St. Helens Town have met Manchester City on four occasions. Strictly speaking, the clubs have only met twice, the first two occasions, soon after the transfer of Bert Trautmann, City faced teams of St. Helens-born players, drawn mostly from other Football League clubs.

Both those games were played at the old Town ground at Hoghton Road, in April 1950 and again in May 1951. The other games were much later, a pre-season friendly, again at Hoghton Road in July 1996 and, more recently, at the athletics stadium adjacent to the Etihad Stadium, in November 2009, that game coinciding with the 60th anniversary of Bert’s transfer, when the clubs met to play for the Trautmann Trophy.

Programmes for all four games are shown. Facsimile copies of the first two programmes were produced and given away free with the 1996 programme and the 2009 programme – produced by Town – included a facsimile copy of the programme for Trautmann’s final Town appearance, against Bangor City on 1st October 1949 in the FA Cup.

The game in April 1950 was arranged as a “thank you” from City for Bert’s transfer and produced a ground record attendance of 4000 which still stands today, although the record for a Town match is 3102 for a Liverpool County Combination game against Burscough on 9th October 1948, when Trautmann played in goal. He was a former German prisoner of war, who stayed on after the Second World War and his debut for Town came in the opening match of that season, against South Liverpool, at Hoghton Road, on 28th August 1948.

Bert went on to greater fame at Maine Road, playing twice for City at Wembley in FA Cup Finals, in 1955 on the losing side against Newcastle United and returning to win the Cup the following year against Birmingham City, in a game in which he broke his neck but played on nevertheless. He enjoyed a career lasting 15 seasons at City, also representing the Football League on two occasions. Alive and well and living these days in Spain, he’ll celebrate his 90th birthday next year.

The 27th April 1950 programme was an eight-page publication, double the usual number of pages for a Town issue and the first held together by staples. There was an article by Jack Phillips (who had been Secretary of the original Town club, which was formed in 1901 and lasted until 1928) and another by then-Secretary George Fryer in which he outlined the club’s ambitions of election to the Football League. At that time, Town were nearing the end of their third season – their first in the Lancashire Combination – and the sky was the limit following a quite spectacular run of success at the new Hoghton Road ground.

It was back to four pages for the clash on 2nd May 1951 and the programme notes encouraged spectators to return the following evening for the match against Lancaster City, promising to present further football occasions of similar stature should the St. Helens public respond to the club’s ambitious aims.

Town were promoted as Second Division champions in 1951, but their high expectations wee dampened the following season, finishing bottom of the First Division in 1951/52. Put into perspective, however, the Lancashire Combination was among the strongest leagues in those days, possibly the equivalent of the Blue Square leagues of today, featuring clubs such as Wigan Athletic and Morecambe among their numbers.

The programme for the pre-season friendly against City’s reserve team on 24th July 1996 was a full-sized Town issue, comprising 36 pages.

Programme editor in those days was current club chairman, John McKiernan, and there was a wonderful account by Jim Barratt, now Town’s President, of his meeting with Bert Trautmann a few years earlier when he had conducted Bert in a nostalgic tour around the district.

The team line-ups on that day 16 years ago included the ever-youthful Brian Hatton, as well as Gary Bickerstaffe and Adie Reilly.

A team of City legends entertained Town at the Regional Athletics Arena on Sunday, 15th November 2009, for the Trautmann Trophy and an enthusiastic gathering of just under 400 saw an entertaining game settled at 6-5 in favour of Town, the last occasion Town lifted a trophy.

The programme was produced by St. Helens Town, but featured articles by various contributors at City and Maine Road FC, who still have close links with the Premier League outfit.

GLYN JONES