1927-28 Season
With the 1927/28 season just about to start, the Colliers had only made one new signing for the new campaign with Hopper joining the Club from Coventry, this was his second spell with Ashington. The first match played at Home with title favourites Bradford City making the trip to Portland Park. There was a sharp contrast between the sides as the Yorkshire Club had spent thousands of pounds in an attempt to secure promotion, compared to the near impoverished Colliery team. The Colliers were still able to match their opponents as an entertaining game ended 2-2. Just days later Crewe left Portland Park with all the points after a 2-0 success. Ashingtons poor form continued with the Colliers first victory finally arriving on 12th November when Tranmere were defeated 3-0 at Portland Park with just under 2,000 in attendance. This brought an end to a terrible run that saw the Colliers go 14 games without a win that included some embarrassing defeats at New Brighton (0-6), Halifax (1-6), Hartlepool (1-4), Darlington (1-5), Bradford Park Avenue (0-5) and Wrexham (1-5). The run also included an amazing defeat at home to Lincoln, who won 5-4 at Portland Park. The win over Tranmere couldn’t be repeated one week later as the Colliers were defeated 0-3 at Stockport in front of 7,000.
One week after the Cup exit the Colliers were on their travels in the League, destroying Nelson away 5-1 with 1,500 in attendance. Ashington then defeated Barrow 1-0 at home and drew at Rotherham before going down to a home defeat to Southport (1-3). This was followed by another heavy defeat as The Colliers lost 0-5 at Bradford City with 8,000 at the match. The colliers then drew in a derby game at home to Durham City 2-2 with 2.099 in attendance, but by the new year attendances had fell to a crippling low of around 1,500 (a lot lower than the early Football League days average of four and five thousand) and an announcement was made of the serious financial difficulties the club was in, expressing a hope that in future the crowds would increase considerably. The Colliers defeated New Brighton 3-2 at Portland Park before Rochdale were defeated 5-1 at home - but this time there was only a crowd of 1,200 – 300 less than the previous home games. Defeat at Lincoln (1-3) was followed by a North East derby win over Hartlepool as the Colliers won 3-1 at Portland Park against their local rivals. Another 1-3 loss away, this time at Accrington was followed by a superb 6-3 victory over Wigan.
Ashington then lost four straight games including a 0-3 defeat at home to Bradford PA in a game that saw the Colliers denied a blatant penalty that was greeted by boos and hisses from the Collier Army, before defeating Wrexham 2-1 at Portland Park and lost an entertaining game at Tranmere the following week, going down 3-5. Ashington then beat Stockport 4-1 at home and lost 0-3 at Crewe before a good run that saw the Colliers undefeated in their last six games starting with a 2-2 draw at Rochdale. One week later the Colliers thrashed Nelson 5-1 at Portland Park and drew at Durham City 0-0 with a crowd of only 931 witnessing the draw. Ashington then drew at Barrow before demolishing Rotherham 6-0 at Portland Park in the final home game of the season. In the last game of the season Ashington drew an entertaining game at Southport with a final score of 3-3. This good run of form saw the Colliers finish in a safe but far from healthy 18th place at the end of the season.
High points in the season included two 5-1 wins over Nelson, a derby win at home to Hartlepool (3-1), a 5-1 win over Rochdale at Portland Park, a thrilling 6-3 win at home to Wigan and a superb 6-0 home victory over Rotherham.
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