Donald Penn

40 years ago today he came on as sub and had such a dramatic effect in an amazing second half on a tricky pitch at Fellows Park. Anyone recall this game?

29.11.1980. Walsall 4 Sheffield United 4. (issawalsall.org)

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The Buck strokes home his penalty.

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Genuinely unforgettable game. I recall that the Blades meatheads were unimpressed by the equaliser, I just about escaped. If only they could know what was going to happen on the last day of the season :smiley:

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Not this time Don! Sheff Utd keeper Derek Richardson collects at the feet of Mr Penn.

What a loss Don Penn was

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Remember it reasonably well. Was very very cold. Games tended to finish spot on time so a late goal for them saw hundreds of people begin the walk around the ground towards the Hilary Street embankment.

Oddly, the thing I most remember is the report in the Argus. I think 95% of a match report had to be ‘phoned in by 4:30 so anything that happened late in the game became a mere footnote. The thrilling last five minutes of this game condensed into a very short final paragraph (scorers names emboldened).

And what an important equaliser that was. Penn’s goal here and the conversion of the penalty on the last game of the season at Bramall Lane kept us up and sent the Blades down.

“We sent the Blades down - woah - woah woah whoa -whoa” (need to be at least as ancient as me to remember that little ditty).

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Very cold. Zero chance of the game being played now

Indeed @boringteacher a deadly combination of frosty hard surface and snow covered imagine today? You only have to sneeze on the pitch and it gets PP!

What would Klopp think?

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@P.T Spot on! I remember the Argus and Sporting Star having problems with late finishes / late goals. As you say all condensed and often you had to check the Stop Press on the back pages to get the full picture of events. All I have from this game is reports in the E and S and Walsall Advertiser.

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They must have been sick of the sight of us that season. , who can ever forget. The last game of the season, and the sight of Rico. Getting stuck into there fans. Who had. Invaded pitch

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Wasn’t he gesturing for us to get onto the pitch? but we couldn’t because it was all fenced in.
I remember proudly wearing a “T” shirt with “we sent the blades down” for some years after :grin:

Did Don Penn have to finish playing due to a back injury at a very young age ?.

Yes mate , but he was doing a good job on his own lol

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Not only that, but when do we get snow and hard frosts in November?
I often think I sound a hundred and sixty years old when talking about the weather, but it has changed so much since the 80s (that’s 1980s, before anyone says owt :grin:).

Some good names mentioned above for the Blunts - Neville, Kenworthy, Givens, Richardson who I always thought was a good keeper, and Bob Hatton, who I think scored a lot of goals for them that season. Didn’t they also have Martin Peters and Stewart Houston and John McPhail? We did well to finish above them with that quality available.

I think 1982 was the last realy bad winter? i remember i was working in Brownhills for the council as a plumber, and it was that cold, all the rising mains froze in Bailey and Humphries house, the 2 blocks of flats in the high street, and at that time we had a payment for every flat you could unfreeze to get the water back on.
So being industrious as i was, i put a burner at the bottom of the rising main so that i could effectively thaw out the whole of the block in one go, giving me over 50 payments.
What i didn’t envisage was that it had frozen that hard, that it had pushed the middles out of the stop taps and stripped the threads, so that when i realised, i couldn’t get them back in.
And i couldn’t stop the thawing process, resulting in me being responsible for flooding all 50 plus flats.
The fire brigade were called to pump out the lift shafts and everyone had to wait to get out of their flats, unless they owned a pair of wellington boots, and i was called in and given the biggest bollocking i had ever had(well until the next one) :grin: :see_no_evil:

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The winter of 84-85 was nearly as bad as that of 81-82 although I think the really cold spell didn’t last quite as long. Tons of snow though.

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Yeah only those of us old enough can remember when it DID actually snow! And of course we used to get fog in November too. remember numerous occasions when the trolley buses were called off due to fog!
Don Penn was a favourite of mine, along with the magnificent Bucks…we could do with him training our current ‘so called’ forwards in how to score!
How we loved watching Walsall in his management days too, none of this sterile, boring, 0-0 1-0 1-1 stuff, it would be 6-5 4-3 3-3 regularly, who cared if we won or lost, at least we were entertained!

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2010 and 2010/2011 winters had record minus temperatures and lasted a long time