2023-24 Prediction League; Game 9 v Tranmere Rovers (away)

[Div3North]

Tranmere Rovers

V

Accrington Stanley

2023/24 Prediction League Game 9 v Tranmere Rovers (away)

Enormous congratulations (and jubilations!) to Kiwi John(ny) for his inspired prediction of a 4-1 win over Sutton last weekend, and for his first TenfromLen, and commiserations to andy d, whose 4-2 prediction got him a fifer (one of seven - there were also eight players who picked up 4 for the win); no-one thought we’d lose, and three perforated themselves once again on the fence going for the draw - Greger getting one point for their goal, and the other two - one being Val - got nul points for a Desmond (that’ll teach him to have a pop a me! “Smells fishy”? Bah, humbug!) ….. Mwahahahaha!

You may have noticed - or perhaps not - that Cheltenham Town aren’t having the best of League One seasons so far ………… in fact they’re 24th of 24, having played 8, drawn 1 and lost 7 (just below Fleetwoof on GD) ………….. and their GD is -12, as in “goals scored 0, goals conceded 12” …… so after 720 League minutes, they’ve yet to score ……….. which starts you wondering (well, it does me) what the record is for the longest time at the start of the season before a team scored its first League goal. Hands up then Halifax Town, who - in 1990/91 - went 729 minutes without a goal.

Watch this space …. The Chelts ain’t finished yet!

However the record isn’t 729 minutes, it’s actually 772 minutes ……. with a twist ………… In season 1995/96 Mainz FC (whose side included a “rugged 28-year old defender” named Jurgen Klopp) had to wait until the 52nd minute of their 9th League 2 game for their first ‘official’ goal (and an OG at that) ………. it’s an odd record to hold, given that their first League game of that season, against Hannover 96, actually finished 2-2 at the final whistle with Mainz’s first goal credited to Thomas Ziemer ….. HOWEVER, some Dummkopf at the club had forgotten to register Ziemer as a Mainz player for the season, with the result that the 2-2 draw became - “officially” - a 2-0 win for Hannover 96 ……….. Bizarre? You betcha! ………. But Mainz got their revenge, because they finished the season in 11th place, and Hannover were relegated ….. You cannot beat the Voodoo Gods of Fussball, Mein Herr!

You may also have seen that Neil Warnock is leaving Huddersfield after this midweek’s game against Stoke; he’s 74 and doesn’t want to retire, but the CEO at the club does want him to retire …. or leave, anyway ….. so they can “make a longer-term managerial appointment” ….. Been around a bit, has Neil; so, Starter for Ten ……… including the Stoke game, how many matches in the professional leagues has Warnock managed?

Tranmere is a suburb of Birkenhead, on the Wirral Peninsula; administratively, it’s within the Metropolitan Borough of Wirral in Merseyside. Before local government reorganisation on 1st April 1974, it was part of the County Borough of Birkenhead, within the geographical county of Cheshire (?). Tranmere is situated on the eastern side of the Wirral Peninsula, at the western side of the River Mersey (are you still following this?). The area is approximately 4.3 miles south-south-east of the Irish Sea at New Brighton and about5.9 miles east-north-east of the Dee Estuary at Thurstaston. Its name was given by Norwegian Vikings who settled and colonised Wirral in the 10th century. Tranmere in Old Norse is ”Trani-melr”, meaning "crane (bird) sandbank" or "sandbank with the cranes".

Tranmere contains one of the largest and most expensive World War II air raid shelters in the country, consisting of a series of tunnels stretching a total length of 6,500 ft and designed to house up to 6,000 people, many of them workers at the strategically important Cammell Laird shipyard. By the time the tunnels were completed they were no longer needed (typical!), as the threat of invasion had diminished. They were later used by the Ministry of Food for storage, and were considered as a nuclear fallout shelter during the Cold War era. They were sealed in 1989, amid growing health and safety concerns; they still exist, and building work in 2008 uncovered a shaft, which allowed temporary exploration, before being sealed again. Beware risk of subsidence, then, if venturing ……

Good Queen Bess granted John Poole the lease of ferry rights at Tranmere in 1586. The Etna, the first steam-powered ferry on the River Mersey operated from Tranmere Pool to Liverpool on 17 April 1817. The early part of the 19th Century were prosperous times for Tranmere's ferry service, but this was to change with the completion of Thomas Brassey's New Chester Road in 1833 and the opening of the Chester and Birkenhead Railway in 1840. Further blows to trade came with the commencement of a horse-drawn tramway in 1877 between New Ferry and Woodside Ferry and the opening of the Mersey Railway between Liverpool and nearby Green Lane railway station in 1886. By 1904, the ferry service had ceased …

“On banks of the Mersey, o’er on Cheshire side
Lies Runcorn, that's best known to fame
By Transporter Bridge as takes folks over t'stream
Or else brings them back across same

In days afore Transporter Bridge were put up
A ferryboat lay in the slip
And old Ted the boatman would row folks across
At per tuppence per person per trip

Now Runcorn lay over on one side of stream
And Widnes on t'other side stood
And, as no-one wanted to go either place
Well, the trade wasn't any too good”

Written by Marriott Edgar - art imitating life ………………

Famous Tranmerians include WW1 poet Wilfred Owen, Jason McAteer, Patricia Routledge-Bucket and Lily Savage …………. Imagine having dinner with that lot!

Second Starter for Ten, then; it’s a well-known phenomenon that when famous strikers move clubs they often come back to haunt their previous employers by sticking it severally into their net ……….. Andy Cole, when he moved from Newcastle to Man U, scored against Newcastle with his first touch, and over the next ten years he scored, in all, 11 against the Magpies; Ally McCoist scored 14 times against St Johnstone (his first club), as did Alan Shearer against the Saints; Harry Kane played on loan at Leicester in 2013, and when he went back to Spurs he hit 20 goals against them in 20 games ………. but who was it who scored 27 times in 26 games against his ex-employers?

Tranmere Rovers were initially formed as Belmont Football Club when the football arms of two cricket clubs – Lyndhurst Wanderers and Belmont – came together in 1884. On 15 November 1884, they won their first game 4–0 against Brunswick Rovers. An unrelated, disbanded side had played under the name "Tranmere Rovers Cricket Club Association football section" - (catchy or what!) - in 1881–82. On 16 September 1885, before their second season began, Belmont F.C. adopted the name Tranmere Rovers. They played their first matches at Steele’s Field in Birkenhead, later buying Ravenshaw’s Field from Tranmere Rugby Club. In 1895, their ground was renamed Prenton Park, although it was 25 years later that the team moved into the current stadium of the same name. Originally they wore a kit of blue shirts, white shorts and blue socks. In 1889 they adopted orange and maroon shirts, but in 1904 returned to wearing blue …now, of course, it’s mostly an all-white kit - and I wouldn’t be their kit man for all the tea in China

Following the expulsion of Leeds City Reserves in 1919, Tranmere entered the Central League. Their timing was excellent, as the following season, four Central League clubs – including Tranmere – were invited to join the new Division Three North. On 27 August 1921, as D3N founder members, they won their first FL match 4–1 against Crewe Alex at Prenton Park. At this time the team were managed by Bert Cooke, who held that post for 23 years in total, the club record for longest serving manager (regarding which, see below). In 1924, local youngster Dixie Dean made his debut aged 16 years 355 days. He played 30 games for Rovers, scoring 27 goals, before being transferred to Everton for £3,000. In the 1927–28 season, Dean scored a record 60 League goals, and after his departure, a string of talented youngsters also left for Division One clubs, leading to Cooke's reputation as a shrewd businessman. Among those sold was Pongo Waring who – having scored six goals in the 11–1 victory over Durham City – went to Aston Villa for £4,700. Waring still holds the record of scoring most goals for Villa in a single season.

They won Div 3 North in 1938 (lasting one season in Division 2) and then won the Third Division play-offs in 1991, beating Bolton 1-0 … they managed ten seasons in the second tier that time round, and reached the play-offs in three successive seasons - missing out on promotion to the newly formed Premier League through defeat to Swindon Town in 1993, Leicester City in 1994, and Reading in 1995. However, in 2015 they GreasyPoled into the Bananarama; three years later they saw off Boring Wood 2-1 in the playoff final, and re-took their place in League Two

Famous managers include John Aldridge, Ray Mathias, Ronnie Moore (twice), John Barnes (very briefly), Les Parry, Mickey Adams, and Micky Mellon (twice) - actually, 36 managers since 1987. Had I been writing this two weeks ago I’d have said that their current manager was Ian Dawes, but on 10th September, after six straight defeats including at Colchester on 9th September, he got the old heave-ho, to be replaced (interimly) by Nigel Adkins; Big Nige has a record here of P1 L1 (so he’s likely only 5 more games to go before the axe parts his haircut from his shoulders) …………Overall so far this season, P8 W1 L7 (including all four on the road), Pts 3, GD of -5, and above only Sutton on GD only

Promoted back to back into League One in 2018/19, winning the playoff final by beating Vegan Greenpeace 2-1 and then Newport in the Final by the odd goal in one; 2019/20, relegated back to the basement; 2020/21, beaten in the play-offs (League Two) after a seventh place; 2021/22 ninth; last season, 12th ……. they shed 14 players and signed 15 pre-owned ones in exchange (four of them they paid for - CB Neill Byrne from Hartlepool, GK Ross Doohan from Celtic, DMF Brad Walker from Port Vale, and striker Harvey Saunders from Brizzle) …….. doesn’t seem to have done them much good so far …………

Deadline for entries is, as always, scheduled kick-off time, which is 3.00pm on Saturday 26th September (winter drawers on) ………. they were our bogey team (or one of them) in cup competitions, beating us three times in the FA Cup, and doing us down in League Cup and Johnstone’s PaintPot Trophy ……. actually, only four league games played since 2006 - two in 2013/14 in L2 (one win each), and two in League One in 2019/20 (one win to them at ours, and a draw), so much to play for ………. and if they’re getting 0.375 points per game, we should have a decent chance

And (including Stoke last Wednesday), Neil Warnock has managed 1,628 League games; and 27 goals in 26 meetings is Robert Lewandowski’s payback playing for Bayern, whom he joined from Borussia Dortmund in 2014

Good luck to everyone! ………. Keep the Faith! ………….. And thanks for playing!

[choirboy]

Tranmere 1-2 Stanley for me please.

[Taypot]

Tranmere 2 Stanley 1

[ossy kid]

Tranmere 1-0 Stanley

[AccyMad]

2 - 0 to Stanley please

[Greger]

Think we might salvage a point.
1-1 for me, please.

Pongo Waring not only played for Tranmere, Villa and England. More importantly, he played for Accrington Stanley!

[Watchdog]

2-2 Draw please

[cashman]

1-0 stanley fer me.

[andyd]

Tranmere 0-2 Stanley

[Chimer]

3-1 Stanley will do nicely

[teach]

Stanley to win 1-0 fo me please.

[MikeA]

Stanley 1-0 please

[Kiwi Johnny]

1-1..thanks

[Div3North]

A Desmond, I think

[Tom D]

3 0 win for Stanley please