THIS week in 1969 Swindon Town FC prepared for what is still the most celebrated match in its history.

If anybody at the Adver had the slightest doubt that Town would beat Arsenal in the League Cup final when Saturday came, they didn’t show it.

Nor did anybody else in Swindon, for that matter.

On the Tuesday we printed a full-size broadsheet special edition with expensive high quality colour images front and back.

The front page had two large team photos – Swindon above and Arsenal below. The Swindon side, in the all-white strip they’d chosen, was flanked by manager Danny Williams and trainer Harry Cousins.

On the back row were Rod Thomas, Stan Harland, Roger Smart, Owen Dawson, Peter Downsborough, Frank Burrows, John Trollope and Don Rogers. At the front were Don Heath, Peter Noble, John Smith, Chris Jones, Joe Butler and Willie Penman.

We wonder how many young fans’ bedroom walls that image ended up being pinned to, and how many copies of the supplement were carefully kept and remain in Swindon attics to this day.

The back page, also in colour, featured a simple view of the Wembley pitch and an advert for McIlroys spring fashions. Highlights of the range included a “Couture Crimplene diagonally striped dress by Charles Creed” at nine and a half guineas, or a fraction under £10 in decimal currency.

Among the photos inside the supplement, one of the most striking showed a group of 10 players’ wives, taken at the Greenmeadow home of Peter and Jenny Noble.

Their husbands were about to go on a journey into the unknown with the hopes of many people riding on them, so it’s perhaps no wonder that the image looks a little like a vintage NASA publicity shot of Apollo astronauts’ wives.

A rather older lady hoping for a Swindon victory was 89-year-old Augusta Dodd from Blunsdon. Although she was in a Cirencester hospital, she planned to listen to the match on her radio.

We said: “Mrs Dodd has been a lifelong supporter of Swindon Town and must qualify to hold the title of the club’s oldest supporter.

“She was born 13 years before the club was founded and when she was in her 20s attended the first match ever played at the County Ground.”

The veteran fan told us: “I used to go to matches with my father who was a big supporter of the club, and we went to every match.

“We would drive into Swindon in the morning, stay for the game and then go home afterwards.”

Mrs Dodd predicted a 1-0 victory for Town, so the eventual 3-1 scoreline must have delighted her.

We also visited the Market Street headquarters of Castles the bakers, who had prepared not one but two match-themed cakes, each weighing 112lbs.

One had been sent to London, ready for the town players, and the other was displayed in the shop window.

Remarkably, we also found space for non-football news in our pages that week.

One of those stories was about a man called Bernard Taylor, one of Swindon's lesser-known celebrities.

After studying art in his hometown and London, and then attending Birmingham University, he headed for America in 1963 with the intention of becoming an actor.

Following roles in locations as diverse as New York and Kansas City, he returned to Britain and in early 1969 made his British stage debut in Windsor’s Theatre Royal, in a play called The Farmer’s Wife.

At the time his mother, Edna, still lived in Beechcroft Road, and was a proud fan.

Bernard Taylor went on to further acting success, and in the early 1970s wrote successful horror novels. Later he switched to equally successful historical romances under a pseudonym, Jess Foley, and today is based in London.

The week also saw us run an appeal for young women to come forward and join the hairdressing classes at Swindon College.

We asked: “Would you like to earn up to £100 as a hairdresser in a top London salon? Or perhaps you would prefer to be your own boss, running a salon yourself.

“You can serve an indentured apprenticeship for three years in a salon, attending part time day or evening classes to train as a ladies’ hairdresser.

“About 15 years is the usual starting age.”

We also quoted an unnamed hairdresser based in glamorous Mayfair who told us, among other things: “A trainee must develop the ability to handle clients with aplomb – how to be charming and tactful at all times, no matter how difficult the customer.

“A chic, up-to-the-minute hairstyle is based on skilful cutting, shampooing and setting. Artistic combing out creates the final beauty.”

The accompanying picture showed Swindon College students in a wig-making class;wig-making was then regarded as an essential aspect of the profession.