1983/84

Programme Reviews

Key

PP = Total Pages

Net = Total Pages Less Adverts

P = Perfect Bound

S = Stapled

Arsenal (v Birmingham City 27/12/83)

£0.40 (24 pp / 21 net / S)

Aston Villa (v Manchester United 03/03/84)

£0.40 (24 pp / 19.5 net / S)

Birmingham City (v Liverpool 05/05/84)

£0.40 (24 pp / 16 net / S)

Coventry City (v Ipswich Town 01/10/83)

£0.40 (24 pp / 19.5 net / S)

Everton (v West Bromwich Albion 10/09/83)

£0.40 (24 pp / 18 net / S)

Ipswich Town (v Nottingham Forest 14/04/84)

£0.40 (24 pp / 19.5 net / S)

Leicester City (v Everton 29/10/83)

£0.40 (24 pp / 15.5 net / S)

Liverpool (v Southampton 06/09/83)

£0.40 (24 pp / 18 net / S)

Luton Town (v Aston Villa 01/10/83)

£0.50 (32 pp / 20.5 net / S)

One of the larger Division One issues for the 1983/84 season, Luton Town’s programme contained 20.5 pages of content. This provided plenty of space for some noteworthy articles.

‘Hatters Who’s Who’ was an in-depth look at former Luton players, with the focus in this issue on forward Don Givens, who played for the club in the early 1970s, ultimately making more than 400 appearances in the Football League. ‘Memory Lane’ was a shorter historical feature, here recalling the Luton career of Les Jones, who played for the club in the 1950s.

A feature headed ‘Luton’s Future’ discussed the club’s plans for a new stadium, as part of what would have been the UK’s first indoor sports and leisure complex. Interestingly, the article noted that, at the time, the last purpose-built stadium to be constructed in the UK was Wembley in the early 1920s. Some 35 years later, it appears that the club’s wait to move from Kenilworth Road may finally be over!

‘John’s Journal’ from Club Secretary John Wilkinson discussed the recent decision by the League that, from the start of the 1984/85 season, clubs would be able to keep their own attendance receipts. The impact on Luton’s finances was expected to be severe with Mr Wilkinson noting, perhaps presciently, that “this could be the first step to the much talked about Super League.”

There was a range of other content too. ‘Scene on One’ by Tony Pullein predicted a likely title challenge from Lawrie McMenemy’s Southampton team, as well as assessing the early season fortunes of other top-flight clubs. ‘Town Focus’ profiled Luton full-back Mal Donaghy, who was then in his sixth season with the club. The article included a full-page colour picture of the player, together with his career record stats.

Manager David Pleat offered his thoughts in a one-page column, while ‘Coach Report’ contained news from youth team matches, noting the goalscoring form of a young Mark Stein. There was a two-page ‘Newsdesk’ article that featured updates on various matters off the pitch at Kenilworth Road. There was also a mix of black and white and colour action pictures from recent games, and the usual stats section was included at the back of the programme with results and tables for the club’s various teams.

Two pages of the programme were given to coverage of Luton’s visitors Aston Villa, under the heading ‘Villa Shape for Title Bid’. The article discussed the club’s prospects, noting the transfer activity conducted by boss Tony Barton, and the club’s promising early season form.

Despite being among the more expensive programmes in the league in 1983/84, the Luton issue certainly provided value for money with a host of readable features, with a welcome mix of historical and contemporary articles.

Manchester United (v West Ham United 28/04/84)

£0.30 (24 pp / 18.5 net / S)

Norwich City (v Wolverhampton Wanderers 03/09/83)

£0.50 (28 pp / 23.5 net / S)

Nottingham Forest (v Stoke City 28/04/84)

£0.40 (24 pp / 17.5 net / S)

Notts County (v Coventry City 17/03/84)

£0.40 (24 pp / 12 net / S)

Queen’s Park Rangers (v Luton Town 05/11/83)

£0.50 (20 pp / 17 net / S)

Despite being one of the smaller programmes in Division One during the 1983/84 season, featuring just 20 pages, the QPR issue still provided several readable features. The programme was well laid out, making full use of quite small, but perfectly legible, text to increase the amount of content that could be included in the space available.

‘Bush Telegraph’ served as an introduction to the programme, reflecting here on recent results and the contentious issue of QPR’s ‘Omniturf’ plastic pitch. Clearly the pitch had been in the headlines, although the column noted the success enjoyed by Liverpool on their recent visit, which the writer felt had come about through effective adaption of their usual style to the surface. ‘Michael Wale Report’ meanwhile saw the BBC sports correspondent interview Rangers defender Terry Fenwick, who had scored twice on the club’s recent victory away at Norwich City.

The issue featured a couple of full-page colour pictures, the first of which showed Gary Waddock firing in a shot at goal, whilst ‘International Gallery’ showed a photo of John Gregory in his England kit. The centre pages put the spotlight on one Rangers player, with his likes and dislikes listed alongside pictures of him on and off duty. ‘Behind the Scenes’ dealt with various items of club news, while ‘Ranger to Ranger’ featured letters from supporters. A two-page ‘Facts and Fixtures’ section covered results, fixtures, and tables for QPR’s teams at the various levels of the game.

‘The Luton Town File’ was penned by Tony Pullein and covered trophies won, current form, and ‘pointers’, which mentioned the fact that Luton were (at the time of writing) the only club to have dropped from the top-flight to Division Four and then regained their place in Division One. The section also noted the potency of the Hatters’ strike force in the shape of forwards Paul Walsh and Brian Stein. ‘Statistics Wizard’ Derek Buxton offered a large collection of facts about Luton in his column, including recollections of their win at Loftus Road in the first match to take place on the artificial pitch, back in September 1981. The back page of the programme, which featured the expected match line-ups, included pen-pics of both sets of players.

Despite not including certain items that tended to appear as standard in most programmes (including an opposition team group picture and some news and reports from reserve and youth teams) the number of columns included ensured the QPR issue was still a decent read.

Southampton (v Watford 27/12/83)