MODERN-DAY football is a demanding business, but perhaps it’s always been so.

Town equalled their biggest winning margin in an away league game when they walloped Stockport 6-0 at Edgeley Park on Saturday.

There have been three other victories of that magnitude – by the same scoreline in the same division at Bury in 1988-89 and against Manchester United in the First Division in 1930-31, and 7-1 in another top-flight clash at Sheffield United in 1927-28.

Two seasons before, Town had become the first club to clinch a hat trick of straight league titles, a feat which could finally be bettered by United this season.

And it seems that had raised the bar.

For the Examiner’s report of the Bramall Lane triumph, watched by 22,163, noted: “The quality of the game played by the Town team did not approach the perfect mastery that enabled them to beat Cardiff 8-2 in October.”

But the correspondent at least conceded: “As a display of resourceful and intelligent football, it was very impressive.

“It showed that while they have fared only moderately this season they are capable nevertheless of occasional displays of the standard they achieved in their pomp.

“Each player seemed to know by instinct the whereabouts of his colleagues, and the accuracy of the passing was a revelation.”

Half-back Tommy Meads hammered home Town’s only goal of the first half, with three players – centre-forward George ‘Bomber’ Brown and wingers Billy Smith and Alex Jackson – notching two apiece during a second-half blitz of six in half an hour.

Amazingly, Town returned to Sheffield the following Monday to beat Wednesday 6-1 in a match staged to raise funds for the upkeep of the city’s war memorial in France, and in their league game at Hillsborough six weeks later, they won 5-0.

Town, managed by John Chaplin, were to finish second to Everton in the First Division that season, when they were also beaten FA Cup finalists, Blackburn Rovers winning 3-1 at Wembley.

There were two hat-trick scorers, Jackson and Gerry Kelly, in the Old Trafford triumph seen by 11,836.

The 6-0 win at Bury, watched by 4,145, was achieved with the help of a Craig Maskell hat trick, with Mike Cecere, Mark Smith and Mick Byrne also on the mark for Eoin Hand’s side.

Town’s record away victory in a competitive match is 11-0 in an FA Cup preliminary round tie against Heckmondwike in September 1909, and in the third round in January 1929, they won 7-1 at Chesterfield.