IN A recent column, we recovered a piece from January 1960 in which Brentford legend Jim Towers was about to make his 100 th consecutive appearance for the club.

Barely a month later, as this column shows, his strike partner and fellow Bees legend George Francis was about to chalk up a landmark of his own.

The home game with Grimsby Town was to mark former junior Francis’s 200 th appearance for the club.

Known fondly as ‘the terrible twins’, Francis and Towers remain Brentford’s most potent ever strike partnership, going on to score 136 and 163 goals for the club respectively.

As well as saluting Francis, in this column, the Middlesex Chronicle’s George Sands questions the referee’s time-keeping as a last-gasp Towers equaliser at Norwich City is chalked off, and brings some interesting news about a change of colours for the Bees.

TOMORROW is a landmark in the history of centre-forward George Francis, who plays his 200 th league and FA Cup for Brentford, the club with whom he began as a junior. At Norwich last weekend, he scored his 103 rd goal, and he hopes to get going again tomorrow when Grimsby Town visit Griffin Park. The Bees have hopes of completing the double, for they won 3-1 at Blundell Park in October. Brentford expect to field an unchanged eleven.

From the start of next season, Brentford will revert to the colours they wore till the middle 1920s: Yellow shirts, blue sleeves, black shorts, blue stockings with yellow hoops. By the end of the current season, they will have had to change from their red and white stripes in nine away games, owing to colour clashes.

Because Mr Jack Cooke, of Cambridge, decided that, of the 2,700 seconds of the second-half, the last had ticked away just as a five-yard shot from Jimmy Towers travelled halfway on its journey into the Norwich net, Brentford lost 2-1 at Carrow Road on Saturday. This miraculous piece of time keeping on the part of the referee kept everyone guessing, to such an extent that Norwich chairman, George Watling, congratulated the Brentford directors on "a good draw"! and an announcement had to be made over the loud speaker before the crowd knew whether the game had ended with a "1" or an "X".

In several weekend accounts of the game, Mr Cooke was quoted as having said "I blew my whistle as the ball crossed the 18 yards line", from which it might be inferred that Towers shot from outside the penalty area. I am absolutely certain that the official was mis-reported and did not blow his whistle at that moment. Here was the sequence.

With Brentford staking everything on a last desperate assault, Ken Coote, taking a free-kick just behind the penalty line, and quite 20 yards in from the left touch, swung a ball towards the far post. Dargie’s header sent it towards Towers, who flashed it into the net. While that was happening, Mr Cooke remained at the "alert" and only after Towers had shot did the whistle sound. That was the unanimous opinion of the Bees, and nearly all of them were in the goalmouth at the time.

The law concerned, of course, shrieks out for revision. The final whistle should be blown when the ball is out of play. And I fancy that most referees, to avoid contretemps similar to that of Saturday’s, close the game either when there is no imminent danger of a goal, or when the ball is off the premises. To forestall accusations that I am blowing my top solely because Brentford were the sufferers, let me say that I have previously expressed a similar opinion: and that, if necessary, I can point to a lengthy article on the subject in these columns a few years ago, written after a match in which neither Brentford nor any other local club was concerned.

Consider last Saturday’s epic. Assuming that a shot by Towers travels at least as fast as a champion sprinter, that ball would have taken very little more than a fifth of a second to travel two and a half yards of its flight. Yet Mr Cooke was able to judge it to a nicety. In the boxing ring, it is not considered possible for the referee to concentrate on the action and keep track of the time. In swimming, where the time-keepers can fix their eye on the finishing line and finger a lever on their watches without needing to look at the dials, there is quite frequently a difference of a fifth of a second between officials, even when experts are on duty. Yet a soccer referee, who is expected to make adjustments for injury stoppages, is considered capable of judging matters to a fraction of a second, even though he has to keep one eye on his timepiece and the other on the play, as "hands" at the very last split-second would allow would mean the extension of time for the taking of a penalty! Frankly, I doubt if a referee, with all the players stationary, could start a game to a fraction of a second, let alone finish one. And, as a last word on the subject, a watch gaining only 45 seconds in a week (and I think you’d consider that a very good chronometer) would be a fifth of a second fast at the end of 45 minutes’ play.

In football for more than a quarter of a century, as international player, trainer, coach and manager, Malcolm MacDonald is not easily ruffled. But he was incensed in the Brentford dressing room after this game, but not only because of that "tempus fugit" incident belaboured above. For in the 72 nd minute Norwich had opened the scoring with a penalty which provided the first uproar. The decision, to say the least, was quaint: and the Bees, I can assure you, didn’t say the least. From near the centre circle a lofty ball was kicked forward towards the Brentford goal. Dargie turned to chase it. Bly chased Dargie. As the centre-half stepped into his own penalty area he was shoved in the back and handled the ball on falling. Mr Cooke whistled, but consulted a linesman before making his decision; and that decision was "penalty". The Bees protested en masse: Cakebread, normally the mildest of mortals, went white with frustration; and as the Bees argued, out came the Cooke-book. So many players were concerned it would have been quicker for the referee to borrow a programme and copy out the whole Brentford team than take the names one by one. But in the end he pocketed his book without making an entry.

It could hardly be argued that Dargie, facing his own goal, was obstructing his opponent, for he ran a straight path towards the ball, without moving to either side to block Bly’s route. As far as I know, there’s nothing in the laws of football to say that a player has to move out of an opponent’s path is he’s already there. But, even assuming that Dargie was obstructing and that Bly was therefore entitled to charge him from behind, the handling was still unintentional. Brentford expected to be awarded a free-kick for a foul by Bly, but it was a penalty. I suppose I shouldn’t really be surprised as experience over the last few years tends to make me believe that only one of the conditions attached to the list of "fouls and misconduct" to apply to the away team in penalty cases is that the alleged offence must take place while the ball is on the field of play.

With 22,388 spectators in complete silence (Brentford’s contingent were speechless anyway) Crowe took the spot-kick. Not a good one, although powerful. Cakebread dived to his right to save, but the ball rebounded from his chest, and Crowe, dashing in, had another go. We had to look twice to make sure he hadn’t kicked Cakebread’s head into the net instead of the ball; but a goal it was.

The recall of Bly and Brennan to the Norwich attack (announced programme changes which were greeted gratefully by the crowd) meant that City had had their full Cup-glamour side of last season on duty. Russell, kept out of the team a week earlier by a Saturday morning injury, took over from Horne at right-back. Teams:

Norwich: Kennon, Thurlow, Ashman, McOrohan, Butler, Crowe, Crossan, Allcock, Bly, Hill, Brennan.

Brentford: Cakebread, Russell, Coote, Bristow, Dargie, Goundry, Parsons, Rainford, Francis, Towers, McLeod.

The importance of the occasion was obvious from the outset, but while the football was, for lengthy spells, well above normal Third Division standards, Norwich lacked a good deal of their 1958-59 brilliance. There was less understanding between the front and middle lines, although each of these departments did good work on its own. The strain of having a veritable cup-tie every week, with every opponent out to lower their colours, was much apparent, and there was more vigour than courtesy about the tackling.

Brentford, with Dargie’s return to the pivotal position giving the whole defence more confidence, played some of their best football of the season. They seemed able to find a little extra time to think, and a little extra space in which to work the ball. Coote impressed with a very sound and successful game with Crossan, the City’s Canadian flying machine; Russell had his best match in many months.

In the first ten minutes, each side had a casualty. Dargie strained his back, but the injury was less serious than it appeared to be, and Ian was soon fully fit again. Left-back Ashamn was hurt twice – once in a clash with a colleague – and he had ten minutes on the left wing before returning to No.3. Features of a lively, goalless first half were shots by Towers, Rainford and Francis at one end, and by Bly and Hill at the other. But in every instance, the respective goalkeepers did their jobs well. Cakebread made amazing save when Bly hooked in a ball from Allcock’s centre.

The second-half carried on in much the same way, and with the same score for 27 minutes, during which Bly missed a couple of sitters, Cakebread treated the crowd to two more specials, and Parsons missed a great chance when McLeod’s free-kick was tapped squarely to him by Francis. Then, just after Towers, put through by Bristow, had been thwarted by Kennon’s diving save, came that penalty.

The spot-kick put Norwich in front. How the game would have run without that opening score is anyone’s guess – football is full of ifs, but and perhapses. But the chagrained Bees pulled themselves together, and seven minutes later it was level-pegging. Goundry put the ball forward to Francis, and Brentford’s leader beat Kennon with a lob.

A draw seemed inevitable as play carried on for another eight minutes without a goal. Then a lengthy free-kick found its way into the Brentford penalty area, and after a prolonged skirmish, during which Coote cleared momentarily by heading against his own post, Crossan put the ball into the net.

And that was the lot, apart from the final - or should that be the post-final - fracas, in the course of which Towers was booked for protesting too much. Football history tells us that in 1926-27, Portsmouth gained promotion by 1 200 th part of a goal. This season, Norwich could well gain promotion by 1 5 th of a second.

ALSO IN THE SPORTS PAGES:

Hounslow Town will be missing Tommy McHattie for their London Senior Cup third round tie with Walthamstow Avenue as the inside-left will be playing for Scotland in an amateur international.

However, George Taylor, who also accepted an invitation to travel as a reserve for Scotland, will skipper Town at Walthamstow after being excused following his daughter being admitted to hospital.

McHattie has also been selected to feature in the FA XI v AFA XI showpiece at Maidstone next Wednesday.

Town, meanwhile, progressed to the next round of the London Charity Cup with a 2-1 win over Ilford, thanks to a Ray McDuell goal from a Roger Alder cross, and a Dudley Baker