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The start of a new era John King immediately brought in some new players. They didn’t cost the earth, they weren’t youngsters with lightening pace, but were experienced players. Jim Harvey was bought from Bristol City in the October for £25,000 and Jim Steel, a huge striker who was excellent in the air was bought from Wrexham in the November for £50,000. Money was new to Tranmere, but since they now had the backing of local businessman, Peter Johnson, small signings were fine. |
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The team didn’t immediately do well, and lost quite a few at the start of the season. However, once the new signings settled, the team began to perform quite well. Ironically, during the early games of 1988, the team did so well, they were picked to play in the Mercantile credit centenary celebrations - a two day festival of football at Wembley on 16th and 17th of April!! My Dad bought me some tickets and off we went. The coaches left Prenton Park at midnight on the Friday night, and we were outside Wembley at 5am - our game wasn’t until 10am, so I can remember walking round and round Wembley bored, waiting for the big game! |
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Dave Martindale, hardly a Tranmere superstar picked up the ball just inside the area, and with a diving “lunge” of a shot, put the ball past Beasant. I remember seeing the ball bobble into the net and pausing for a moment - surely we hadn’t scored?! We had, and went on to win the game. Newcastle then knocked out Liverpool on penalties and so we were to face them. Surely we couldn’t do it a second time??
Well, as we know, it turned out that we could, infact by 2-0 this time. Plus, our new signing Eric Nixon in goal managed to save a late penalty to add to our celebrations. Rumors had it that Tranmere had only booked into their hotel for one night - they were so sure that they would be knocked out, that they had to take Livepools hotel for the second night!!! Our coach brought us home again - although we had tickets for the next day, we didn’t expect to still be there so had not booked any kind of hotel. After a long day, my Dad and I both decided to listen on the radio. Unfortunately, despite taking the lead twice against Nottingham Forest, Rovers were knocked out on penalties - Ian Muir’s was saved, and Pearce slotted home. Forest went on to win the tournament. But Tranmere had finally been to Wembley - and little did we know that we would almost be residents there in a few years time!! The 87-88 season ended fairly mid-table for Tranmere - finishing 14th. What would happen next? |
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