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Who was B? Your Line of Duty substitute

With the culmination last Sunday of Line of Duty  (with the long-awaited revelation of the identity of 'H' as the ineffectual Brummie Ian Buckells)
fans of the show will no doubt be bereft tonight at 9pm with no suspects left to argue over and family quarrels about the identity of 'H' left to fester - after all, Buckells -really!!!!

Fear not, because at nine-o-clock tonight we will reveal the identity of  'B' (or more precisely goalkeeper 'B') who appears below in this shaky b/w photo taken by an amateur at a game at The Valley in season 1972-73.  If you want to have a stab at it before 9pm then please do so.

There are 23 League games and 3 Cup ties to choose from but there are further clues in the two What I did during Lockdown posts on Page 2 of CL. Peta Balac (Plymouth) and Jim Brown (Chesterfield) have already been ruled out, as has Charlie Wright our ex-stopper (and therefore instantly recognisable), who played for Bolton in both the league and cup games at The Valley that season.  Final clue: LoD H was not H and similarly Goalie B is not B.




Comments

  • Based on your previous clues, I believe the goalkeeper is Jim Eadie of Bristol Rovers on 24 April 1973.

    According to Colin Cameron’s book, Mike Flanagan’s goal was scored on 20 minutes. Therefore, although it was a night game, it would have still been light at around 19:50.

    Bristol Rovers kit at the time was blue shirts, white shorts and white socks. They had temporarily dispensed with their more familiar quarter block design. This matches the earlier picture showing Flanagan shooting.


  • @Valley_Stoller
    you could well be onto something here and very astute deduction

    But are you suggesting that the 20th minute Mike Flannagan goal in the game v Bristol Rovers was the one in the picture (see below)?



  • I'm pretty sure it's Flanagan but have no idea if he scored or not from this shot. Although I would have been at the game, it's too long ago! 
    Did the ball hit the cross bar and bounce back out to Flanagan?
  • well, seeing as Line of Duty finished TWO weeks ago (a new drama started last Sunday at 9pm on BBC1) then I don't have much faith in you being 100% accurate as to who the 'keeper is so I'm going for Lev Yashin. 
  • I'm pretty sure it's Flanagan but have no idea if he scored or not from this shot. Although I would have been at the game, it's too long ago! 
    Did the ball hit the cross bar and bounce back out to Flanagan?
    That's Flanagan in the photo yes, but he's not scoring here v Bristol Rovers.
  • well, seeing as Line of Duty finished TWO weeks ago (a new drama started last Sunday at 9pm on BBC1) then I don't have much faith in you being 100% accurate as to who the 'keeper is so I'm going for Lev Yashin. 
    Ha, good shout.
    but couldn't do this last week in absence of LoD because of the Hull game.
    Giving your age away with Yashin !- BTW his life story is amazing. 

    Keep the faith - the identification will not be100 percent but 99.9 percent accurate and is backed up by another player who played in the game.
  • edited May 2021
    With under 6 hours to go to the denouement, we only have one clear proposal for the identification of goalkeeper 'B' - Jim Eadie of Bristol Rovers - suggested by @Valley_Stroller (unfortunately Lev Yashin, whilst a nice idea, is not the answer).

    But let's narrow down the suspects a bit more - we initially discounted all evening/floodlight games because the two photos (which are from the same game) were taken in daylight but, as @Valley_Stroller has pointed out - the photos could be from the first half of a Spring-time game before the floodlights were switched on and the evening game v Bristol Rovers on 24th April 1973 had a 7.30 kick off and thanks to William Willett (the inventor, for want of a better word) of British Summer Time (BST) which, by dint of the clocks being put forward by one hour, gives us to this day an extra hour of evening light during summer  

    If it was this game then @V_S has also told us that only one goal was scored in the first half and that was by Mike Flanagan in the 20th minute (according to Colin Cameron's book).

    We can state that the photo of Flanagan (see above) does not show him scoring v Bristol Rovers - doesn't mean to say that it's not that game but the photographer would have been unlucky to have missed the Flanagan goal but capture instead one that he missed when one-on-one with the keeper. It is inconceivable though that the photos are from the second half of that game which would not have started until maybe 8.25pm.

    Which leaves Jim Eadie still firmly in the frame perhaps but take a look at the crowd if it's clear enough on the photos - the attendance for the Bristol Rovers game is given by CC as a paltry 4,741 - the 1 being @V-S who was at the game - but the bank to the south (left) of the West Stand looks well-populated if this is the case, as does the Covered end!

    We can reveal that the major breakthough in the identification came via the Chesterfield FC equivalent of CL but surprisingly they ruled out their own keeper Jim Brown who played in The Valley game on 3rd Feb 1973 - despite the name he isn't 'B'.

  • This starts to feel like the Charlie Hall testimonial.  30th April 1973.

    We played QPR ... so it's Phil Parkes.
  • Dave Rudd said:
    This starts to feel like the Charlie Hall testimonial.  30th April 1973.

    We played QPR ... so it's Phil Parkes.
    Its a League game from 72-73 but I like your stab at it.  It took us (myself and Alan Dryland) about 3-4 weeks to get it.


  • I did wonder about the crowd but they were all under 7,500 that season except the Sheff Utd League Cup game and an FA Cup game against Bolton.
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  • edited May 2021
    We beat Swansea 6.0 and a few weeks later, Notts County 6.1, both on Tuesday night's early that season before the clocks changed. Flanagan got four against County I think, so I am going for that game? This is almost certainly a first half goal as we nearly always attacked the south end in the first half back then. Finally, the crowd cannot be judged by those at the side of the stand. That area was always busy offering a fast getaway and good access to the toilet block! How many are in the seats?  That shows it was a small crowd.
  • Pedro45 said:
    We beat Swansea 6.0 and a few weeks later, Notts County 6.1, both on Tuesday night's early that season before the clocks changed. Flanagan got four against County I think, so I am going for that game? This is almost certainly a first half goal as we nearly always attacked the south end in the first half back then. Finally, the crowd cannot be judged by those at the side of the stand. That area was always busy offering a fast getaway and good access to the toilet block! How many are in the seats?  That shows it was a small crowd.
    Again, a good shout - that would put Millington (Swansea) and Brown (Notts County) into the mix and Brown begins of course with a B !  We initially ruled out evening games. 
    The strongest case so far for a evening game though is that put forward by @Valley_Stroller v Bristol Rovers at the other end of the season,

    It's getting close for the reveal - so any more for any more - the final pieces of the puzzle which helped us to solve this arrived from Chesterfield, Port Vale and then the Charlton Museum.
  • Interesting stuff.  I still can’t remember it though!

    I would have been stood on the East Terrace with my dad and brother. I was 11 at the time.
  • The Flying Pig
  • Chizz said:
    The Flying Pig
    That's the one: 

    Eadie was known by the Gasheads of the 1970s as The Flying Pig

    The Flying Pig is warmly remembered for his part in Rovers promotion season of 1973-74.

  • @Coyotejohn1947 ... Did I miss the bit where you explained why a student was pitchside taking pictures?
  • Chizz said:
    The Flying Pig
    That's the one: 

    Eadie was known by the Gasheads of the 1970s as The Flying Pig

    The Flying Pig is warmly remembered for his part in Rovers promotion season of 1973-74.

    And Katrien Meire's sacking a few decades later

  • Dave Rudd said:
    @Coyotejohn1947 ... Did I miss the bit where you explained why a student was pitchside taking pictures?
    The student (a friend of mine from Dorset) was at Rolle Teacher Training College Exmouth Devon and he and his partner had put me up (sofa) whilst I was looking for a job in the area.

    He wanted to do a piece on a professional football game for a student newspaper. Exeter City would have been the obvious choice but as I owed him I wrote to Charlton requesting a press pass for a game and to my surprise, they sent one back (very little security in those days of course). 

    I can't remember much else (it was the 1970s and my life-style was shall we say Bohemian for want of a better description). I can't even remember getting the photos but they would have gone into a box at my parents' house in Sidcup in the mid-1970s where I kept all my Charlton progs and memorabilia and I don't think they saw the light of day again until the recent Lockdown. 

    I never had the money to get back from Devon to see many Charlton games during the 70s and only started going regularly again in the 80s and 90s when I was earning. Although I remembered the circs of the taking of the photos I had no clear recollection of what game it was when I discovered the photos at the bottom of the box after a gap of what - 45 years?

  • Dave Rudd said:
    @Coyotejohn1947 ... Did I miss the bit where you explained why a student was pitchside taking pictures?
    The student (a friend of mine from Dorset) was at Rolle Teacher Training College Exmouth Devon and he and his partner had put me up (sofa) whilst I was looking for a job in the area.

    He wanted to do a piece on a professional football game for a student newspaper. Exeter City would have been the obvious choice but as I owed him I wrote to Charlton requesting a press pass for a game and to my surprise, they sent one back (very little security in those days of course). 

    I can't remember much else (it was the 1970s and my life-style was shall we say Bohemian for want of a better description). I can't even remember getting the photos but they would have gone into a box at my parents' house in Sidcup in the mid-1970s where I kept all my Charlton progs and memorabilia and I don't think they saw the light of day again until the recent Lockdown. 

    I never had the money to get back from Devon to see many Charlton games during the 70s and only started going regularly again in the 80s and 90s when I was earning. Although I remembered the circs of the taking of the photos I had no clear recollection of what game it was when I discovered the photos at the bottom of the box after a gap of what - 45 years?
    I now have a vision of your friend sitting between Tom Morris and Brian Cassey ... armed with a Kodak Instamatic and a lapel badge saying 'Press'.
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