The Day We Silenced The Didcot Town Cannon

By Micky (Turka ) Taylor non-League football pundit and author

Having been appointed manager of then-Sussex County League club Three Bridges in 2003/04 as always with the lower non-League clubs, the FA Cup comes around incredibly early.

And no sooner have you finished your pre-season and had one or two league games at the most, you are playing your first cup tie which was for us away to Kent League side Greenwich Borough in the Extra Preliminary Round.

What was to be special about this was that the FA had decided to follow the trail of Greenwich Borough and it was obvious whoever beat them the trail would continue to that side and so on and so on.

Also, the FA had dug into their funds and given a much better prize fund money, thus putting managers under even more pressure to win games for financial reasons.

So, having beaten Greenwich we were now the FA trailblazers and faced a strong Didcot Town team at home.

Didcot now play in the Southern League Division One Central but back then were still members of the Hellenic League.

I was one of those managers who was more about man-management than coaching, but I also had a particularly good tactical head when needed.

It became obvious when we were paired with Didcot that we would have to face the strike force threat of `golden boot` winner Ian Concannon, who in one season had scored 67 goals.

I had a chance on a Wednesday night prior to the game to go and see their FA Cup replay against Alton Town.

I saw what I needed to see and as Didcot won the replay it was now time to make plans to deal with the threat of Concannon.

After my long journey and plenty of thoughts in my head, it was to be a Thursday evening light training session and a laid-back type of evening playing darts and pool.

I refused to answer any questions from the players about Didcot Town until the Saturday 12.30pm meet at the ground.

As the Saturday arrived and, despite several conversations between myself and my coach, Chick Bain, I called the players into a meeting room and explained the game plan.

I am of the great belief that no matter how prolific you are in front of goal, without service and the ball you cannot do anything.

Based on this philosophy I decided to sacrifice one of my forwards, Phil Gault, who was playing very well at the time and scoring enough goals himself, to play a 4-5-1 formation, blocking off the wings and central mid-field and stopping the supply to Concannon.

For the first 20 minutes of the game Didcot were at sixes and sevens and were trying to cope with the formation and not being able to get the ball to the front players.

We had taken the lead as early as the 3rd minute and held that until half time.

Having brought in a debut player, Gareth Gregg, in midfield, he showed his class by running clear from the middle of the pitch through the Didcot defence to put us 2-0 up.

Game over - or so I thought - but despite keeping Concannon quiet, it seems prolific goalscorers, given a chance against the odds, will find the net and that is exactly what Ian Concannon did.

One chance, that’s all he needed.

From my point of view I saw no reason to panic and make substitutions as we were clearly the better side and I felt we could push on and make the game safe.

That is precisely what happened until 10 minutes from time when our own prolific goalscorer, Pat Massaro, had his say too when he ran through and went round the goalkeeper to slot in our third and the final nail in Didcot’s coffin.

The final whistle brought great jubilation from the players and a very good crowd and of course my plan had worked a treat.

Tactically you can win a game provided the players are disciplined to carry that out.

On this occasion they did me proud and also put a very welcome few thousand quid into the club’s coffers.

Now we had an away tie at Chipstead and the prospect of prize money of £7,500 to the winners.

So, again we were the FA’s team to follow.

As I write this memory article, I see that Didcot are down at the bottom of the Southern League and if we ever get back to playing again after these difficult times then I do hope that they climb the table to safety as they were then, and I expect they are now a smashing club with a nice stadium.

Also, over the years I have passed their ground many times on the train going from London to the Midlands and still have a little smile on my face.

I understand that Ian Concannon went on to become their manager at some stage and he would have probably realised then it is a lot easier playing than it is managing!

(Micky Taylor`s excellent book `Non-League Football - A Roller Coaster Ride To Beat Any` is available to buy from Amazon priced £12.99 (Kindle version £3.99. All proceeds to Cancer Research).