Second row (l-r); Dick Hill (Trainer), George Taylor, Laurie Coen, Bernard Smith, Alf Wood, Walter Metcalf, Bill Morgan, Dennis Tooze, Jim Haver, Jack Astley, Les Bruton (Coach)
Third row (l-r); Jackie Brown, Jack Snape, Laurie Armeson, Laurie Conwell, Harry Storer (Manager), Bobby Davidson, Bill MacDonald, Jack Archer, George Ashall
Front row (l-r); Harry Barratt, Norman Smith, Ivor Lewis, Eric Lammas, Ted Roberts, Billy Bond, Clarrie Young, Ron Wykes
By Jim Brown
Despite finishing fourth again in the 1938-39 season things were never quite the same. The supporters wanted money invested in players to push for promotion but the prudent directors were reluctant to saddle the club with debt when they had cleared the clubs liabilities from the decade of mismanagement of the 1920s. Two transfers that did take place were the sale to Birmingham, for £3,000 of winger Jackie Brown, who had disgraced himself in a hushed-up incident in the toilets at a local ballroom. His replacement was George Ashall, at £3,500 a record signing from Wolves. Ashall had been selected to play on the wing for England the previous season but injury had prevented him from playing.
After a sluggish start to the season when only two of the first seven games were won the side went on a tremendous run of form which resulted in 12 wins out of 15 and took the team to third in the table in February. After a 4-0 win at Newcastle the team were three points behind the top two teams with two games in hand and promotion talk was in the air. The club had cash balances of £7,000 and when goalscoring sensation Tommy Crawley’s goals dried up Storer signed West Ham’s centre-forward Tommy Green to fill the gap. For once Storer’s judgement failed and Green failed to deliver the goals needed to push City into the top two and promotion was missed by four points with Blackburn and Sheffield United pipping City.
Gates fell by an average 6,500 as the fans tired of the novelty of Second Division football, although 38,163 turned up for the only Midlands derby, against West Brom in February. Near the season’s end less than 12,000, the lowest Saturday crowd since promotion, turned up to see City beat already relegated Tranmere Rovers 2-0 and a week later there were only 13,000 to see the final home game against Sheffield United despite City having a mathematical chance of promotion.
Crawley’s 14 goals in 18 games meant he topped the scoring lists with Ellis Lager second on 13 goals. The team only scored 62 goals, a telling statistic and the lowest total for 10 years. The days of 100 goals a season were over for ever. Whilst the defence had a settled look to it the attack was constantly being changed because of injuries and poor form.
After two successive fourth place finishes the optimistic fans talked of ‘third time lucky’ but the war clouds were gathering over Europe and competitive football was set to be halted just three games into the 1939-40 season.
