A Season To Remember – Swindon Town 1992/93

Three seasons prior to this, Swindon Town won the Second Division Play Off Final at Wembley, defeating Sunderland 1-0.
They weren’t promoted to the First Division though, as ten days after their Wembley win, the Football League demoted Town two divisions because of illegal payments made by the club. Sunderland took Swindon’s place in the First Division.

Things soon picked up after the ignominity of promotion being taken away from the club. Glenn Hoddle joined the club from AS Monaco in March 1991 to become Player-Manager.
Hoddle saved Swindon from relegation to the Third Division in the remaining weeks of the 1990/91 season. He then led The Robins to 9th position in his first full season in charge.

1992/93 was a landmark season in the English game with the introduction of the Premier League. The other Divisions in the Football League were renamed and what was known as the Second Division up to the end of the 1991/92 season, now became the First Division.

Hoddle brought in Craig Maskell from Reading for £270,000 in pre-season and he would end the season as Swindon’s top goalscorer in the league, netting 19 goals.

The season started with a home game against Sunderland. A single goal from boss Glenn Hoddle set Town’s season off in winning ways.
This was followed up with a 4-3 win at Bristol Rovers before a 2-2 draw at Wolves saw Swindon drop their first points of the season.
Swindon ended August with their third win in four games as Cambridge United were resoundingly beaten 4-1, a hat-trick coming from new man Craig Maskell.

September was to be the worst month in Swindon’s season as they only won a single league game in that month.
A 2-1 defeat at Millwall was followed by two 2-2 draws and then Charlton took all three points with a 2-0 victory. Promotion must have seemed a million miles away at this point, but a narrow 1-0 win at home to Grimsy gave the fans something to cheer about.

Although Swindon’s league performances in September were pitiful, they were anything but in the Coca Cola Cup.
Town had been drawn against Torquay United and they ran riot in the first leg on the English Riviera, winning 6-0 at Plainmoor.
The second leg was a tighter affair, ending 3-2 and Swindon went through 9-2 on aggregate!

October saw a complete contrast of league form from the previous month as Swindon won 4 of their 5 league games, with Portsmouth taking the three points in a 3-1 win at Fratton Park.
The four wins included an impressive 1-0 away win at Upton Park against West Ham who had been relegated the previous season. Town also won 5-1 at home to Notts County who, just like West Ham, were relegated from the top flight the previous season.
Oldham Athletic of the Premier League visited the County Ground in the Coca Cola Cup Third Round and came away with a 1-0 win. Town would have to hope for glories in the FA Cup if they were to have any sort of Cup run.

November started badly, with a 2-0 defeat at Brentford. Despite this defeat at Griffin Park, Swindon stayed second in the table.
They drew three of their four other games in the league in November, the other game was a 3-2 victory over Southend. This game was played in front of a crowd of 7,777 fans at the County Ground. The only reason that I mentioned that is because I rarely see symmetrical attendances like that! Nerdy moment over!

Swindon only played two games over the course of December and in traditional were in a festive spirit, handing over all three points on both occasions!

1993 started with any hopes for a run in the FA Cup over before they started as Town were brushed aside 3-0 by QPR at Loftus Road in the Third Round.
The tie was played on a Monday night so it could featured on Sky Sports on a FA Cup Special. I found a 10 minute video of the games and build-up on YouTube of this and it is worth watching just for the Sky coverage before the game. You get to see Graham Kelly hosting the Fourth Round draw with his old chum Bert Millichip and Richard Keys sporting a very bright jacket and tie whilst sitting in a studio in Loftus Road!

A week later, Swindon played and won their first league game of 1993, 1-0 away to Oxford United.
Two draws and a defeat followed before Swindon won three games on the trot. They then lost 1-0 away to Cambridge United on the 20th February before another three wins in a row left them in 3rd position in the table with a third of the season left to play.

Swindon would only win one of their next four games, a 2-1 home win over top of the table Newcastle United, in front of a bumper crowd of 17,574.
United had topped the table since the middle of September and would stay there for the rest of the season.

In the next seven games, Swindon would only lose twice before they went to St Andrews to play Birmingham City.
The result of this game wouldn’t normally be one to look out for as a neutral but it would have jumped off the page if you had read it in the next day’s newspaper. In a quite extraordinary game, Swindon were leading 2-1 at half-time and ended up winning the game 6-4!!

You would be forgiven for thinking that with a result like that, Swindon would have been full of confidence and stormed through the last four games of the season. Quite the contrary as they didn’t pick up a win, drawing two and losing two and ended the season in fifth place in the table.

They had reached the play-offs, just as the team of 1990 did. This time they would face Tranmere Rovers in the semi-final, the first leg to be played at home. Leicester City and Portsmouth were the other teams to make up the play-off contenders.
14,230 fans watched on as Swindon beat Tranmere 3-1 in the first leg at the County Ground. Incredibly, they were 2-0 up after only three minutes of the game!
On the same day, Leicester narrowly beat Portsmouth 1-0 at home.

The second leg at Prenton Park was to be a nervy affair as Tranmere won
3-2, but that wasn’t enough as Swindon went through to Wembley with a 5-4 aggregate win.

Swindon had reached the Final at Wembley and they would be playing Leicester City, who had got through their semi-final with Portsmouth after drawing 2-2 in their second leg and winning 3-2 on aggregate.

The Final itself was fantastic game for the neutral but must have shred the nerves of all the fans in the ground and watching at home.
Swindon powered into a 3-0 lead only to let Leicester back into the game as they conceded three goals in 12 crazy second half minutes and were suddenly on level terms and on the back foot. Watching the game back now, you can hear Alan Parry’s voice going higher and higher pitched as each of Leicester’s goals go in!

A penalty was awarded to Swindon in the 84th minute by referee David Elleray and Wales international Paul Bodin had nerves of steel as he dispatched the penalty past Kevin Poole in the Leicester goal. (The main photo at the top of this article is of this penalty).
This time Swindon clung on and held onto their lead for the remaining six minutes and stoppage time and as the final whistle blew, the season was over. Swindon had made it to the Premiership!

A matter of days after the Play-Off Final victory, Glenn Hoddle received an offer that he felt he couldn’t refuse. He was offered the role of Player/Manager at Chelsea. He took the job and Hoddle’s assistant John Gorman took over the reins at the County Ground.

The following season was Swindon’s first and only season in the top-flight to date. They didn’t do well either as they finished bottom of the league, winning only 5 of their 42 league games and conceded 100 goals in the process.
As for Glenn Hoddle, he fared slightly better, taking Chelsea to the FA Cup Final where they were resoundingly beaten 4-0 by Manchester United who completed a League and FA Cup Double.

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