Allan Gauden

Quoted from tarka

Thanks for that Ipswin...I don't know where I dragged up that memory from but it certainly brought a smile to my face!!

One of those GTFC off pitch moments you never forget mate

Think we signed him from Darlington??

Remember him having the Bobby Charlton combover...!

Does anybody know what happened to him after he left town?

RIP Alan

Quoted from Ipswin

No that incident which sticks in my mind for ever was at Stockport (on Easter Monday, I had to look that up). I remember Stockport had just put the prices up to something that was considered crazy at the time and the terrace we stood on was just like railway sleepers set in cinders / shale or
Town won 2-0 and a crowd of us went round to the players entrance where McMenemy appeared and the bloke with the broken leg threw his crutches down saying 'I don't need these anymore' after Lawrie 'inspired' him with a few words

The man in question was called Tommy Gillan. A well known face to Town fans back in the day.

Quoted from grimsby pete

The one game that sticks in my mind was the cup replay at Preston,

We played at home and drew and I was on a late turn driving my bus past Blundell park drunk off that I could not get to see the game, So when we drew four of us who would be on an early turn on Tuesday decided we would go , The replay was on the next week in them days.

We finished by 3-00pm got in a car and shot across to Preston the M62 was not completed then.

Town played well and Alan scored the only goal !!!

Preston thugs stoned some Town supporters bus going out of Preston,  so we stopped to help, got back home by 3-00am got a couple of hours kip and then back to work.

RIP  Alan  thanks for the memories.  

I was at the game too Pete.

Having watched town constantly since 1966 there are many goals I remember and those I can't but I remember vividly standing right behind the goal when Allan scored that night and going mental.

Thanks for the memories Allan.

Quoted from Ipswin

No that incident which sticks in my mind for ever was at Stockport (on Easter Monday, I had to look that up). I remember Stockport had just put the prices up to something that was considered crazy at the time and the terrace we stood on was just like railway sleepers set in cinders / shale or something like

Town won 2-0 and a crowd of us went round to the players entrance where McMenemy appeared and the bloke with the broken leg threw his crutches down saying 'I don't need these anymore' after Lawrie 'inspired' him with a few words

I was stood to the front of the Town fans and can remember looking back in the stand and seeing the crutches being waved above his head when we scored.

I also remember the Stockport fans tried to act massive in the side stand that we were in and a few Town fans charged at them in they were run out of the stand and onto the pitch and ran off behind the goal.

When I was 10, stood on Harrington Street open corner, my dad told me that Alan Gauden was that fast he could catch pigeons.
Rip Alan.

Recent Darlington article

In the latest of our series, Allen Gauden gives us his best memories from Farewell to Feethams
Allen Gauden was training on the pitch at Sunderland’s Roker Park when he found out that he was on the way to Darlington.

“I was halfway through a training session, and Allan Brown, the manager, told me that Darlington wanted to speak to me. After talking with the manager, I agreed to sign.”

Quakers paid £6000 for him, and he rewarded them with 15 goals in his first season 1968-69 as they pushed for promotion.

“We beat Workington 6-2 just after I signed, and I scored two of the goals. The fans carried me shoulder high off the pitch.

“We thought that we were going to win the league. When we were leading Southend 2-0 at half time, we thought that we were home and dry and lost our heads a little bit.

“But we lost 3-2. And in the last match of the season against Bradford City, I thought we lost our momentum after we had to go off the field.” There were some problems in the capacity crowd that night which forced a hold up. Quakers lost the game, and promotion.

The goals dried up in his second season. “I played for around two months with a cartilage problem. In those days if you had cartilage trouble, you knew that you would be out of the team for ages, so I kept on playing. In the end, though I had to have the operation.”

Allen scored 16 goals in season 70-71, and another seven at the start of the following season.

“One day, the manager Frank Brennan and chairman George Tait called me into the office, and told me that Lawrie McMenemy, who was at Grimsby at the time, wanted to sign me.

“I told them that I didn’t want to go, and that I was happy. George said that the club was struggling, and in the end, I agreed to meet Lawrie after a game at Sunderland.

“I agreed to sign, and Lawrie told me that I was the only player that Darlington could sell for money.”

McMenemy was to play another financial part in Quakers’ later history, when he brought his Southampton team to Darlington for the appeal game in 1982.

Quoted from grimsby pete

The one game that sticks in my mind was the cup replay at Preston,

We played at home and drew and I was on a late turn driving my bus past Blundell park drunk off that I could not get to see the game, So when we drew four of us who would be on an early turn on Tuesday decided we would go , The replay was on the next week in them days.

We finished by 3-00pm got in a car and shot across to Preston the M62 was not completed then.

Town played well and Alan scored the only goal !!!

Preston thugs stoned some Town supporters bus going out of Preston,  so we stopped to help, got back home by 3-00am got a couple of hours kip and then back to work.

RIP  Alan  thanks for the memories.  

Good memory Pete. I was 14 at the time and a paper boy for Ron Young's shop at New Waltham. Someone on my round ended up with a Daily Mirror with the back page missing because it had the headline Gay Gauden and a picture of the winning goal. I still have it somewhere. ...

I think I may have it

Quoted from barralad

Good memory Pete. I was 14 at the time and a paper boy for Ron Young's shop at New Waltham. Someone on my round ended up with a Daily Mirror with the back page missing because it had the headline Gay Gauden and a picture of the winning goal. I still have it somewhere. ...

The next morning we tore the last page out and put it in the advertising box on the bus. When an inspector got on he was very annoyed miserable git he said who put that in there I replied no idea not us the box was locked it must have been the garage lads ha ha.
We had just slid it through the gap it looked great.