THE recent appearance in Looking Back of Blackburn Rovers' legend Bryan Douglas as a schoolboy soccer hero of more than 50 years ago and the passing mention of his Ewood Park pal of the 1950s and 60s, ex-England captain Ronnie Clayton, provoked a clutch of queries about the pair playing in a match that racked up a record gate elsewhere in East Lancashire on a Tuesday afternoon -- though their days in big-time football were over.

When was it? Why wasn't this all-ticket game played at weekend or at night under floodlights? And just how big was the crowd?

The precise attendance isn't recorded, but more than 5,000 folk were crammed around the pitch at the Showground in Great Harwood's Wood Street to give its all-time best crowd that grey November 24 day in 1970.

The occasion was billed as the greatest match in the Northern Premier club's history as non-league Harwood, for the first time, reached the first round proper of the FA Cup.

They were drawn at home against Third Division promotion contenders Rotherham United. And giant-killing act was expected. For though Harwood had one of the worst defensive records in their division, not only had they old internationals Douglas and Clayton in their line-up, they also had another former Rover and one-time Wales goal-getter, the late Roy Vernon, up front. The ex-Ewood trio had last played together in the Cup in January, 1960 -- the year Rovers made it all the way to Wembley, though Vernon had departed for Everton three months before that ill-fated final.

The Showground's part-timers could also draw on plenty of other experience from top-level soccer. Managed by former Burnley star Tommy Cummings, the team also included Bob Jones, Chris Sims and Jim Beardall, all of whom had been with Blackburn. And Harwood had had a whiff of the big-time the year before -- when in the Lancashire County Cup, under floodlights, they hosted mighty Manchester United, who, though fielding mostly second-string players, had stars Jimmy Rimmer, Pat Crerand and Willie Morgan in the team that sank the non-leaguers by eight goals to one.

But for their historic foray in the FA Cup, Harwood were up for the occasion in a big-club way. Chairman, haulage business boss Derrick Keighley -- later briefly Rovers' chairman before his sudden death in 1979 -- packed the players and trainer/coach Jimmy Birkett off to a luxury hotel at Blackpool for the night before the fixture for which all 5,500 tickets were snapped up as cup fever raged through 'Arrod.

After all the build-up, the fans -- and both sides -- were in for a let-down. A week's rain had made the Showground a mudbath.

The game, set for Saturday, November 21, was called off by the referee just 90 minutes before the kick-off. Neither team found out until they arrived as both were still travelling when the decision was made.

But when the revised date was fixed for the following Tuesday, Rotherham -- no doubt daunted by the prospect of playing before a hugely-partisan crowd coming almost to the touchline -- found the FA rules offered them some respite from this factor in Harwood's favour. For because the Tuesday game was still a 'first match' rather than a replay, the rule stipulating a three o'clock kick off still applied and though the visitors could have agreed to play at night under lights, they held out for an afternoon match in the hope that Harwood's support would be reduced by many of their fans having to be at work.

As it was, the crowd -- though not quite the full-capacity one that Saturday's would have been -- was still Harwood's best-ever, giving them a slice of record receipts of £1,471. Many firms in the area let their workers off for the game, on the proviso they made up the time afterwards, and several schools also let their pupils out of class for the game. But the crowd and the mud that were deemed to be to Harwood's advantage were not enough. Rotherham's full-timers -- including former Sheffield Wednesday star John Fantham; Neil Warnock, present-day manager of Sheffield United and centre-half Dave Watson, later to play for England while with Sunderland and Manchester City -- were just too strong for the non-leaguers.

Yet for an hour Harwood's dream of a Cup coup stayed alive. Beardall gave them the lead after only seven minutes. And after Rotherham equalised and went ahead in as many minutes, Vernon seized on a slip-up in United's defence and made it 2-2 on the half-hour.

But then the mud began to sap the stamina of Harwood's oldies. Watson headed two spectacular goals and Fantham scored another two in great style added to the others by Bentley and Mullen.

The 6-2 result was daylight robbery for Rotherham. But Great Harwood had earned a bumper pay-day, a special place in their own record books and a brief taste of glory that's remembered still.

Picture shows Roy Vernon setting up the equaliser.

Dance to the music of time

LOOKING Back's swing in recent weeks through East Lancashire's dance halls in the 1940s and 1950s still keeps readers' memories rolling in of the big band era.

But though the men who made music with the old-time maestros like Eddie McGarry at 'Accy Con' and and Jimmy Heyworth at Rawtenstall's old Astoria ballroom are readily recalled, how many remember the Clayton-le-Moors 'dinner dances' that took place in wartime to the sounds of the Bristol Big Band? The "privilege and pleasure' of listening to them is among the recollections of 73-year-old Jim Ashton of his days as a teenage apprentice from 1942 to 1945 at the giant aero-engine works at Clayton of the Bristol Aeroplane Company -- nowadays the GEC industrial estate.

The band, which played for dancing in the large works canteen during the one-hour lunch breaks, was made up of musicians who were among the employees at the factory and who, in their spare time, belonged to the big bands that were resident at the Accrington Conservative Club's Majestic Ballroom, the Astoria in Rawtenstall and Nelson's Imperial Ballroom.

"The leader of this works band was Bob Whatmough, the pianist in the Eddie McGarry band, who later took over with his own band at 'Accy Con' after Eddie retired in 1964," says Jim, of Lynwood Road, Huncoat.

The aircraft factory's canteen was also host to well-known show business stars who appeared there in morale-boosting 'ENSA' shows for workers on the war's home front -- among them Gracie Fields. The Lancashire songstress was said by the Northern Daily Telegraph to have received a "typically-warm North-county welcome" when she arrived there in July, 1941, to give one of the three concerts a day she was staging on daily 200-mile tours between war plants and theatres, but, because of wartime censorship, the newspaper could only describe the Bristol aero-plant as "a works in the North West."

But if it was also a one-hour hot-spot for big band music by day, it had plenty of rivals by night. Adds Jim: "Competing for the title of Accrington's best dance hall and band was the Ritz Ballroom and the resident Syd Ashmead Band which broadcast on the radio on a couple of occasions .

"Another popular dance band was that of Jack Farnsworth which played for modern and olde tyme dancing at the Ambulance Drill Hall at Bull Bridge that was often used for top-class snooker competitions, including the week-long world professional championship final between Alec Brown and Fred Davis in January, 1950." Also in the running for 'best dance hall' status, he says, was the Cotton Club opened in May that year in a former weaving shed at Higham's Woodnook Mills as a social centre for the firm's 850 employees who paid membership fees of two old pence a week.

The NDT described it as "luxurious" and its facilities included a bar, separate men's and ladies' reading rooms, a billiard room and a games room and a ballroom that could easily accommodate 500 dancers.

"To celebrate the opening, the Oscar Rabin Band, one of the country's top broadcasting bands was engaged and the female vocalist, Marian Davis, treated the dancers by singing a duet with the managing director, Mr Eli Higham. The Cotton Club soon became a favourite attraction for many Saturday night dancers," Jim recalls.

Sent a copy of Looking Back's picture on February 7 of Rawtenstall Astoria's award-winning Jimmy Heyworth Band of 1954, Mr R. Ramsden, of Bolton, spotted his father, Albert, now 79, in the lead chair at the centre of the trumpet section. "This truly was a great band and contained many gifted players," says Mr Ramsden, who still has a copy of the record they made.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.