Away Days
Away Days
Our league form in the past twelve months has been pretty impressive (well, away from home at any rate) and this prompted me to look back over the years to see how we have got on away from our beloved Fir Park. Last year, 1999, saw Motherwell win no less than 9 times away from home, including 8 league wins. There was also an unbeaten run of 8 games stretching from the game at Kirkcaldy to the match at Tannadichie, though that apart in the league the unbeaten run goes from The beginning of September to the end of the year (being written prior to Perth). Just a year previous couldn't have been more different, only one win away and that was an extra-time victory over the illustrious East Fife, nothing in the way of victories in the league.
Indeed, after winning ant Crisis Park (Celtic) in November 97 it was January 30th. 99 before a win was done on league business, a run of some 21 league games. The year we went so far but not far enough, 1994, only 3 reversals were recorded away from Fir Park, two of them at Greyskull and the other at Perth. In 92, we lost 11 times on the road and won only twice, and looking at it closer after winning at Love Street in November 91 we only won four times in the next 35 matches. 1990 began so well, a 5-0 win at East End park, beating Celtic at their own place, going to Easter Road and winning....then Tynecasle, pouring rain, 0-4 .... 'nuff said. That year saw only one more win with 12 defeats in 16 games. Between January 87 and January 91 Motherwell won 12 times on their travels to 87 games with the best being an unbeaten run of four games (with three wins as mentioned above).
The return to the Premier League in 85 saw the 'Well go 19 games before a league win, and only 1 in 27 prior to that Ray Farningham winner which emptied Greyskull quicker than a fart in a crowded lift. The two seasons back in the PL in 82-84 were far from memorable on the road. There were 8 straight defeats to welcome us back at the end of 82, and over the course of 36 league matches in those two-and-a-bit years we won just four times (though one was at Greyskull, remember Junior Burns and Sumo Ritchie?). That was a shock after the Division 1 "We horsed you all" season, with runs of 6 and 4 straight wins (like 7-1 at Kilbowie, which prompted Des Lynam to get his nicks in a right twist whilst attempting to pronounce Gaegsie's name on Grandstand).
The couple of years before that back in the wilderness wasn't too great, we played 28 league games prior to embarking on conquering all winning just 11 of them (remember it was the First Division). And on losing our league status during the previous twelve months 79 saw 9 PL defeats in 10 games (7 on-the-trot including 6 and 8 goal defeats at Cappielow and Sheepodire). 1978 began well, 6 unbeaten (plus a 4-0 Cup win at Gayfield) and to end the year our away league form was Won 3 Drew 1 Lost 5, not great but not quite relegation material either.........until 79 began that was. 76 and 77 perhaps was a notice of things to come, 8 wins in 36 league games . Our away form during the Seventies was far from impressive, especially the first couple of years, defeats like 3-8 at Firhill in December 71 and 2-7 at Sheepodrie 10 months later added to a miserable 11 wins in the first 50 league games of that decade.
68 and 69 were better, but only because of the demise to the Second Division. At one point 10 straight wins were recorded, though prior to this 8 defeats in the last 10 games of the Division One campaign saw us go down. Then three defeats in the league cup, another in the opener in Div 2, and it was suddenly good times on the road - just seven defeats then came in the next 34. P> Even the sixties weren't fab for us when it came to away days, 65 ended with four defeats conceding 16 goals, with only three wins that whole year. 63 gave only two league wins, though in 1961 the famous (cue the music)"....when the boys in blue, got f****d 5-2, by the boys in Claret and Amber, 5-2, 5-2......." Occurred. Poor away form in the early part of the fifties saw us go down again, 14 defeats in 24 Division One games saw relegation though it also gave Motherwell fans of the time a chance to get some nice away wins (8 in 9 games), with three away defeats (all by a single goal) between 53 and 54. Despite poor away form in 51 we reached the Scottish Cup Final and League Cup Semi-Final, whereas in the league lost 10 of 15.
Two years previous runs of 4 and 7 defeats contributed to Motherwell losing 12 of 18 games on the road, and between 1946 and 1949 in some 74 games there were 39 defeats. Just after the Allies had stuffed the Huns for a second time Motherwell thumped our own version 3-0 at Greyskull in the first game back in 1945, and ended the year with a 4-4-3 record. The Twenties and Thirties were a boom time for the 'Well and, of course, we reached several Cup Finals and stopped the Old Squirm Title monopoly. You could just imagine the Daily Ranger of the time bleating on about how the Old Squirm were too good for Scottish Footie and needed to go and play elsewhere, somethings never change then. Anyway, towards the end of the thirties the form dipped markedly and there were 8 losses in the last 14 games of 39, and half the matches played (12 of 24) were lost the previous year. 1937 was a better year, 21 games and only 4 defeats.
The Three years immediately after 33 were poor by comparison, no better than average with 7, then 5, and 6 wins in 19, 19 and 20 games with 9, 5 and 5 defeats in 34, 35 and 36 respectively. 1933 was a great year, Motherwell took the field away from Fir park on 23 occasions and tasted defeat just twice, though one of them was the Cup Final. Rattling in 57 goals to go with 1932's 56 (and also 56 in 1931) it was goals-a-plenty watching the 'Well attack time-after-time (thanks, Mr Crampsey). There were 8 league wins in-a-row In amongst all of this, of course, was a Championship and, but for a tragic own goal, a Cup Win would also have been added in 1931. The team really were a force to be reckoned with as the Twenties progressed, as between 27 and 29 the 'Well played 65 times and lost only 16 times scoring 128 goals (though we did manage to let in 95, but nobody could have argued they must have been total VFM at the time).
The early Twenties, however, weren't so good - 13 defeats in 21 during 1921, and there was just 1 win in 17 league outings in 1922, 3 in 20 the following year (14 defeats), and 4 and 3 the two years immediately afterwards. The period of hostilities between 1913 and 1918 were far from successful away from Fir Park, 7 back-to back defeats in 1914 with no league wins that year and a solitary win at the highly-rated (well, in Lothian anyway) Broxburn in the Cup. Two years late there were a club record 12 defeats in-a-row away from home, and of 16 games 14 were lost. Motherwell's early years in Division One saw many more defeats on their travels , 9 defeats in 13 games during 1909and only two wins in 20 two years earlier. 1904 and 1905 were years to stay at home, not a win in 13 road trips in the latter, with only one in the former. The first year in the top flight wasn't a great deal better, a solitary victory with 7 defeats in 8 games, though the four wins from the successful Division Two campaign boosted the figures to 5 wins in 14. Motherwell began the century with a win on the East Coast, 4-3 in the Cup at Forfar, and in years struggling to get out of the lower league wins were few. Away from home has rarely been good for Motherwell, though currently we are performing better than ever - long may that continue.
Ricky "Bob Crampsey" Mullen
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