year-old David Gilbert who came on as substitute for Ramsay in the second half. City looked to be heading for an eleventh away win of the season thanks to George Shipley’s 10^th goal of the season midway through the second half until Bury forced a last minute equaliser from a corner.

So, the final league table of the season saw City finish two points behind Southend and a more than comfortable nine ahead of third-placed Doncaster Rovers. In fourth place were Wimbledon who had improved steadily following the appointment of Dave Bassett as manager towards the end of January to win promotion from the division for the second time in three years with the record low total of 55 points for a 46-club division.

The season wound down with a couple of friendly matches as Wednesday night visitors were a Luton Town side managed by Colin Murphy’s old friend and colleague David Pleat. The visitors, who had narrowly missed out on promotion to the First Division fielded a strong squad and won by the only goal of the game. The following evening saw the losing 1-0 scoreline repeated in a visit to Boston United

Colin Murphy’s side may not have achieved the kind of spectacular records that City had achieved under Graham Taylor five years previously, but they did set a new Fourth Division record for the fewest goals conceded in a season with just 25 which was also a club record for any division. The points total of 65 was the third highest in the club’s history and they could also point to further club records of 25 clean sheets in a season and only 14 goals conceded in away matches.

The Player of the Season award went to Trevor Peake for the second year in a row, ahead of David Felgate and David Carr, while Felgate was Young Player of the Year.

Top scorer for the season was Gordon Hobson whose 21 goals all came in league games, while Mick Harford’s 15 almost equalled his return for the previous season despite playing in less than half the games. Next on the list was George Shipley with 10 with Phil Neale also contributing from midfield with 9. Tony Cunningham rather disappointingly totalled only 6 from 32 appearances although 3 of these crucially were the only goals in 1-0 wins.

The promotion success had been achieved with basically a squad of 14 players, and six of them appearing in over 40 games was evidence of some consistent performances. Only George Shipley appeared in every league game (and all six in the cups) with the other five being Trevor Thompson, Trevor Peake, David Carr (who missed only one game), Gordon Hobson and David Felgate, who was ever-present after joining the club.

The average league attendance of 4,715 was almost exactly 1,000 up on the previous season although the figure was boosted somewhat by the games against Mansfield, Doncaster and Southend as a crowd either side of 4,000 was more the norm at Sincil Bank despite the promotion campaign. In fact, the last four home games all saw gates of below 4,000 as interest seemed to fall away as the Imps ground out the sealing of promotion with a number of low scoring wins and draws.

To be fair, on the subject of disappointing attendances, it was a sign of the times as they were decreasing throughout football. In fact, City’s total for the season’s home games was bettered by only Southend and Doncaster and was higher than nine clubs could manage in the Third Division. But the total for the Football League was down by around 2.7 million, the third biggest drop since the war and could at least partly be put down the economic situation in the country hitting people’s pockets with 2.5 million unemployed and inflation of around 12%.

There is no doubt the success for the season was built on a tight defensive capability as is borne out by the statistics, with the departure of Mick Harford mid-season clearly being a factor in the drying up of goals from mid-December. Prior to that date City had managed three goals or more on five occasions from 24 games, afterwards there was only the 3-1 win at Halifax to show from the remaining 22. As well as the loss of goals from Harford himself his departure also seemed to have an affect on Gordon Hobson’s output as only six of his 21 came after that time. With the sale of Harford brought about by a need to solve the financial situation that still left three strikers on the books with Tony Cunningham waiting in the wings to replace him in the side. In fact, Cunningham had started the season partnering Hobson up front with Harford playing behind them in a 4-3-1-2 formation, but due to some disappointing performances Harford then began to be played alongside Hobson with a change to 4-4-2 which lasted until the last month or two of the season when young Wayne Biggins was brought in to play behind the front two. As for Derek Bell, the season was very much a non-event, never called upon to cover for the injury-free Gordon Hobson and confined to the subs’ bench when he wasn’t being hit by injuries himself. In the light of Steve Thompson’s later career, it’s strange to realise that he began the season playing in midfield as Colin Murphy evidently decided to give him as much game time as possible even if out of position – plus his strength was a useful asset in the hurly-burly of the Fourth Division. Following his mostly undistinguished Imps career so far as one of Willie Bell’s signings David Hughes was a key man in midfield, and it may be that Nolan Keeley had been earmarked for a midfield role but he did such a good job as an early-season stand-in for Phil Neale at left back that he remained there allowing Neale to play a significant role on the right of midfield.

Following the sale of Harford Colin Murphy rather bravely declared there was no need to spend any of the money raised on new players as he already had players of sufficient quality within the squad. However, reading between the lines it may be that none of it was actually available to him – especially considering the substantial sum of £25,000 had already been spent on David Felgate. But in fact, Murphy was proved right, especially with the young players who had started to come through into the first team, notably Wayne Biggins, and with Stuart Hibberd and David Gilbert also knocking on the door – but it still must have been a concern when Nolan Keeley was forced to miss the last quarter of the season, although it was coped with thanks to the versatility of Phil Neale and David Carr.

Elsewhere in football, the European Cup was won by an English club for the fifth year in a row, Liverpool beating Real Madrid 1-0 in Paris for their third success in that time following on from two wins for Nottingham Forest. The Merseysiders made up for slipping to a league placing of fifth, their lowest for ten years, by also winning the League Cup for the first time, beating Second Division champions West Ham 2-1 in a replay at Villa Park. European success also came to Ipswich Town under the management of Bobby Robson who won the UEFA Cup, narrowly beating Dutch side AZ Alkmaar 5-4 over two legs. Ipswich also finished as runners-up in the Football League to Aston Villa who won the league championship for the first time for over 70 years. In third place were Arsenal, while in the FA Cup Final a battle between mid-table sides Tottenham and Manchester City saw City’s Tommy Hutchison score for both sides to set up a replay. Staged at Wembley for the first time Spurs were successful thanks to the ‘Wembley Goal of the Century’ scored by Argentinian Ricky Villa.

Relegated were Norwich City along with Leicester City who went straight back down again after promotion the previous year, while Crystal Palace, only recently dubbed the ‘Team of the Eighties’ finished well adrift at the bottom of the division with only six wins all season.

Promoted from the second tier behind West Ham were Notts County becoming a First Division club for the first time since 1926, while Swansea completed a four-season rise from the Fourth Division to reach the top flight for the first time in their history promoted on goal difference ahead of Blackburn Rovers. It was a bad time for Bristol with both of the city’s clubs relegated from the Second Division. Well adrift at the foot of the table were Bristol Rovers while local rivals Bristol City plummeted straight through the division amid a financial crisis made worse by overspending on players’ contracts. Cardiff City avoided relegation on goal difference to send once proud Preston North End back down to the third tier after a three-year spell in the second. Coming up from the Third Division were champions Rotherham United accompanied by Barnsley and Charlton Athletic, the Tykes completing a three-year rise from the Fourth Division and Charlton bouncing back after one season. Exiting the division in the other direction along with Colchester United, relegated after finishing fifth the season before, were three clubs who would find themselves competing in the fourth tier for the first time in their history. Hull City’s early season thrashing by Lincoln in the League Cup was a portent of things to come as they finished bottom. Above Hull only on goal difference were Blackpool, while the fourth relegation spot was occupied by another former First Division giant in Sheffield United who had finished sixth in the top flight as recently as 1975.

Southend’s promotion ahead of the Imps saw them back up to the Third Division after one season and Doncaster in third place back after ten, while Wimbledon were developing into a real yo-yo club, emulating Southend in bouncing back up in what was only their fourth season in the league. Bottom of the whole league were York City who like Sheffield United had been playing two divisions higher just five years before, and although they had a record of four applications over the past 15 years this was doubtless enough see them comfortably re-elected. Topping the poll were Tranmere, relegated along with the Imps two years before, while perhaps playing with fire were Hereford United, making their second application in a row in only their ninth season as a league club. However, like York, the Bulls could also point to a recent spell as a Second Division club. Next to bottom were Halifax, perhaps riskily appearing ‘cap in hand’ as the saying used to be, for the third time in five years. However, they were comfortably voted back into the league despite the credentials of Altrincham, winners of what was then called the Alliance Premier League for the second year in a row. The previous season Altrincham had been pipped by a single vote from gaining league status ahead of Rochdale and it might have been a different story had the Dale been forced to make it three applications out of the last four but this season they finished well clear of trouble (but would be back at the AGM again a year later).

After many years in the doldrums of the Fourth Division Graham Taylor had taken City into the third tier before his departure had put an end to any further progress and resulted in the opposite. Now they were back, and the thought of that progress being resumed was contained in something Colin Murphy prophetically said a month or two prior to the end of the season, “Contrary to what some people might think, we might not be very far short of going straight through into the Second.”