Author: knebfc

By now my interest in football was very much focused on non league and the North Herts. area in particular. Apart from playing for Knebworth and watching evening matches at Hitchin Town and Stevenage Town, I now started watching Letchworth Town in the Athenian League as well. Letchworth did not have floodlights at this time and opportunities to watch them were fairly limited.

The 1966/67 season saw Kings Langley win the Herts. County League Premier Division, new club Cockfosters Athletic won Division One, another new club Tudor Corinthians won Division Two and a third new club Harpenden Rovers won Division Three. Knebworth finished thirteenth out of sixteen in the Premier Division, while the Reserves finished fourth in Division Two. Leggatts Way Old Boys won the Aubrey Cup, putting seven goals past Ware Reserves, whilst conceding two in return. Four Herts. County League sides entered the Amateur Cup, Buntingford Town, Royston Town and Saffron Walden Town were all defeated in the Preliminary Round, with Rickmansworth Town losing in the First Qualifying round, having received a bye in the previous round.

Hitchin Town continued to struggle in the Isthmian League after the “Shamateurism” saga and finished nineteenth out of twenty.

Stevenage Town had a much happier time in the Southern League Division One, finishing in third place. In the Southern League promotion and relegation was on a four up four down basis, enabling Stevenage to gain promotion to the Premier Division.

The Athenian League was structured in a Premier Division, Division One and Division Two. Letchworth Town played in Division One and finished in mid table. Several Hertfordshire sides competed in the Athenian League at this time. Bishops Stortford and Hemel Hempstead Town were in the Premier Division, Hertford Town and Cheshunt, together with Letchworth were in Division One and Borehamwood and Ware in Division Two. Ware finished second and were promoted to Division One.

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The 1965/66 season was a good one for Knebworth. The first team finished tenth in the Premier Division and the reserves won the Division Three title. Kings Langley won the Premier Division, ICT (Letchworth) Division One and Colne Valley Division Two. The Aubrey Cup was won by Marconi Instruments defeating North Mymms 2-1 in the final.

Hitchin Town were caught paying players while they were still an amateur club. This was known as “shamateurism” and the club were dealt with severely by the FA and made an example of. This led to an exodus of players from the club, with them finishing eighteenth out of twenty in the Isthmian League. Ironically Enfield widely known as the highest paid amateurs were never brought to task over the matter.

Stevenage Town had another good season in the Southern League Division One finishing eighth. Another Hertfordshire club, Barnet, who had not been invited to join the Isthmian League two years earlier and had won the Athenian League Premier Division during those two years, now became semi-professional. They had joined the Southern League Division One at the start of the season and won the title at the first attempt.

It was at about this time that I became aware that some Herts. County League Teams had competed in the Amateur Cup. Buntingford Town, Chipperfield, Harpenden Town, Kings Langley, Leavesden Hospital, Rickmansworth Town, Royston Town, Saffron Walden Town, Stansted and Welwyn Garden City, had all competed while being in membership of the league. During this season however only Buntingford Town and Saffron Walden Town participated, with Buntingford Town exiting in the Preliminary Round after a replay and Saffron Walden Town exiting at the First Qualifying Round.

1966 was the year the World Cup Finals were held in England and whilst not having a great deal of interest in international football I watched England’s matches out of nationalistic pride, just as I would the Olympic Games. I must admit to a great deal of satisfaction however, when we defeated our old rivals West Germany, in what was a very close final.

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Stevenage Town had joined the Southern League at the start of the 1963/64 season and finished a creditable sixth in Division One at their first attempt. The star player in the Stevenage side was Johnny Brooks, the ex Tottenham Hotspur player, who had been capped a couple of times for England and would, a decade later, manage Knebworth.

Hitchin Town in their first season in the Isthmian League finished fourteenth. As I was now playing regularly on Saturdays I would take every available opportunity to watch both Hitchin and Stevenage mid week matches played under floodlights.

The 1964/65 season was an excellent one for Knebworth. In our first season in the Herts. County League Premier Division we finished fifth behind champions Leggatts Way Old Boys. Runners up were Kings Langley who at that time played on a site at the old Ovaltine factory. They were later to lose this ground for development and would become nomadic for several seasons. Buntingford Town won Division One, Kings Langley Reserves Division Two and Hawker Siddeley Dynamics Reserves Division Three. Leggatts Way Old Boys completed the double defeating Leavesden Hospital 2-0 in the Aubrey Cup Final.

At the end of the season Knebworth played Woolmer Green in the “Denny Croft Trophy”. This was in aid of a gentleman of the same name who lived in Datchworth and was seriously ill. This game played at Woolmer Green recreation ground, was extremely well supported and would be played for several more seasons in the future. The reason for the large attendance no doubt was because the referee was Dave McKay and the two linesmen were Cliff Jones and Jimmy Robertson. After the match we all retired to the Red Lion pub, where Dave McKay proved he was as good a drinker as he was footballer!

Both Stevenage Town and Hitchin Town improved on their initial season in their new
leagues; Stevenage finishing fifth in the Southern League Division One and Hitchin
finishing eleventh in the Isthmian League.

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From the 1963/64 season onwards I played regularly, initially for the reserves and as time progressed more for the first team. Facilities were improving too. We used the gymnasium at Knebworth House for winter training and we had a coach to take us on some of the longer journeys for away trips. One such journey was to Saffron Walden in the middle of winter. As we set off the fog started to come down and got heavier during the journey. It seemed to take forever to get to the ground but eventually we arrived……..in Colchester, needless to say the game was postponed.

There were many works sides in the County League at this time with excellent facilities. The best amongst them were ICI (Plastics), Sun Sports, Tabulator Sports and all the de-Havilland clubs.

For our home matches most of us met up first at the Station Hotel, where a pre-match warm up involved consuming a couple of pints of brown and mild before arriving at the rec. in just enough time to get changed before kick-off.

One of the most successful teams in The Herts. County League at this time was Leavesden Hospital. They had previously played in the Spartan League and the London League and had excellent facilities with a stand. It was heavily rumoured that their first team consisted of individuals employed because of their footballing ability and not because of their skills in looking after mentally ill patients. Playing at the ground was always difficult as patients were allowed to run about in a fenced off area opposite the main stand. They were supposed to be supervised by staff but invariably they would hurl verbal abuse at the players and sometimes throw objects onto the pitch. Understandably play usually moved to the far side of the pitch where the stand was.

At the conclusion of 1963/64 season Leavesden Hospital were Premier Division champions, North Mymms won Division One, Colney Heath Reserves Division Two and Hitchin Town “A” Division Three. Leavesden Hospital completed the double defeating Rickmansworth Town 3-1 in the Aubrey Cup Final. Knebworth finished third in Division One, in which only two teams were promoted but as the second placed team was Marconi Instruments Reserves, Knebworth were promoted to the Premier Division. Knebworth Reserves finished a respectable fourth in Division Three.

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The 1962/63 season saw the first organised youth football as an under eighteen’s league was formed. Knebworth entered a team in the league which played it’s matches on Sunday afternoons. Most of the boys who had played up the rec. on Sunday mornings, since we were young, played for this team. The team played on the main pitch and some of us were now playing Saturday and Sunday afternoons. That was not the only progression, as we now had black football boots with white stripes and moulded multi studded soles.

The main issue this season was the harsh weather with heavy snow and hard frosts during January, which did not relent until late March and caused the Herts. County League competition to be cancelled. When the weather did relent an emergency competition was played. The Aubrey Cup competition did get completed however, with Marconi Instruments beating Borehamwood Saints 5-1 in the final.

In the Amateur Cup Hitchin Town again reached the semi-finals but were soundly beaten 4-0 by Sutton United, who in turn were beaten 4-2 by Wimbledon in the final.

There were to be some major changes in amateur football at the end of the season.

The way it was structured in the south east was such that the Isthmian League was regarded as the top league, followed by the Athenian League, the Corinthian League, the Delphian League, the Spartan League and the London League. For the start of the 1963/64 season Enfield, Hendon, Hitchin Town and Sutton United were invited to join the Isthmian League and transferred from the Athenian League. The Athenian League then incorporated the Corinthian and Delphian leagues into its set up. The original Athenian League became the Premier Division, the Corinthian League Division One and the Delphian League Division Two. All the teams in the Corinthian and Delphian leagues transferred to the Athenian League, with the exception of Stevenage Town, who moved to the Southern League and turned semi-professional. They had moved from their old London Road ground to a new ground on Roaring Meg South at Broadhall Way.

While all these changes were taking place I continued to watch Hitchin Town, whenever the opportunity presented itself.

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