Dave Sexton's, Manchester United, were forced to play their home tie against St Etienne, away, at the Devon coastal venue rather than at Old Trafford, following bad behaviour by United fans at the away match. United were not swayed by this and won 2-0. Stuart Pearson fourth left in photo, under "TERRY" scored and so did Steve Coppell.
The first leg was a 1-1 draw on September 14th. Over 30,000 saw Gordon Hill score Unitled's goal.
For those non-geographers, Plymouth (top left/NW of map) seemed a reasonable geographic choice being approximately "half way" (281 miles) between the two clubs (615 miles), supporting a reasonably sized ground in South West England. St Etienne is pinpointed.
In this era, English clubs were involved in several moments of violence in Europe; when Manchester City played Widzew Lodz in Poland playing out an UEFA Cup tie and Newcastle Utd v Bohemians in Eire also had confrontations.
During the season Don Revie resigned as England manager, League clubs were allowed to advertise sponsors on their jerseys during televised matches, players were given "freedom of contract" and 32,000 made it into Home Park. Match vouchers were handed out to Plymouth fans at the previous home match, so there was a fine turn out from the West Country folk. There was no crowd trouble but sadly United did exit to Porto in the next round, losing the first leg 4-0 (70,000 watched) and winning at home 5-2 (Murca of Porto scored two ogs) 52,000. Coppell 2 and Nichol added to the total.
"Nothing more than routine football noises disturbed Drake in his "hammock"; the atmosphere was disarmingly equable" wrote David Lacey in the press reporting onm the game.
A QUIZ:
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2020/mar/19/football-quiz-globetrotting-players
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