Swindon Play Watford For The Division 3 Championship

A Memory of Swindon.

As a Watford football fan this was the most important league game I saw up to 1969. We were in the old Division 3 and towards the end of the season there were three clubs, Swindon, Luton and Watford, all fighting for the two promotion spots to the promised land of Division 2. I couldn't miss this game as it was so vitally important to our promotion chances and yet I was miles away working and studying in Manchester.

It was the last Saturday in March and also Grand National Day so the kick off had been postponed until the evening - luckily for me as this gave me the time I needed to hitch-hike with a friend down the M6 and on to the County Ground at Swindon. We made it in time and joined a HUGE crowd which set a new ground attendance record for Swindon of nearly twenty nine thousand - and this for a third division match!

The record books will tell you that Watford won the game one-nil but that doesn't tell the whole story of a missed penalty and the euphoria of a magic game and result. As things turned out both Swindon and Watford gained promotion at the end of the season but this particular match really was the decider for the championship itself - Watford became champions!

It took a long time to get out of the ground after the game and very much longer to find a road out of town to thumb a ride back to Manchester. A van stopped for us eventually and I did make it back in time for breakfast on Sunday!

The team that day was: Walker, Welbourne, Williams, Eddy, Lees, Walley, Scullion, Hale, Endean, Garbett and Lewis. And Barry Endean scored the glorious winner almost at the end of the game. This is a football match that will always stay in my memory!

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