On this day, 5 November 1960: Ron Tindall's hat-trick of headers

Photo: private archive. Cover: official Chelsea FC programme, 1960.

On this day, Saturday 5 November 1960, exactly 66 years ago, Chelsea beat Newcastle 4–2 at Stamford Bridge and centre-forward Ron Tindall scored three. According to the newspaper report of the game, he headed all of them.

The cover

Blue with white lettering. Above the crest it says “LEAGUE CHAMPIONS 1954-55”: five years on, the club was still proud of it. Then Chelsea Football Club and Stamford Bridge Grounds, London SW6. The white panel reads Football League — Division I, Season 1960-61, Chelsea v Newcastle United, Saturday, 5th November, 1960, Kick-off 3 p.m. Someone has written the final score in by hand next to the team names: a 4 and a 2. Below that is the familiar aerial sketch of the ground. At the bottom it says Official Programme 6d, with a small note that “the right of admission to grounds is reserved.”

The match

This was a First Division game, the 16th round of the season. The crowd was 30,489 and the referee was Peter Brandwood. Ted Drake, who won the 1955 title, was Chelsea's manager. Charlie Mitten managed Newcastle.

The goals, using the minutes from the “Looking back” note and Newcastle's history site (nufc.com):

• 8′, 0–1. Len White puts Newcastle ahead.
• 26′, 1–1. Tindall equalises.
• 44′, 2–1. Tindall again, just before half-time.
• 61′, 2–2. White equalises with half an hour to go.
• 70′, 3–2. Peter Brabrook puts Chelsea back in front.
• 88′, 4–2. Tindall completes his hat-trick.

The sources don't quite agree on the minutes. footballdatabase.eu and Bygone Chelsea have Tindall scoring on 27′, 44′ and 89′. Match Day Press puts White's second on 62′ and Tindall's third on 89′. The newspaper report of the game says 26′, 43′ and 90′ for Tindall. All of them tell the same story, though: White opened the scoring on 8′, Tindall scored twice before half-time to make it 2–1, White equalised just after the hour, Brabrook scored on 70′ and Tindall finished it off near the end.

Six goals, six headers

Photo: private archive. The print's caption names him as Ron Tindall and ties him to the hat-trick of headers against Newcastle on 5 November 1960; we do not name a photographer without an agency listing.

The note that came with the programme calls it “a hat-trick of headers”. John Thicknesse's match report, kept in the Chelsea results archive at bounder.friardale.co.uk, confirms it. He wrote that six good headers meant six good goals and that not one of the six was scored with a foot. That means Brabrook's goal and both of White's were headers too, not just Tindall's three.

The report's headline was “Tindall shows a touch of Lawton's technique”. Thicknesse said Tindall reminded him of Tommy Lawton, Chelsea's centre-forward from 1945 to 1947 and famous for his heading. In Thicknesse's words, Lawton could jump higher than anyone else, seem to wait up there for a moment, and then send the ball away with a quick twist of his powerful neck. Tindall's first goal, he wrote, was exactly that.

And Greaves?

Photo: private archive. The print's caption names him as Jimmy Greaves in this match; we could not independently match this exact frame to an agency catalogue, so we do not name the striped Newcastle player beside him.

The 20-year-old Jimmy Greaves, the young star everyone was talking about, was in the side but didn't score. Thicknesse noted that it had been a long time since Chelsea scored four without Greaves getting at least one. Greaves still played his part. His speed in tight spaces made chances where there didn't seem to be any, and in the second half his runs wore Newcastle's defence down more and more. In one frame from that afternoon he is racing a Newcastle player for a loose ball, with a packed terrace and advertising boards behind them — the kind of chase Thicknesse said wore the visitors down. But that afternoon, the headlines belonged to Tindall.

The teams

Photo: private archive. Newspaper clipping: Chelsea's young goalkeeper makes a sharp save from Newcastle's Ivor Allchurch (stripes), with centre-half John Mortimore covering behind him. All three started this match.

Chelsea: Bonetti; P. Sillett, A. Harris; Venables, Bobby Evans, Mortimore; Brabrook, Greaves, Tindall, Johnny Brooks, Tambling.

Newcastle United: Harvey; Keith, McMichael; Scoular, Thompson, Bell; Hughes, Woods, White, Ivor Allchurch, Mitchell.

Newcastle's centre-half Billy Thompson, 20, who had come through as a junior, was making his first-team debut. It was a hard start: Chelsea scored four, all with their heads.

A few months later, on 25 March 1961, Chelsea won 6–1 at St James' Park. Tindall scored twice there too, but that day Greaves got four.

For the manager of that era, read our piece on Ted Drake. For the title the cover still celebrates, see the programme from 23 April 1955.

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Sources: bounder.friardale – 1960-61 results and John Thicknesse's match report, 11v11, nufc.com – 1960-61, Match Day Press, footballdatabase.eu, Bygone Chelsea, English Football League Tables, Wikipedia – Bill Thompson.