Given our last home game was the nailbiting penalty shootout victory over Blackburn Rovers, it seems rather apt to talk about a game that involved numerous penalties. Particularly given, and with us playing his home-town club today, that it features heavily on a man with the surname Abbott who it transpires wasn’t the greatest at taking spot-kicks himself.
First up though was the law of introducing penalties itself, that situation coming to the fore during an FA Cup quarter-final game at Trent Bridge between Notts County and Stoke City in 1891. Notts County’s John Hendry palming away a goalbound shot, only for Stoke to still lose 1-0 as there was no law in place to punish the offence. Penalty kicks, which had not long been introduced in Ireland, therefore being suggested.
Plenty objected to the new law though, with the amateurs particularly vociferous in their condemnation of it. The amateurs suggesting that bringing the law in implied a slur on their moral behaviour on the pitch, and that it might even encourage unsportsmanlike behaviour. Well, I suppose if diving to win penalties was their point then they have certainly been proved right about that in the long run.
For many years some amateur players refused to recognise the penalty kick law, with C.B. Fry, an England international at both football and cricket, as well as being the holder of the world long jump record, in his position with Corinthians Football Club describing the new law, somewhat amusingly when you look back at it as: “a standing insult to sportsmen to have to play under a rule which assumes that players intend to trip, hack and push opponents and behave like cads of the first kidney”.
Corinthians therefore when conceding a penalty, having their goalkeeper stand by the goalpost while it was taken, while their awarding of one for a handball offence was famously tested when playing away to Ipswich in the 1920s. Their full-back A.G. Bower, the last amateur player to captain the England side, informing the referee that they never attempted to profit from the awarding of a spot kick. The ball therefore being slowly tapped into the hands of the waiting Ipswich goalkeeper. Corinthian-spirit indeed.
Interestingly though the original penalty kick, introduced in 1891, wasn’t the same as it is today though as goalkeepers were permitted to advance six yards from their goal-line, and with the pace of some takers compared to some speedy stoppers there were some cases where the goalkeeper almost reached the dead ball at the same time as the taker. Players therefore resorting to chipping the ball over the head of the advancing goalkeeper before an amendment to the law was brought in in 1905 that restricted goalkeepers from moving off their line.
This was the law as it stood then in 1909 when Burnley faced Grimsby in the old Division Two, with Town goalkeeper Walter Scott facing up on the day to four penalty kicks from the home side, with three of them coming from the boot of Walter Abbott. Early on Abbott put Burnley 1-0 ahead from open play, while Grimsby were soon down to ten men following an in injury, with no substitutes available in those days.
With a man advantage Burnley continued to press in the first half and picked up their first penalty for a foul, only for Scott to save from Abbott. Moments later and it was another spot-kick to the Clarets, this time for a handball, with Smith now seeing his effort on goal parried away by the in-form Grimsby goalkeeper. A further handball occurred in the resultant goalmouth scramble though, with Abbott stepping up to take the third penalty. Success at last and a 2-0 half-time lead for Burnley.
After the break, and with Town momentarily down to ten men as Whitehouse left the field for ‘repairs to his knickers’, the home side gained another spot-kick when Andrew Davidson brought down Abbott in the box for a fourth Burnley penalty. Walter Scott then making it a hat-trick of spot-kick saves when he pushed away Abbott’s third penalty effort of the day. Two saved, one scored for him in a game of no further goals after half-time. As for Scott, well it would seem that he was somewhat of a spot-kick saving expert at the time, with his three saves in the match making it only one goal conceded from his last eight penalties faced.