In his 3 years as a Cobbler, Smith was always in a team that was looking up, striving for promotion out of the basement division of the Football League.
As we heard in part 1, the first year didn’t quite go to plan, with Colin Calderwood replacing Martin Wilkinson as manager in early October and then everything going against them in the play-off defeat to Mansfield Town.
The Cobblers did have a good FA Cup run that year though, culminating in a 4th round tie at home to Manchester United. It was Smudger himself who had scored the winner against Rotherham in a 3rd round replay.
The following season ended in play-off defeat too. This time at the hands of Freddy Eastwood and Southend United.
It was Smudger’s final year that saw The Cobblers finally earn promotion. They finished 2nd behind a Carlisle United team that had Karl Hawley (22 goals) and Michael Bridges (15 goals) up front.
The Cobblers on the other hand looked more experienced as Calderwood signed the likes of Sean Dyche, Ian Taylor and Eoin Jess.
In this 2nd part of Memory Lane: Martin Smith you’ll hear all about Smith coming up against a young Christiano Ronaldo, those play-off defeats and how Colin Calderwood’s decision to take the Nottingham Forest job helped Smudger make up his mind about his own future.
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It’s All Cobblers To Me is a Vibrant Sound Media production for the fans of Northampton Town Football Club.
Charles is the founder and main presenter of the award-winning It’s All Cobblers To Me podcast.
He began the podcast after going self-employed in 2018 as a podcast producer and voiceover artist. The original thought being that It’s All Cobblers To Me would be a place to try out new things – like a test podcast of sorts.
As well as being Cobblers mad, Charles is also a ultramarathon runner and has a blog about that that he tries to keep up to date as often as he can.
