I’ll be honest, this lockdown is slightly tedious, but given the whole of the 2019-20 season has now been expunged, we’re now undefeated in over a year and our last league game at home was a 6-0 win over Tivvy. Teams will need to treat us with the respect our undefeated streak deserves when football resumes.
But that won’t be soon, so the archive trawl continues and we now focus on a time we were legitimately a good side. This year and month marks the 40 year anniversary of one of our last league title wins. The start of the 79-80 season saw us in the newly reformed Southern Premier League after finishing a disappointing third from bottom, with only 7 wins to our name the previous term.
But the 1979 was to be a year of changes in the world. McDonald’s launched the happy meal, smallpox was eliminated and Michael Jackson had his first round of cosmetic surgery on the thing he would later refer to as a nose. Expectations weren’t hugely high, but a better season than previous was hoped for. Ray Ames joined the club in 1979 from Poole, and with established players such as Hedley Steele, Peter Poore and Richard Burley alongside such young talent as soon to be professionals (not Bodie and Doyle) Trevor Senior and Graham Roberts, the club certainly had the players at manager David Best’s disposal to achieve something.
This of course saw us lose 3-1 away at Andover in the first game of the season, with a lone Graham Roberts goal to show for our efforts. We’d right that wrong a few days later with a 5-1 thumping on home turf against Ashford Town. A young Trevor Senior would net his first hat trick of an injury interrupted season, with Paul Thorne and Ray Ames adding the other two goals.
Our stuttering start to the season continued thereafter with a LWLLWW record, our first draw coming in October. But by that time we had lost two key players. Graham Roberts had controversially moved south over the ridgeway for £6,000 after 79 Magpies appearances and 33 goals in his two and a bit seasons, and Trevor Senior required a cartilage operation on his knee and wouldn’t feature again until much later in the season. Peter Poore would also find himself sidelined with cartilage issues, and injuries would see a number of youth and reserve players have to step up throughout the season, often causing reserve games to be called off.
Injury woes or not, we’d start to hit our stride in the early part of November, going on a nine game undefeated streak with six wins in that sequence as we looked to move up the table and prove we belonged there. After the disappointment of the previous season, we had a point to prove, as club captain Hedley Steele would acknowledge;
“78/79 was our debut season with all the big boys in Southern Premier and was tough with increased travel and bigger budget clubs. I don’t think we really believed we deserved to be in that league until it was too late. I remember late that season we beat Yeovil at home and looked decent but it was all too late. 79/80 we had something to prove after that disappointment. We had a good team spirit and a number of injuries to key players was ridiculous so I think our secret weapon turned out to be the relationship between 1st & 2nd & Youth teams. Belief grew as the season progressed and support increased so we dared to dream.”
We would end 1979 with a 3-1 revenge home win over Andover, with goals from Hedley Steele, Peter Poore and Kevin Leigh (another man to suffer a fragmented season due to injury), but due to atrocious weather, we’d only play two league games in the month of January. This would also be around the time that manager Dave Best would depart the club. Having joined the club from AFC Bournemouth in February of 1976 and made 121 appearances, he was replaced in caretaker charge by Stuart Bell. The board would want a “big name” as alluded to in the programme notes in early February, but that’s a whole other blog topic.
We’d find ourselves in sixth in February but with many games in hand. Also worth remembering is that it was just two points for a win rather than the three we’re all accustomed to (well, the last win I saw was under Thommo…). Goals scored were in no short supply, but as ever, keeping them out wasn’t always as easy. We would end the leagues second top scorers but have the worst conceded in the top seven. The 4-4 draw away at Ashford proving we were just as capable of scoring as conceding, and a 3-1 loss away at Aylesbury would see us off the pace, albeit with those games still in hand. That defeat would also prove to be our final one of the season as we would embark on a 14 game unbeaten run that would ultimately see us crowned champions.
Now the old adage is that you’re always better off with points on the board than games in hand, but that didn’t seem to bother us. Four straight wins in a packed March would see us right back in contention, with a returning Trevor Senior picking up where he’d left off with a hat trick against Tonbridge as we won four games in 14 days. Wide player Ray Ames would also net two against Tonbridge in a 5-0 home win. Skipper Hedley Steele would describe him as “a larger than life character” who’s left foot alongside his humour and boundless energy would see him become a key player as well as a fan favourite in his time at the club.
Ray Ames, Peter Poore and Paul Thorne discuss tactics in The Junction after training.
As part of the Southern League representatives side, Hedley Steele would be constantly told by players from rival sides that we’d implode and not finish the job, but our form would dictate otherwise. After two drawn games, the Saturday of Easter weekend away at Hastings would see us lose both goalscorer Barrie Thomas and Ray Ames to injury after only 30 minutes. This may not be an issue today, but with only one substitute available back then, it posed a bit of a problem. Our 10 men would hold out for a vital 1-1 draw before overcoming local rivals Salisbury on Easter Monday thanks to goals from skipper Steele and Terry Hinton, having been 1-0 at half time.
With four games to go we were still in good shape, but we fell behind to mid-table Canterbury City early on, and they shut up shop. An equaliser from the captain with 10 minutes to play would spur us on to look for a winner, and that would arrive in injury time as Trevor Senior would score a vital goal to give us a 2-1 win and keep us in touch with Aylesbury. A 0-0 draw away at Folkestone would leave us with two games to play; away at Salisbury and home to Dartford. Goals from the fit again Peter Poore and Kevin Leigh would see us once more defeat Salisbury 2-1, before the final game would arrive. The crunch fixture being Dartford at home.
The equation (we think…) was an Aylesbury win would see them crowned champions. If they dropped points and we won, then the league was ours. Goals for us from the ever present Paul Thorne and Kevin Leigh would see us overcome Dartford 2-1 at home, but would that be enough? Well, initially, no. Or so we thought. As Trevor Senior recalls;
“We all left having been told that Aylesbury had won the league so we all left feeling pretty dejected. It wasn’t until I got home and checked Ceefax that I realised we’d won it. We’d all arranged to go out that evening for an end of season do and there were no mobiles back then. So after ringing up the landlines and letting each other know, we went back to the club in a different mood to how we left.”
The initial TV report was wrong and Aylesbury, despite a bumper 1478 crowd, had drawn 3-3 at home with Gosport, gifting us the title. So as the perms, Ford Capri’s and suspect moustaches returned to the club (Carl Poore, ex-Magpie and son of Peter Poore would describe his Dads 80’s appearance as changing from Hitler to The Fonz in the space of a year) the party would start and a lengthy celebration would begin. A first league win since 1954-55 and we didn’t know until around about six o’clock. We would go on to lose the ‘Champions Championship Shield’ match vs Midland division winners Bridgend Town, but the Southern League was ours, a fitting way to commemorate our centenary year given the club was formed on October 21st 1880 at the Kings Arms.
It was a title won by caretaker manager (who would later get the job full time) and with a squad ravaged by injuries over the season. There would be several key players in the league winning season and many players who would make notable contributions would feature. This would be Peter Poore’s benefit year as well as the centenary year, and the centenary match, that would be part of that benefit, would include a certain Martin Chivers in the Dorchester line up. Peter would make 317 appearances and score 77 goals in that time, transitioning from a striker to central defender. Ray Ames would play 102 games for the club scoring 18 goals following his arrival that season and in the following years. Paul Thorne, who alongside Barry Dominey would play every game this season, would retire in 1989 after 265 appearances and 47 goals in a decade at the club and would be widely regarded as one of the best players to wear the shirt in that time. Paul would also win the golden boot with 13 goals in this season despite being asleep on his travel pillow by Bere Regis on most away games due to the taxing hours he worked at the Dorset Cake Company. Bob Brittain would appear 34 times that season and to this day can still be found running the line in local football or walking the countryside still shouting “away, man on, turn, yes, no, safe”. Captain Hedley Steele would make 298 appearances with 29 goals before moving on to Tivvy, and the list goes on. Sadly, several players from this side are no longer with us. Ray Ames, Barry Dominey, Paul Thorne among those taken far too soon, and there were too many players who played their part to mention individually. But hopefully their key roles in this success and their place in club history won’t be forgotten.
This was a historic season for the club and one that deserves commemorating. It ended a lengthy run without a league success and would help in attracting new fans and a new manager in Martin Chivers, who would bring with him international experience and a medal collection that included the UEFA Cup but was missing the Dorset Senior Cup. But that’s another blog for another time. 40 years on and close to the day we won the league seems an appropriate time to remember the title win that many don’t know of, or seem to have forgotten. Hopefully this refreshes a few memories and it isn’t forgotten anymore. SV.
The 1979/80 Souther League winning side before the DTFC centenary game, which was also in aid of Peter Poore’s benefit year.
Standing, left to right: Pete Peavoy (trainer), Martin Chivers, Tony Chutter, Bob Brittain, Trevor Senior, Mick Stone, Richard Burley, Barry Dominey, Barrie Thomas, Paul Thorne, Bill Hall (physio), Ray Ames
Seated, left to right: Trevor Townsend, Brian Lee, Steve Flay, Hedley Steele (Capt), Stuart Bell (caretaker manager), Kevin Leigh, Barry Harman and Billy Foreman.
Huge thanks to the programme archives and memories of Hedley Steele, Steve Gould for his help with providing me with statistical history of DTFC, Carl and Peter Poore for memories and news clippings, and the memories of Bob Brittain and Trevor Senior.
The DTFC Supporters Club is setting up an appeal designed to support not only the immediate needs of The Magpies through the weeks ahead but also to provide financial assistance to kick start the new season, as and when it commences. If anyone is able to contribute even a small amount it would be gratefully received. All donations will be acknowledged. For more information on how you can help the club, please follow this link; https://dorchestertownfc.co.uk/magpies-appeal/
Dorchester Town Football Club | Supporters Club | Magpies Appeal
Leave a Reply