Of Mice and Men: Wayne Goldthorpe recalls his time with Huddersfield Town and Hartlepool

Dec 24 2010 by Dougie Thomson, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

HUDDERSFIELD Town's Boxing Day clash with Hartlepool United is sure to stir plenty of memories for Wayne Goldthorpe.

The 53-year-old former striker’s career, which took in both clubs, was a tale of mice and men, memorable goals and missed chances, the biggest of which came not in the opposition penalty area, but the Leeds Road office of manager Tom Johnston.

For 33 years ago, Goldthorpe, a former pupil of Holme Valley Grammar (now Honley High) School, had just returned to Town after a loan spell at Arsenal.

“I went there on trial late in 1977,” recalls the man who joined Town on schoolboy forms at 14 in 1971, when he lived in Meltham, and made his first-team debut at 18 in the 1-0 Fourth Division win at Stockport in November 1975.

“I scored half a dozen goals for Arsenal’s reserves, so I didn’t feel I’d let myself down, and neither did I feel out of place.

“Terry Neill was Arsenal’s manager and he was keen that I should spend another couple of months with them so he could have a really good look at me.

“But Tom Johnston wouldn’t hear of it and said that they either paid a fee for me or I came back, which is what I ended up doing.

“It was a kick in the teeth and I have to admit I reacted the wrong way, because rather than rolling up my sleeves and thinking ‘I’ll show you’, I sulked about it.”

Goldthorpe eventually left Town for Hartlepool rather than Highbury six months later – after another disagreement with Johnston.

“Tom ran a tight ship financially,” says Goldthorpe of the man who returned for a second spell at the Town helm, originally working alongside Bobby Collins, in January 1975.

“As a schoolboy, I also had offers from Nottingham Forest and Wolves, but I chose Town because at that time they were in the old First Division and had a great manager in Ian Greaves.

“He had good people alongside him in Henry Cockburn, Roy MacLaren and Robin Wray, and he placed a lot of emphasis on a strong youth system, the scale of which was shown by Town getting to the FA Youth Cup final in 1974 and the semi-finals the year after, by which time I was in the team.

“Unfortunately there was the big slide down the divisions in the first half of the seventies, and Ian left.

“Bobby Collins, a man I never saw eye to eye with, had a short spell as manager, then after working with him, Tom took over in his own right.

“Rather than maintain the youth policy, he started signing up a lot of older players, and at one stage, we seemed to have half a dozen strikers, with none of us being played regularly.

“At the end of the 1977-78 season, I was offered a new contract, but on the same money of £75 a week.

“I knew that some of the other lads were getting more than that, so I went in with my dad – there were no agents back then – to see Tom and said I wanted £80, which I felt I was worth.

“But Tom wouldn’t budge, and neither would I, so I ended up leaving over a fiver a week, which was a shame when you consider how things took off under Mick Buxton just a couple of years later.”

Hartlepool, for whom Goldthorpe had played on loan during the 1976-77 campaign, came in with an offer of £95 a week and a £3,000 signing-on fee, and the player was on his way, having scored seven goals in 28 games for Town.

“I knew a bit about them and I knew that because they only maintained a small squad, I had a good chance of playing regular football,” he explains.

“Just like at Leeds Road, there was a great team spirit, and while I shared a place with another former Town player, Bob Newton, we also had the likes of Dick Malone, the former Sunderland player, Martin Gorry, who had been at Newcastle, and Billy Ayre, who later managed Halifax.

“But it was a big change, because while Leeds Road was still a pretty well appointed stadium, the Victoria Ground was, shall we say, homespun.