Memoirs

A close shave.......

I cannot remember Tranmere's financial plight in those years as much as I would have liked to. I missed games against big clubs such as Man Utd which were in an attempt to raise cash for the club, but I can remember talk of Morrisons wanting to buy the land to build a big supermarket complex on. Frank Worthington left Tranmere. He was good for teaching the players fancy tricks such as balancing the ball behind heads etc. and always managed to do an overhead kick every game much to my delight, so I was sad to see him go.


	Ronnie Moore, the then caretaker, took over temporarily. One famous chant that began in the cowsheds was “Ronnie Moore - show us your arse”, to which he always obliged. However, it was John King who took over with only a few games left. He had previously been manager at Tranmere, and a lot of faith was put in him to help us to survive.


	However, the game against Exeter was one which will stick in my memory for ever. Usual attendances at Tranmere were lucky to be more than 1000, so when 7,000 packed in to see our vital game against Exeter it was a complete shock, but a fantastic one - that so many people wanted to see us survive. Tranmere at the time were bordering on extinction from the football league. They were almost bottom of division four, and only a win was good enough to prevent them from dropping into the conference league. A drop into non-league football would have spelt the end for Tranmere Rovers. I went along with my brother, and we stood behind the goal in the cowshed end. The first thing I can remember was the Exeter keeper was late running out of the tunnel. But when he did he was as bald as a coot and the crowd fell about in laughter! I can't remember much about the game, except of course the goal, which came midway through the second half...


	Ian Muir got in behind defence on the left hand side infront of the cowshed and played and inch perfect cross onto the head of Gary Williams who was running in from the right. The ball thundered past the baldy keeper into the net. The ball flew in right infront of me, and my brother was jumping about ecstatic! The next thing I knew we were running onto the pitch in delight! I can only presume that the game was stopped for about five minutes until the pitch was cleared! Nothing else happened, and so the game finished 1-0 to Rovers. We ran onto the pitch again at the end and carried the players off. After they went off, they reappeared in the directors box and proceeded to throw shirts, shorts, boots etc. into the crowd!


	Burnley also won, but Lincoln City lost and so it was they who were relegated. The Birkenhead News ran an article trying to encourage support for the next season which comprised of a promissory note "I promise to attend the first game of the season." However I could not understand why you had to pay £2 in order to promise this!!! So Tranmere survived and never looked back from this close shave


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