Reply With QuoteGood heavens - we were in the basement even then, though obviously about to rip up the league with a record number of points!
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A long shot I know, but does anybody have a scan/photo/link of the dates of all the unplayed fixtures for the 1939/40 season? I'd like to add them to my database. I've got the two that we did play, both won, but missing the rest.
The order of fixtures, at least initially, would be identical to the 1946/47 campaign as they used the same list but as 1947 was the worst winter in living memory, the 2nd half of 46/47 was all over the place. Indeed, 29th May 1947 is the latest date we've ever played a regular league fixture that wasn't play-offs (a 1-0 home win v Reading), the PO final is the only time we've played a competitive game beyond that date (2nd June) before the summer break. We might be seeing that record broken this year though if the preset day crisis takes a turn for the worse.
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Good heavens - we were in the basement even then, though obviously about to rip up the league with a record number of points!
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If anybody has got access to a newspaper archive, the fixtures that year were published on 17th May 1939.
I know the first match cancelled was Bristol City home on September 6th and we were due to play Swindon at home on Christmas Day. Looks as though the season was scrapped altogether very quickly, within hours of war being declared. A few weeks later clubs were arranging local matches but players wouldn't be paid. We played our first friendly on September 23rd (Doncaster away).
They really should have allowed the first two games completed (or three in everybody else's case) to stand when resuming in 1946. We lost the game we'd previously won at Cardiff.
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Have you tried the Library?Originally Posted by upthemaggies
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Somebody has kindly emailed me a scan.
Curiously, they've published the fixtures with two teams still to be confirmed as they had to apply for re-election, so we've got "Team A" and "Team B", which would be Bristol Rovers and Walsall but not sure which way round they would have been.
We should have played Port Vale away on the Monday between the two games that did get played but that was postponed.
I'll post a link once I've finished adding them in.
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Here we go, the fixtures that never got played.
Air-raid bombings didn't start until after this season was due to finish, so you wouldn't have had grounds full of people being blown up but obviously plenty of other reasons to cancel.
Port Vale away had already been re-arranged for 18th September in June.
Port Vale home was supposed to be the final game of the season in May but Notts moved it to coincide with the opening of Goose Fair.
Bristol City away clashed with the Cup final, which would have been the 3rd to be televised but there was still only one transmitter that barely reached beyond London.
Comparing the fixture list with 1946/47, we can deduce that Team A was Walsall, Team B Bristol Rovers. So on the day war was decalred (Sunday 3rd September) our fixture list looked like this...........
http://carousel.royalwebhosting.net/...ml?19390903NCO
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I don't know if you are aware but many scans of many newspapers going back over 100yrs or more are available at:
https://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk
A free login gives 3 pages available to view and any more than that it costs (~£70+ /yr) for unlimited.
The search is quite reasonable but it helps to know the date as you did in this case, Nottingham Evening Post assumed, and a search on that date gave Page 8 which is presumably what you were sent.
I had hoped that there was a free pass via the Library card on-line as there is for the OED but it appears not.
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I've been holding out on a subscription until they reach the 1980s with the NEP, but they've been stuck on 1950 for a while now. They have done the Football Posts though.
A couple of other things I'd really like to pin down.....
1) Who was in charge of the team between 1st September and 22nd October 1953 (Going by the search returns, the Football Post doesn't appear to give details)
2) The dates, or at least the weeks Jack Dunnett became acting Chairman as a result of Bill Hopcroft becoming unwell (early 1968) and when the position became permanent (probably the start of 1969/70). Again, nothing for Hopcroft comes up with a Football Post search but the FP would have been more concerned with the actual games than what was going on behind the scenes.
I have got access to The Mirror and Express but they are mostly Southern edition scans and therefore not much to be gleaned on Notts.
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