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With the Blades from South Yorkshire providing the opposition for the home  league curtain-raiser this weekend, it’s an appropriate opportunity to cast a look back 30 years to when the Sheffield outfit visited Griffin Park at the opposite end of a campaign as they were the visitors to Griffin Park for the penultimate home game in the 1982/83 season – a 2-1 win to the Bees that took place on Saturday April 30th.

The match took place in the aftermath of a plethora of news from the club, some good and some sad, notably the announcement of the death of Gerry McAloon who had passed away at the age of 66. Gerry had played for the Bees both before and after the War and as a popular player had been fondly remembered by those who had seen him score some exceptional goals.

Other recent events had seen a ‘nearly-first-ever-success’ in the Wembley five-a-sides a few days earlier, with the televised event covering Brentford’s 3-2 defeat by Millwall in the final (video above), with Stan Bowles and Chris Kamara scoring the goals. Officiating at the Wembley Arena that night was local Football League referee and regular Griffin Park spectator Colin Downey,  warming up for his forthcoming prestigious role just a few hundred yards from the Arena as Senior Linesman for the end-of-season FA Cup Final at Wembley Stadium.

Congratulations were being bandied around for Gary Roberts who had won representative honours for Wales as an over-age player in the under-21 team, against Bulgaria at Bangor four days earlier but most impressive of all was that the Sheffield United fixture took place seven days after the memorable 7-1 thrashing of Exeter City at St James’ Park. It was the first time the Bees had scored seven times away from home in a Football League fixture (a record that remains to this day) and the avalanche of goals finally cracked the 80-goal target set by Capital Radio. Disappointingly, the £25,000 prize on offer had already been claimed a week earlier by Wimbledon.

Even the Club Shop was in charitable good spirits – replica kit prices had been slashed by £2, Brentford pullovers were on sale at £7.50 and unique Brentford table-lamps were available for just £4.95. For every purchase made, a free badge and poster were being given away.

As for the Sheffield United fixture itself, the match failed to reach the dizzy heights of the previous weekend’s bonanza in Devon and the majority of the home supporters must have thought the Exeter scoreline had been a mis-print as a catalogue of attacks broke down on the edge of the penalty area, with the few chances created being woefully squandered. It was little surprise when the Blades took a 37th  minute lead after a hefty and rash challenge from Jim McNichol was punished with the award of a penalty-kick.

If the first-half was a sorry affair, the second period saw a vast improvement. The United defence, marshalled by ex-Bee Stewart Houston, came under intense pressure and cracked just six minutes after the break. Keith Cassells and Stan Bowles combined superbly with a slick one-two and Terry Hurlock raced through to crash the ball past the keeper and into the net. Just four minutes elapsed before the recovery was complete – with energetic enthusiasm Francis Joseph chased a seemingly lost ball and hooked in a low cross from the by-line, leaving Gary Roberts to score in spectacular fashion with a flying header.

The result was rarely in doubt thereafter. Stan Bowles almost added a third with a cheeky chip from 25-yards and in defence, 18-year old birthday boy Tony Spencer produced an outstanding display which belied his tender years and further enhanced his growing reputation.

In customary fashion, Paddy Roche caused a few hearts to miss a beat when a cross slipped through his grasp but he grappled the ball back and smothered it at the second attempt, leaving referee Mr Tom Bune’s final whistle to signal a fine victory in front of 4,987 spectators.

The win rounded off a perfect day for programme editor Eric White who received the Commercial Managers’ Trophy for the best programme in the Third Division and he provided a brief but fascinating insight into the work that went into producing the matchday magazine.

6:00am – the presses whirred into action on copy day with reams of paper lying in wait. Soon the copy began to roll in – via the editor – from a whole host of sources. Chaos and panic were brushed aside despite a series of essential deadlines. Every stage of production was carefully monitored, checked and controlled to ensure compliance.

11:00am – copy setting was underway on the latest computerised, digital film setting machines and once completed, the type was rushed to a proof reader for in-depth checking. That task completed, the type was further transported to the studio for the preparation and making-up of the page layouts.

Mid-afternoon – shift changes and new staff but yet again the copy was read, checked and final corrections made so that the printing plates could be produced. Each page was photographed and made into negatives, with the pictures being divided into hundreds of tiny dots so that they could be printed prior to stripping into the negatives.

Then the plates were made.

Thursday afternoon – the printing began on the high-speed presses, manned by expert craftsmen working to the finest degree of accuracy and with the greatest attention to detail.

Friday morning – the programme production took place with the magazines being made up, each copy folded, stitched and trimmed with maximum speed and efficiency.

Friday afternoon – the boxed programmes were loaded into the vans and delivered to Griffin Park in readiness for their sale and distribution less than 24 hours later. The task had been completed with not a moment to spare.

Meanwhile, back at the printers, the presses roared into the night as yet another matchday magazine deadline loomed on the horizon…

Who’d have been a programme editor back in those days?

Pressure? What pressure, Mr Mark Chapman!!

Mark Croxford