MEMORY LANE

Steve Harris

@steveharris84

Steve looks back at the Sherpa Van Trophy semi-final win

WOLVES V TUFC 18/04/1989

While it may not have the prestige and history of the FA Cup, nor the carrot of a Europa League place like the Carabao Cup, but the Bristol Street Motors Trophy remains a regular staple for clubs in Leagues One and Two. It has also been much maligned in some quarters in recent years following the admission of a number of Premier League Under-23 sides – but it wasn’t always this way.

Back in the late 1980s – in the days before Football League play-offs were decided beneath the twin towers of Wembley Stadium – the Freight Rover Trophy, the Sherpa Van Trophy and the Leyland Daf Cup, as it was known in its various guises, represented the best chance many lower league pros plying their trade in Division Three and Division Four had of playing at the home of football. And this was the case for the respective players of Torquay United and Wolverhampton Wanderers when they met in the second leg of their Sherpa Van Trophy Southern Area final. Wolves had won the first leg at Plainmoor 2-1, thanks to a brace from goal machine Steve Bull and many believed that the return fixture between the two sides would be a mere formality.

Such was the hosts’ confidence that they would reach the final of the competition for the second year in succession – they had beaten Burnley in the previous year’s final in front of a record crowd of 88,000 – that local coach companies were already taking bookings for the final and Wembley 1989 rosettes were also on sale at the ground.

In what was the first senior competitive match to be played in England following the Hillsborough disaster, many observers expected the second leg to be a formality for Wolves – after they had won the first leg at Plainmoor.

At this time Wolves were undergoing a revival under Graham Turner, which would see them return to Division Two after winning the Fourth and Third Division titles in consecutive seasons between the 1987-88 and 1988-89 campaigns.

Their upturn in fortunes was spearheaded by their formidable strike partnership of Steve Bull and Andy Mutch.

Bull had managed to find the back of the net 52 times in all competitions in the previous season for Wolves, and had scored 46 up until their second meeting with the Gulls in the 1988-89 campaign.

Mutch scored 23 in the 1987-88 season and would surpass the 20-goal mark again for Turner’s men in the following campaign.

Nevertheless, Gulls boss Cyril Knowles devised a plan to stop them – as he ordered his back five to sit deep and not allow Bull or Mutch any space to run in behind them.

Knowles had discovered that the pair preferred defenders to push up and mark them tightly, enabling them to beat the offside trap – so Knowles’ plan was designed to stop the pair from doing this.

His scheme also meant that he was very reliant on his attacking players catching Wolves on the break.

Another major decision that Knowles had to make was who to play in goal in place of the injured Kenny Veysey. Rookie keeper Mark Coombe was cup-tied – after having already appeared for Colchester United during a loan spell earlier in the season. This meant that Knowles was forced into bringing veteran keeper Kenny Allen out of professional retirement.

Since his release by the Gulls at the end of the 1987-88 campaign, Allen had signed for Newport County. However, his time with the Welsh side had come to a premature end after they withdrew from the Conference due to financial difficulties.

All of Knowles’ plans appeared to be paying dividends when the Gulls took the lead on eight minutes when Mark Loram picked out Edwards, who beat Wolves keeper Roger Hansbury with a shot from the edge of the area to score his eleventh goal of the season.

Wolverhampton born-and-bred Edwards had stood on the Molineux terraces as a youngster before later representing the club during his professional career; and now here he was playing a key role in potentially denying the West Midlands giants a second successive trip to Wembley.

To add another significant twist to the tale – Edwards had twice been let go by Wolves manager Turner in his career; firstly when he was a youngster at Shrewsbury Town and secondly at Molineux in 1986.

Two minutes before half-time, the pair linked up again when Edwards was felled by Wolves left-back Mark Venus. It was then left to Loram to take a quick free-kick, which took the Wolves’ defence by surprise – as Loram was one of few people in the ground who realised that referee Brian Hill had not ordered the delay of the taking of the free-kick.

His effort saw United double their lead on the night and, more importantly, move ahead of their opponents 3-2 on aggregate.

In the second half, Bull missed a sitter three minutes after the re-start, which Wolves soon lived to regret as Torquay produced a defensive display that must rank amongst one of the best that the club has ever pulled off.

The recalled Allen made a string of outstanding saves in the United goal, and the defence in front of him – which featured a centre back trio of Jim McNichol, Matt Elliott and Phil Lloyd – stuck resolutely to their pre-match instructions from Knowles to keep Bull and Mutch at bay.

Allen summed up the feelings generated by the occasion when he commented after the match saying: “I now believe everything I ever read in Roy of the Rovers.”

And it was the contingent of 400 Gulls’ fans, who were vastly outnumbered by the home supporters, who returned home happy in the knowledge that their side that become the first of the three Devon professional sides to reach Wembley.

United were also one of only two teams to beat Wolves at Molineux that season; the other being Bristol Rovers in a league fixture.

The Gulls would lose 4-1 against Bolton Wanderers, but that shouldn’t diminish the fact that beating Wolves on their home ground, with the odds stacked massively against them, must rank as one of the competition’s greatest ever shocks.

Torquay (5-2-3): Kenny Allen; Paul Holmes, Jim McNichol, Matt Elliott, Phil Lloyd, Tom Kelly; John Morrison, Ian Weston; Paul Smith (Carl Airey 64), Dean Edwards, Mark Loram