Irvine Meadow's flight of fancy - to Birmingham

It was one of the most unlikely pairings for a friendly match: Birmingham City, a top ten side in the English first division, hosted Irvine Meadow, a Scottish junior team.
   Sixty years ago, in March 1959 the Scots flew to the West Midlands and ran their mighty opponents close, losing just 4-3 to a last minute penalty.
   The match had been arranged three months earlier when Birmingham City invited the juniors to head south, even offering to arrange flights. At the time, there was no question Irvine Meadow XI (to give them their full title) was the top junior side in Scotland, as they were virtually unbeatable and went on to lift the Scottish Junior Cup that season. Even so, pitting them against full-time professionals seemed a big ask, although Birmingham promised to put out a young side with limited first team experience.
   It was originally scheduled for Wednesday 21 January but had to be postponed (with several days' notice) due to the severe winter weather, and rearranged for Monday 16 March.

The Meadow team had little time to prepare for the trip as on the Saturday they had a tough Junior Cup quarter final in Blairgowrie (which they won 5-1). They flew south on Monday from Glasgow Airport (then known as Renfrew) and a planeload of supporters followed them on a chartered 36-seat Dakota. The match that evening attracted a decent crowd of 3,200 to St Andrew's, and to their astonishment they saw the Scots sweep to a two goal lead in the first ten minutes, through Hookey Walker and Tommy Wark. They were still ahead at half-time, albeit Brian Abbott had reduced the deficit and centre half George Sinclair was hobbling with a knee injury; he was replaced at half-time by Bill Currie.

In the second half, the superior fitness of the Birmingham youngsters started to tell and they equalised through David Jones, then went ahead from Dennis Harper. However, Irvine continued to press forward and managed to make it 3-3 when Maurice Partridge put through his own goal. The winner came in the final minute after Abbott was brought down in the box and Jimmy McLaughlin, a future Northern Ireland international, scored with the resulting penalty to make it 4-3. It was Meadow's first defeat in nine months.
   After the match, Irvine Meadow presented Birmingham City with an inscribed musical cigarette box, and the team had a lively night in their hotel before flying home the following day. The match programme, pictured above, is a pertinent souvenir of this rare occasion.

Monday, 16 March 1959
Birmingham City 4 (Abbott, Jones, Harper, McLaughlin pen), Irvine Meadow XI 3 (Walker, Wark, Partridge og).

Birmingham City: Draper; Kennea, Partridge; Abbott, Small, Hume; Harper, Hinton, Jackson, Jones, McLaughlin.
Irvine Meadow: Prentice; Crawford, Isaacs; Carr, Sinclair (sub Currie HT), Dickie; Carroll, Strain, Wark, Morrison, Walker.

The match was advertised in Birmingham City's previous match programme (National Library of Scotland)