After twelve months of post Wembley despair, culminating in our drop to the bottom tier of the Football League, who would’ve expected Swindon Town to be able to unveil football legend, but managerial novice, Paolo Di Canio on 20th May 2011 as the man to guide us to promotion… Not since Ossie Ardilles and then Glenn Hoddle were handed the reigns over 20 years
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No.2 – Leon Clarke & Mike Grella A list of the top eleven moments of 2011 wouldn’t be right without the petulant Leon Clarke featuring somewhere. Even though the incident brought masses of negative publicity to the County Ground it’ll live long in our memories, so this justifies its placing at No.2 in our countdown of 2011. Clarke played up
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The goalkeeping position at Swindon Town has been up for grabs for a very long time. In recent years we’ve seen ‘keepers come and go, a former England u21 international David Lucas fail to stake his claim to the no.1 jersey and the supporters unconvinced by an array of mistakes, with Phil Smith often singled out for blame. Under Paolo Di
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No.4 – Swindon 4 Huddersfield 1 This FA Cup 1st Round tie pitted Swindon against League One Huddersfield Town, who at that point had only been defeated twice this season and undefeated in 42 games in League One. Swindon ran out 4-1 victors and in response Paolo Di Canio summed it all up perfectly by stating the result ‘was this
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No.5 – Paul Hart: The worst Swindon manager of all time? In June I set out on the task of attempting to rank all Swindon Town managers since we joined the Football League in 1920 by their actual results. The reason was to analyise whether Paul Hart’s record of 1 win, 4 draws and 6 defeats from 11 games was the most
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No.6 – Matt Ritchie’s strike against Gillingham With my daughter’s impending birth preventing use of my season ticket for the evening I missed Matt Ritchie’s stunning strike against Gillingham. Whether this is something I’ll hold against her I doubt, but I always seem to miss out on the STFC ‘wonder strikes’ over the years for various reasons. Perhaps I’ll not
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No.7 – Leyton Orient and the end for Danny Wilson A 3-0 defeat at Leyton Orient in early February with sixteen left to play, 31 points in the bag and six off the bottom isn’t usually a sign relegation is inevitable, but it always was for me. The match was Swindon’s eighth game without a win, a run including six defeats.
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No.8 – Charlton Athletic 2 Swindon 4 A sole highlight in League One during 2011 came at The Valley on 3rd January. In front of the Sky TV cameras Town ended their twenty month hoodoo of failing to win a game after going behind in true style beating promotion chasing Charlton Athletic 4-2. After the Addicks took a controversial lead
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No.9 – Paolo’s first away League victory at Crawley At the fourth attempt in League Two, Paolo Di Canio guided Swindon to a magnificent 3-0 demolition of pundit’s pre-season favourites and everyone’s most hated team Crawley Town. In the process, Steve Evans was served humble pie with a waft of parmesan and extra black pepper. Paolo well and truly hit
Read moreNo.10 – Where is Milan Misun? One of Danny Wilson’s final and desperate throws of the dice in the transfer market was to sign Celtic’s Czech Republic defender Milan Misun for an undisclosed (reported to be a six figure) fee on 28th January. With Gordon Greer still sorely missed, Sean Morrison recently departed and Town’s defence looking as watertight as
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The Washbag 