The programme we will be reviewing in this post is the Crewe Alexandra programme for when they played Cambridge United on the 3rd March 1987.
The game between Crewe Alexandra and Cambridge Utd was a Division Four game back in 1987 at Crewe Alexandra’s stadium, Gresty Road. The game itself ended a dull 0-0. Under the stats page of ‘Alex Facts And Figures we can see they actually beat Cambridge on their first game against each other in this season 3-0 at Cambridge.
The lineups from the game:
| Crewe Alexandra | Cambridge United |
| 1. Brian Parkin | 1. Keith Branagan |
| 2. Wayne Goodison | 2. Ian Measham |
| 3. John Pemberton | 3. Alan Kimble |
| 4. Geoff Thomas | 4. Lindsay Smith |
| 5. Steve Wright | 5. Mark Crowe |
| 6. John Gannon | 6. John Beck |
| 7. Dave Platt | 7. Peter Butler |
| 8. Peter Bodak | 8. Steve Spriggs |
| 9. Dave Pullar | 9. John Rigby |
| 10. Terry Milligan | 10. David Crown |
| 11. Gary Blissett | 11. Gary Kimble |
We see some very famous names here including David Platt later on playing for Arsenal and England, Steve Spriggs longevity at Cambridge and Gary Blissett before moving to Brentford and then Wimbledon FC.
Programme Review
The programme starts of with ‘What Dario Has To Say’ and is about the manager talking about his recent performance.
‘As time passed I enjoyed our game against Hartlepool more and more. On Saturday at 4.45pm. I was relieved to have three points in the bag, but I was disappointed with our performance, especially when the same players had played so well at Swansea.’
He also talks about how they have to work hard and all the transfers happening, something good to see if your a fan of the club and getting a viewpoint of what the manager has to say compared to the secrecy today.
The programme has small sections like ‘News Around The Leagues’ and ‘A Personal View’.
The programme contains the visitors as well, Cambridge United, and a brief description of their squad. Including the likes of Steve Spriggs having over 400 appearances for the club, still the most for the club to this day!
It also has many sections to do with the fans with one of the sections being called ‘Supporter News’ and also one called ‘Personality Profile’ which is where they give a profile on one of the supporters going to the game. In this programme for Crewe Alexandra its about someone who was denied access to the ground at a very young age but from the few years prior to this game this fan has been a regular at the club and they give a detailed profile of the supporter, a very touching thing to combine fans and the football team.
Overview Of The Programme
The programme by Crewe Alexandra gives their fans, the visitors and even neutrals a great perspective of their club with detailed player stats, the big facts and figures page from the whole season. Also mixing the fans comments and views into the programme. But they give a clear description of the game being played for this specific programme with the lineups on the back even giving you a route to travel to the next game on the same page. But for people looking back at the old programmes, old games, players etc this programme gave us something to talk about in every page, other than the sponsors obviously!
