Cod Almighty | Diary

How the League Cup can change your life, and your club's life

13 August 2024

The League Cup run of 1979 was a life-changing event. Newbegin Diary was an adolescent schoolboy in mid-Wales. The only action I saw from the games were Mike Brolly's goals against Everton, shown the following weekend on Football Focus, yet they gave me a notch of street credibility. Grimsby had been the kind of club who kids who didn't like football pretended to support. That autumn, they became a force.

After beating Everton, we were in the quarter-finals, against Wolves. We drew with them twice. As every Grimbarian should know, in the first replay we came from 1-0 down and in extra time Mike Brolly hit the bar. Swindon were waiting in the semi-final and whoever won would be favourites to reach Wembley. We were closer then than at any time since the war to competing for major honours.

I'm not sure it is entirely true that you don't miss what you never had. People have to get their kicks from what is available but just as I am curious about the old Christmas morning fixture, younger supporters must wonder about the twice-replayed cup tie.

Let's not romanticise it. It was often a case of two teams lacking the wit to make anything happen, and a brisk penalty shoot-out would have put everyone out of their misery. There's an Old Trafford record we don't talk about: on 23 November 1964 9,292 people rattled around inside the cavernous stadium, watching third-flight Town finally eliminate Barrow, having twice failed to complete in the first round of the FA Cup. A great journey starts with a single step, and so do short ones: Stockport knocked us out at the next opportunity.

Fifteen years later, we met Wolves for the third time at Derby's old Baseball Ground. In 1939, Wolves were helped over the line by George Moulson's neck injury; in 1979 they had the width of the woodwork from the first replay and then a questionable penalty. They went on to win the cup and there'll be fans who to this day think it could have been us, but we consoled ourselves with the Division Three title.

Even the early, extra preliminary rounds of the FA Cup have an aura about them. The League Cup, by contrast, starts like a trickle in upland marsh, zig-zagging in search of meaning. The prize isn't obvious at first but it can grow to be substantial. Tonight it all starts again.