Saint Jiffrindale's luck was no match for City

IT was good to see Fulham Football Club honour one of their greatest players over the weekend by unveiling a statue of Johnny Haynes.

He featured in a club record 658 games for the Cottagers, scoring 158 goals between 1952 and 1970, as well winning 56 caps for England.

Haynes will also be remembered for being the first player paid £100 per week.

I only managed to see him play on a couple of occasions and one of those was at St James's Park in an FA Cup tie in 1969.

Haynes lined up in a side that also contained the likes of Fred Callaghan (295 league appearances), Steve Earle (291 appearances) and Les Barrett (424 appearances).

So it proved to be something of a scalp for the Grecians as they won 2-0 with goals from John Corr and Alan Banks in front of an attendance of 9,181, including a large travelling Fulham support of about 1,000.

One Fulham supporter, Pamela Lang, even brought a cat with her! Can you imagine that happening now?

Are there any ground regulations as regards supporters bringing animals into St James's Park?! Pamela said it was her lucky cat and mascot. The cat was called Saint Jiffrindale, and the tie at the Park was the 12th match the feline had attended.

Neither owner, nor cat could have been too impressed with Fulham that day and one wonders whether the animal was regarded as lucky afterwards?

Had Fulham taken advantage of their opening 20 minutes of superiority, then they would surely have won. As it was, their attack looked poor on the day, despite the team playing the better football.

Corr put the Grecians ahead on the hour and Banks clinched it with 10 minutes remaining. Yet Fulham even missed a penalty when they were trailing 1-0, as Conway sent his spot kick well wide of Peter Shearing's goal.

City went on to face Northampton Town in the second round, but after two replays lost 2-1 in a game that was played on the neutral ground of Swindon Town.

The first replay back at the Park was like watching the traffic lights change — boring. Northampton caught City offside so many times, sometimes only just inside their own half that it became painful to watch.

Haynes died in October 2005, and he is just one of many greats to have appeared at the Park.

City v Fulham (15/11/69): Peter Shearing, Campbell Crawford, Jimmy Blain, Steve Morris, Brian Sharples, Mike Balson, John Corr, Alan Banks, John Wingate, John Mitten, David Pleat (Bruce Walker).