Season 1962/63. Most matches played in a month?

[martino]

Those of a certain age will remember the 1962/63 season included the bad winter when most teams did not play for a long time and then played loads in April and May 63 to complete the season.

My trivia question is - which Club played the most matches in a calender month that season and how many?

What sparked my interest was a Millwall programme which showed they played 10 matches in April 63 (six away), including Reading at home on the 12th, Barnsley away on 13th and then back for Reading away on 15th, all by coach or train!

I do not know the answer but I am sure someone can beat 10.

[Ruud Van Driver]

Interesting one Martino, look forward to seeing the 'winner'.

For the record, after an 8 game March Leeds United played 9 games in April including a similarly tough schedule over Easter which consisted of Preston at home on the 13th, Charlton away on the 15th, and then the return game at home to Charlton on 16th. What is impressive is that Leeds won all 3 games scoring 10 and conceding 3

[Ruud Van Driver]

Further to my last Leeds United matched the 10 games in a month in 1973 with 9 of them coming from the 7th onwards! This included 4 away games 23rd to the 30th at Liverpool (23rd) Hajduk Split (25th) Southampton (28th) and Birmingham (30th). In contrast to my last post all 3 league games were lost but at least a 0-0 draw in Split got us to the ECWC Final...where we lost
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[Joew90]

Chelsea only managed a paltry 8 games in April 1963.
We even managed to win 4 of them!

[lambie the leap]

Burnley 'only' played 9 games in April 63, but we can trump 10 in both the 2 years prior to that. In April 1961 and April 1962 Burnley played 11 games. In 1961 there were 9 League games & a 2 legged League Cup Semi Final, whilst the following year saw 10 league games & an FA Cup Semi Final replay.

[ashburton-grove]

Arsenal were less enthusiastic and played 8, won only 2 and conceded 14!
But scrolling through our history I did note that we only played one game in April 1969/70 season....obviously resting the side for our double season to come.
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[Bremner4]

Imagine the primadonna's of todays game coping with any such like fixture congestion?
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[martino]

Having started this with Millwall's 10, I was looking at a Q P R programme for the same season and found that they played 11 in April including trips to Shrewsbury, Colchester and Hull in seven days.

[martino]

Bremner4 wrote:

Imagine the primadonna's of todays game coping with any such like fixture congestion?

No problem, during the six weeks or so between games they would have legged it to Dubai. Fergie's rant at having to play 10 times in a month would make interesting listening.

[Footyfan]

Whilst the 1962/63 Season saw a fixture pioe-uo after the 'Big Freeze' from late December to Early March I think the schedule Leeds United had to meet in late March/April 1969/70 will take some beating, it went like this:


1. 21 Mar Wolves (A)
2. 23 Mar Man Utd FAC S/F Replay
3. 26 Mar Man Utd FAC S/F 2nd Replay
4. 28 Mar Southampton (A)
5. 30 Mar Derby County (A)
6. 1 Apr Celtic EC S/F (H)
7. 2 Apr West Ham (A)
8. 4 Apr Burnley (A)
9. 11 Apr Chelsea FAC Final
10 15 Apr Celtic EC S/F (A)
11. 18 Apr Man City (H)
12. 21 Apr Ipswich Town (A)
13. 29 Apr Chelsea FAC Final Replay

That is 13 games in 39 days, including 2 FAC Finals, 2 FAC S/F, 2 European Cup S/F. With such a heavy schedule Leeds fielded a Reserve X1 at Derby (30 Mar) , thereby conceding the League Title to Everton, and those helpful "Ba*t**rds" at the FL fined the club £5000, no chance of that happening these days.

Great memories of some truly great games, have got all the programmes, newspaper cuttings and most of the tickets stubs.

[pastpirate]

Rovers only played nine games in April 63 (lazy buggers)
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[ToffeeDan]

1963 - Everton played 9 , Won 5 Drew 4 and moved from 3rd to 1st on their way to the title - winning the last 3 games (in May) to finish on a 12 game unbeaten run. The key game was a 1-0 win over Spurs with Alex Young netting the winner with a great header.

To answer your question - all the detail is available on Statto.com

Clearly the extra games didn't bother a lot of teams - the positions indicated were based on points per game (not total points earned)

Division 1: Everton (1st), Wolves (4th) and Burnley (5th) 9 games
Division 2: Leeds (1st) Huddersfield and Charlton 9 games.
Division 3: QPR 11 games (Millwall 10)
Division 4: Mansfield, York, Chesterfield and Hartlepool 10 games

QPR's games for April 1963
1st Colchester H 1-2
5th Reading A 1-1
8th Southend H 1-0
12th Bristol R H 3-5
13th Port Vale H 3-1
15th Bristol R A 0-0
20th Shrewsbury A 3-0
22nd Colchester A 1-2
25th Hull A 1-4
27th Millwall H 2-3
29th Port Vale A 2-3

they also played on March 30th (Bristol City H 3-1) meaning they fulfilled 12 fixtures in 31 days - winning 4 drawing 2 and losing 6.

[ToffeeDan]

As an aside - between Jan 20 and Feb 27 1988 (38 days) Everton played

1 LCQF Man City H 2-0
2 FAC32R Sheff W H 1-1 (and E.T.)
3 FAC33R Sheff W A 5-0
4 FAC4 Boro A 1-1
5 FAC4R Boro H 1-1 (and E.T)
6 LCSF1 Arsenal H 0-1
7 FAC42R Boro H 2-1
8 LD1 QPR H 2-0
9 Sim Luton H 1-2
10 FAC5 Lpool H 0-1
11 LCSF Arsenal A 1-3
12 LD1 Soton H 1-0

They played 12 cup ties in 14 games.. and 5 home games in a fortnight - nine of the 12 games were at home which might also be some kind of record in such a short period (I went to all of them)




they also played 7 in the preceding 25 days (19 in 63 days)

[westyorksnffc]

Forest had 10 also:

Apr 3 v Southampton (away), 3-3 D
Apr 6 v Arsenal (away), 0-0 D
Apr 8 v Southampton (away), 0-5 L
Apr 12 v Man City (away), 0-1 L
Apr 13 v Birmingham (home), 0-2 L
Apr 15 v Man City (home), 1-1 D
Apr 18 v Liverpool (away), 2-0 W
Apr 20 v Burnley (away), 0-0 D
Apr 22 v West Ham (away), 1-4 L
Apr 30 v Wolves (home), 2-0 W

P10 W2 D4 L4 F9 A16

the 2 Southampton games were FA Cup Quarter Finals, with the game on 8th April being played at White Hart Lane.

Special mentions to Peter Grummitt and Bob McKinlay who played in all 10!
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[Tynie Topics]

In season 1949/50 Scottish Junior club (non-league to non Scots!) Bo’ness United - who played in this years Scottish Cup and will play in next years as well - played 12 matches in 14 days to finish the season and win the Edinburgh & District Junior League. They basically played Mon/Tue/Wed/Thur/Fri/Sat with a rest day on Sunday, followed again by Mon/Tue/Wed/Thus/Fri/Sat. The season had to be finished by a certain date, no exceptions. They won the league by 2 points.
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[sharrowblade]

One of the most successful sunday league sides in the Sheffield & Hallamshire district over the last 40 years were Hoyland Town Jaguars. During the 90s the Jags due to their successful participation in competitions like the Midland Cup, would reguarly be anything up to 12 games in arrears entering the final few weeks of the season. One year they had to complete something like 15 games in three weeks at the end of April, including three cup finals.
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