Matchday Memories: On This Day 1944 – CCFC Take County To Cleaners & Crash In Eight!

Harry Storer at Highfield Rd

On this day (6th May) in 1944 Coventry City, like most other Football League clubs who were still playing wartime football, were living somewhat hand-to-mouth with scratch teams made up of some retained players from pre-war, some wartime guests and some local amateurs nearly all doing war-work in local factories. The crowds consisted of the same plus soldiers in uniform on leave.

Scores were unpredictable and often entertaining, high scoring contests were witnessed and today was no exception. Long time manager Harry Storer was still in charge at Highfield Road as City were competing for this season in the Football League North Championship which was broken down into two separate competitions between the same subset of clubs (but not all in the league).

Tommy Crawley

Games tended to be paired home and away and each club played each other, depending on the fixture arrangement, twice, four or even six times. Some fixtures also doubled confusingly as League Cup games. We had already come out eighteenth out of 47 teams entered in the North Cup Qualifying competition as well as finishing 38th out of fifty teams in the first Championship and were now completing the second iteration.

Harry Barratt

Today’s game was the last of the season played at Highfield Road in a high scoring end of season for the ‘Bantams’ (as CCFC were nicknamed). On April 15th they had drawn 1-1 at Filbert Street with Leicester City and then a week later we beat them at Highfield Road 6-2. The previous Saturday, today’s opponents at Highfield Road, Notts County were beaten 4-1 in Nottingham.

Today, in the return, the score was doubled as CCFC ran out 8-2 winners over the East Midland outfit who had a large number of amateurs in their side! (NB. We hadn’t played County in the first Championship). Therefore in the two games City knocked in a dozen goals past the County and in their last three games of the season they had notched eighteen!!

Laurie ‘Lol’ Coen

There were 1,822 fans in Highfield Road to see the goal feast as CCFC’s long time (from 1934-52) club playing servant Harry Barratt helped himself to four goals, Tommy Crawley and Lol Coen got one each and Jimmy McKeown got a brace!

Notts. were managed by Major Frank Buckley. Interestingly in the previous weekend’s game between the two sides future fifties Bantams player Colin Collindridge (guesting from Sheffield United) played at No.8 for County and scored their goal. Sadly, CCFPA member Colin died a few year’s back at the grand old age of 98!

Today, both County’s goals came from their D.Gascoigne and City’s forwards put the eight goals past CCFC’s shot-stopper Bill Morgan who guested for Notts!!

Jimmy McKeown (1943-44)

City’s team on this day was as follows:-

Ron Garner; Bob Ward & Walter Metcalf; ‘Mick’ O’Brien, George Mason (c) & Harry Boileau; Lol Coen, Harry Barratt, Tommy Crawley, Jimmy McKeown & P.Doyle

Garner (Broadway Old Boys); Ward (AWA Bagington), McKeown (Morris Motors) and Doyle (GEC) were all men from local junior teams drafted in to City’s ranks.

Major Frank Buckley‘s Notts County team lined up:-

Bill Morgan; H Everett & A Moran; J Taylor, P Barton & S Unwin; J Van Gelden, D Gascoigne, W Allen, Renshaw & Drinkwater     Referee:-  W.K.Clinton (Wolverhampton)

By the end of the game the Bantams knew they had finished seventeenth in the Football League North Second Championship (out of 56 teams competing), a better outcome than the first iteration earlier in the season.

Thanks to CCFPA’s Mike Young for sourcing the images.