Our latest retrospective sees us have a look at Hendon in action on 10th January and for the first match on this date we drift back 106 years to 1914 when Hampstead Town took on Page Green Old Boys in a League match and won 2-1 thanks to goals from Alec Tompkins and Bill Hooper. Six years later a visit to Barnet in the London Senior Cup ended with a 2-0 win for the Bees.

In 1931 the visit of Uxbridge Town in an Athenian League match was abandoned after 50 minutes due to poor weather which, one imagines must have been near biblical. In the visitor’s line-up 90 years ago today was Oscar Reinke, co-owner of a Hendon club record with Leon Smith having scored in 8 consecutive matches back in the mid-1920s. Bill Morton and Freddie Evans had given Hampstead a 2-0 advantage when the referee called a halt to proceedings and the rearranged game finally took place in May.

During the Second World War, 1942 provided a Middlesex Senior Cup tie with Napier Athletic which Golders Green won 4-0. Roy Stroud, George Bucci and a duo of strikes from C Stockwell did the damage. One member of that side, Bill Fisher, would go onto play three more matches for the club on this day spanning a period of 17 years.

The first was a London Senior Cup tie in 1948 that was Bromley beaten 3-2 at Hayes Lane thanks to a brace from Jack Harrison and one from Les Fontana. It was another London Senior Cup tie 5-years later which saw goals from Cliff Nock and Alan Beningfield but Carshalton Athletic triumph by the same scoreline. Fisher’s final 10th January appearance came in 1959 when Vauxhall Motors, featured yesterday, were beaten in the FA Amateur Cup 3-1. This time Tommy Lawrence scored twice, added to by the redoubtable Miles Spector.

That was the final game of the amateur era and 1976 kicked off life on this day in the semi professional times with a 1-0 FA Trophy win at Claremont Road against Kettering Town, a Bobby Childs strike proving the difference between the two sides. Five years later and Croydon beat a side that contained the fathers of three future players (messrs. Deadman, McGleish and Currie) 3-0.

Carshalton provided the opposition once again in 1987 when a Glenn Bickles goal saw Hendon return north of the river with 3 points and a clean sheet in-tow. 2-years later Mick Kiely scored as the Greens drew 1-1 in the Middlesex Senior Cup against Wealdstone at Claremont Road and in 1990 a scratch side was fielded at Woodford Town in the London Senior Cup, losing 2-0 (the first team had gone out of the Isthmian League Cup the previous evening).

Nick Sweetman (2), Phil Gallagher and Dave Flint all scored as the Greens beat neighbours Wingate & Finchley 4-1 in a Middlesex Senior Cup match in 1995 and three years later Gravesend and Northfleet raided Claremont Road and left with a 2-1 win.
As the new Millennium was still in its infancy, once again our
current co-tenants at SJP, Edgware Town – managed by Hendon legend Gary Hand - took the lead through Leon Constantine in another Middlesex Senior Cup tie at Claremont Road. Mavuto Sakala equalised before goals from Gary Fitzgerald and Matt Howard secured progress for the Greens, 3-1. Four years later and Eugene Ofori’s goal was the difference as Braintree Town departed Claremont Road without so much as a point.

There was just the one goal in 2012 as well as Greg Ngoyi clinched a 1-0 London Senior Cup win at Barking setting the club on the way to the final and overall success against Kingstonian. Our final and most recent match on this date saw us visit bogey-side Enfield Town in an Isthmian League match in 2015 and continue our rotten run against the Towners, going down 1-0.

In all we’ve played 18 matches on 10th January and won 10. Just one ended all-square whilst 6 have been lost and the remaining one was abandoned. 29 goals have been scored and 19 conceded.