The knowetop terrace
Early Years:
In 1886 Motherwell fc was formed by the amalgamation of Motherwell's 2 main works teams, Glencairn and Alpha. In early years Motherwell played at Roman Road in Motherwell. In the 1890's they moved to Daziel Park and finally to their present ground, Fir Park.
Under the management of Britains longest serving manager ever John 'Sailor'Hunter Motherwell won the leauge Championship for the only time in our history in 1931. After the war Motherwell were on the up. In 1950 we beat Hibs (who had the Famous 5 front line playing that day) 3-0 in the leauge cup. In 1951 Motherwell were beaten after a final replay against Celtic in the Scottish Cup.
One of the finest victories in Motherwell's history was the 1952 Scottish Cup victory over Dundee in which we won 4-0. 152000 fans watched Motherwell win the game at Hampden Park. Only 2 of that team are still alive.
The memorable Ancell Babes of the 60's were a joy to watch. One of his players being Ian St John, who later managed the club and also played for Liverpool and Scotland, he is now a tv pundit. Although they never won anything they were entertaining to watch.
In the 1970's and early 80's Motherwell had alot of different managers including Ian St John, Willie Waddell Willie McLean, Ally McLeod and Davie Hay and the team ended up in the 1st division.
In 1984 Tommy McLean took over as manager and immediately had to sell Gary McAllister to Leicster. He introduced two players who were to become legends, Tom Boyd and Ally Maxwell. Tommy McLean was well known for building good teams with little money to spend on players. He took Motherwell to the Premier Leauge and have remained there ever since.
In 1989 Rangers player Davie Cooper signed for Motherwell for �50000 and this was seen as the "Steal of the century" 'Coop' was one of the finest left wingers ever. He would leve you gasping with amazement at his skill.
The knowetop terrace
4th Round Motherwell play Falkirk. Motherwell take the lead only for Falkirk to equalise. We take the Lead and they equalise. Then we take the lead again through 'Super Sub' and then get another goal to take us to the quarter finals.
Q Finals The first game is a none event. The replay against Morton at Cappelow ends 1-1 at full time withe Tom Boyd scoring for us. In the penalty shoot out a Morton player blasts the ball over the bar and we win 5-4 on penalties.
semis: Motherwell do well to hold Celtic to 0-0 in the first game at Hampden. In the second game we go 2-0 down. Dougie Arnott gets a goal back and then equalises in the second half then Colin O Neill scores a thunderbolt from 35 yards out and then Stevie Kirk wrapped it up with a 4th goal.
final: We get Dundee UTD We get the first goal they equalise then Ally Maxwell gets injured then ODonnell and Angus score then utd score twice and then in extra time Kirk gets the winner. Motherwell had won the cup.
The team that day was: 1.Maxwell 2.Nijholt 3.Boyd(c) 4.Griffin 5.Paterson 6.McCart 7.Arnott 8.Angus 9.Ferguson (12.Kirk) 10.ODonnell 11.Cooper (14.ONeill) (Scorers names in bold)
click to view final program
For the european run the east enclosure is fitted with seats
Over the next few seasons the terraces are replaced with stands
In 1994 Motherwell finished 3rd in the leauge with Rangers and Aberdeen finishing above us. Tommy McLean left to manage Hearts and Seib Dykstra left to go to QPR and Phil ODonnell left to join Celtic for a record transfer fee of 1.75 million. The one thing I will remember about Tommy's later teams is the strike force of Coyne and Arnott. These quality strikers would be a handful for any defence as both would average around 20 goals a season each. Alex Mcleish took over as boss and led us into Europe and to 2nd in the Premier leauge.
The usual team that season was
1.Woods 2.Shannon 3.McKinnon 4.Philliben 5.Martin 6.McCart 7.Lambert 8.Dolan 9.Coyne 10.Arnott 11.Davies Subs 12.Kirk 13.Howie 14.McGrillen
The following season was a nightmare. Tommy Coyne got injured and the Strike force of Arnott and Burns couldnt score a goal. We went 8 games without a goal until we signed Willie Falconer from Celtic. We were 9 points adrift of Falkirk at the bottom until we got 2 goals in a 3-2 defeat by Rangers after that we battled our way to 6th place. The next season was another battle. We needed 1 point to avoid the play off place. We also needed Hibs to draw or lose to Raith and Hearts to lose. We were losing 2-1 to Dunfermilne and Hibs were drawing until, Mitchell Van Der Gaag hit a rocket of a shot into the back of the net, saving our skins. Alex McLeish left the following season to go to Hibs, not after we gubbed them 6-2 in the leauge (Hibs were relegated that season).
One thing that 'Big Eck' will be remembered for is some of his dodgy signings. For example, John Hendry who was Jurgen Klinsmann's understudy at Spurs, with that sort of reputation, you would think he would be good!!!! however he was always injured and rarely scored a goal into the bargain, Andy Roddie who was related to McLeish, his shots at goal often ended up in Knowetop Primary, behind the East Stand. The worst though was swapping Steve Kirk the Motherwell legend (also my favourite player) and Paul McGrillen for Eddie May the utility player from Falkirk, (he could be just as bad in a number of positions). I will always remember watching a defeat by Hearts and to everyone's amazement, Eddie May was playing up front.
HARRI KAMPMANNS SIGNINGS SEASON 98-99
Possibly the worst ever manager (after Maurice Malpas) in our history Harri Kampmann took over. He got rid of a lot the fans favourites such as Coyne, Arnott, Falconer, Martin, Philliben, McSkimming, Garcean, Hendry and Weir, replacing them with alot of duds such as Holm Kraska (who was so bad he never got a game for the club), Rob Matthei, Kia Nyssonen, Jan Michels, Stirling, McClair (who was past it by the time he made his second return to the club) and Miko Kaven and the team played a negative style of football. On the positive side he bought Jamie McGowan, Shaun Teale, Michel Doesburg and Derek Adams. He also got rid of new club captain, Brian McClair which gave the fans something to cheer about. But the fans were losing patience, we were bottom of the leauge, playing with one striker and hardly looked like scoring. When John Boyle replaced John Chapman, he introduced some bright new ideas such as reduced admission fees. He also brought in the player/chief executive Pat Nevin. Harri Kampmann decided he couldnt work with Pat Nevin so he left and was immediately replaced by Billy Davies who has the team playing attacking football. On his second game in charge he led us to a 1-0 victory over the on form Rangers with his 2 recent signings Ged Brannan and John Spencer. His ambitious signings didnt stop there. He signed former Rangers and Scotland goalkeeping legend Andy Goram until the end of the season, he was made Club Captain. Other signings were Don Goodman,Tony Thomas and Stephen Nicholas. The next season he added another 4 outstanding buys. Wingers Kevin Twaddle and Derek Townsley can be outstanding on their day, Benito Kemble was an absolutely brilliant defender Martin Corrigan. Motherwell finished that season in 4th position. Bad press blighted the Motherwell team that season. First of all Rob Matthei came out and said in the press that Billy Davies was keeping him out the first team out of jelously and if he had been younger he would have punched him. The next big scandal was the supposed Motherwell, Airdrie merger scandal which blew over. Then Shaun Teale was controversially sacked after he slated John Boyle and Billy Davies in the press. The park was relaid, but there seems to be a drainage problem at the away end with a number of games being postponed or abandoned. Season 2000/01 saw a number of star players dissapear out the door due to rising costs. Andy Goram has gone on loan to Man U, Brannan, McMillan, McCulloch have gone to Wigan, Spencer to an American Team, Goodman to an english team on a free. John Davies and Tony Thomas(last 2 couldnt be described as star players) went on free transfers and good ridance to those 2 as were rubbish anyway.
2001/02 was a disaster for Motherwell with the club being forced into administration with spiraling debts and having to get rid of 17 players, Eric Black the manager and Pat Nevin the Chief Executive. On the positive side with Terry Butcher in Charge the team improved and there was alot of young players who really gave their all.
2002/03 Motherwell are still in administration and at the foot of the table however we had a good cup run, getting to the Scottish Cup Semis and with players such as Hammell ,Corrigan, Pearson, Lasley, McFadden and Clarkson, the team avoided Relegation.
2003/04 was a good season for Motherwell with a top 6 finish and coming out of administration, although we lost James McFadden to Everton and Stephen Pearson to Celtic early in the season.
2004/05 the team are having a jekill and hyde season, they are winning or drawing about 5 games on the trot and then losing or drawing 5 games on the trot. We are out of the Scottish Cup in the 3rd round after a defeat by Kilmarnock and reached the final of the CIS cup beating Morton, Inverness Caledonian Thistle, Livingston and Hearts on the way but unfortunatetly got beat 5-1 in the final. We finished 5th in the table. We wrapped up the season in style in the now legendary 'Helecopter Sunday' by beating Celtic 2-1 thus wasting their so called title party and handing the title to Rangers by scoring 2 late goals forcing the helecopter which was circling the stadium with the SPL trophy to head to Easter Road. 'Ohhh Scott McDonald scored 2 goals eeei eeei ooooh!!!!!'
2005/06 We made it to the Semi Final of the CIS cup but were beaten 2-1 by Celtic after taking the lead and totally outplaying them for most of the game. We were knocked out of the Scottish Cup 3rd Round after an embarrasing 3-0 thrashing away to 1st Division Champions St Mirren. We finished in the bottom 6 of the league. The end of the season saw Terry Butcher leave us to go to Sydney FC. His replacement was Maurice Malpas and his Assistant Paul Heagerty.
2006/07 was a season which all Well fans want to forget. Firstly the highs (not to many)
the lows (long list)
At the start of 06/07, Malpas appeared to be the correct choice, he had been Terry Butcher's assistant and knew the players and the team well, dont get me wrong there were some good things that he did, mainly introducing Mark Reynolds into the first team in defence and since then has become a regular in the team, also the lack of a left back saw Jim Paterson come in to play in that position which he did quite well in. He also signed Ross McCormack from Rangers.
At the start of the season, there was an injury crisis which saw Brian McLean, Matrin Corrigan and Phil O'Donnell miss large parts of the season through injury. Martin Corrigan was rushed back into the team far too early and was never the same player again, Ross McCormack dissapeared off the face of the earth with a mystery virus and didnt reappear in the first team until the end of the season, Jim Hamilton was sold to bottom of the table Dunfermilne, in a move which could have (but thankfully didnt) backfired. Ritchie Foran was sold in the January transfer window.
The team was relying on Scott McDonald for goals and this became more and more apparent as the season went on and especcially when he was out of the team.
Malpas was becoming unpopular, he was never seen giving encouragement or instructions to the team, he leaned against the dugout as if he was waiting for a bus, many fans turned against him especially after the tame and disgraceful performance against 1st Division St Johnstone which saw us knocked out of the Scottish Cup, the calls for him to go got louder, the team was going downhill, they had gone from 15 points clear of bottom placed Dunfermilne in February which went down to 5 points with 2 games left. The team had no fight, no passion, the team looked defeated when other teams scored goals, Malpas never chaged tactics, he played the same formation every week even when it clearly wasnt working and had the team playing long balls to the smallest player in the team, Scott McDonald and in the end the only thing that saved the team from almost certain relegation was Inverness beating Dunfermilne on the 2nd last day of the season. The defeat against St Mirren on the 2nd last day of the season was the final straw for most supporters and a protest was held outside the stadium at full time calling for his head. The interview after the game where he had a go at the supporters didnt help him much either
2 weeks later he resigned and in came Mark McGhee and Scott Leitch and even this early on in the new season the future looks much brighter.
MOTHERWELL SEASON 99-00
Strips for 99-00
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