THE FIRST WORLD CUP 1930

I am a day out here, but in these trying times, nobody will notice...apart from you!
The 1930 World Cup Final was played on Wednesday July 30 at the Estadio Centenario, Montevideo, Uruguay. Why so far away from the heart of "football" in Europe?
Well, Uruguay were Olympic Champions and were celebrating the country's centenary.
https://baileyfootballblog.blogspot.com/2018/06/1938-world-cup-covers-12-nations.html

Along with the 1966 World Cup Final, when the game was played on a Saturday, this was the only World Cup Final not to be played on a Sunday. 93,000 turned up to witness "history" nevertheless.

The Uruguayan government promised to cover all competitors costs and managed to complete a brand new stadium, but not by the first day of the tournament (13th)...it was finished for the home country's first tie against Peru, five days later.

An immediate concern was who provided the match ball! As if.....but FIFA remained political and allowed the Argentinians to use "their" ball in the first half and for Uruguay to use theirs in thre second half. It worked...Uruguay scored first after 12 minutes but were 1-2 down at half time with goals scored in 20 minutes and then 37. The second half saw a turn round with goals from Uruguay in 57, 68 and 89 minutes Hector Castro scored the last one.

To qualify for the semi-final, Uruguay topped Group 3 of 3 nations, with two wins and a goal difference of  5-0. As top of Group Two, they met Yugoslavia in the Semi-final, winning 6-1.
Argentina also earned 6 points with a difference of 10-4 in Group One. Argentina then beat the USA 6-1 in the semi-final.
John Langenus (pictured) from Belgium refereed the final.

Pedro Cea of Uruguay scored goals in both the 1924 Olympic Final in Paris and the 1930 FIFA Final and was second best in the tournament scoring with 5. Stabile of Argentina scored 8.
"Manco" Castro of Uruguay, who scored two goals in the competition, was chosen for the final and he played with only one arm. His first goal was Uruguay's first ever goal in the World Cup against Peru and then he headed the fourth goal in the final.

13 countries made the trip with the prize being a 32 cm tall trophy made of gold and sculpted by French man, Abel Lafleur. Only four countries from Europe made the journey across the Atlantic.

The Romanians had to rely on their King, Carol, who persuaded the players' employers to let their footballers have leave. King Carol picked the team!

The French were obliged to follow their World Cup initiative and many wondered why they bothered to make the trip. Much was the same for Belgium and Yugoslavia. It was a ling trip by sea.

Only two countries, as members of FIFA, played in this tournament, France and Belgium.

After the final, back in Buenos Aires, the angry Argentinian fans threw bricks through the Uruguayan Embassy windows.

AT LAST THE FA CUP

If you are feeling starved of FA Cup action, then this website may help you fill those lost hours. The FACUP FACTFILE is full of unusual facts and figures:

https://facupfactfile.wordpress.com/2020/07/30/fa-cup-covid_19-20-season-review/

You will notice that you get the bonus of other "posts" from this website. So, enjoy!
This is a summary which you may be able to read or expand....if not, go to the "original source".

The FA Cup  dates:
Extra Preliminary Round was played over the week of 10th August 2019
Prelim Rd around the 24th August
1st Qualifying from 7th September-11th
2nd Q from 21st September-24th
3rd Q from 5th October-8th
4th Q from 19th October-22nd
1st Rd Proper from 9th Nov
2nd Rd from 30th Nov
3rd Rd from Jan 4th 2020
4th Rd from Jan 25th
5th Rd from March 4th
COVID
Q-F from 27-28th June
S-F from 18-19th July
Final on 1st August

From Round Two here are the best goals courtesy BBC and a Review.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/50660089

Enjoy the Final due this weekend with:-
Chelsea having got through: Man U, Leicester C, Liverpool, Hull C and Nottingham F
Arsenal: Man C, Sheffield U, Portsmouth, Bournemouth, Leeds U.

CHELSEA NEARLY ENGLAND'S FIRST EUROPEAN CLUB

Who thought of the European Cup? It's now called something different of course and there are several other European trophies for teams to make money from, but the European Cup, as we "over 50s" call it, was designed to celebrate the League Champions of each European country.

Typically in 1955, the FA, who as you know, are the "Fathers of the Association game", showed little interest in the original competition.

Chelsea, as Division One champions (the top tier in those days), were invited to join the competition and would have played Djurgardens from Sweden in the 1st Round, but the Football League, no doubt advised by the FA, intervened and refused the Pensioners permission to indulge. Alan Hardaker stated that the FA could veto any club matches against clubs from other countries. Chelsea chairman, Joe Mears, sat on the committee and heard that the competition was regarded as "a joke" and a "nine day wonder".

Gwardian Warszawa of Poland took their place and lost to Djurgarden, which would have brought an England v Scotland tie in Round 2, (all being well). Chelsea v Hibernian...see below.

The Committee stated that extra fixtures would make the cub's commitment to the Football League and FA Cup (the only two competitions available) "might prove difficult to fulfill".

The Daily Mirror on July 27th 1955, managed a minute news' space and any foreseeable campaign  to support the European initiative, was not launched as a result. There seemed little enthusiasm for European comeptition.

The Daily Herald felt much the same but pointed out in their Sports' pages, the lack of support from the Football League.

The Scottish FA had no "qualms" and their Champions, Hibernian became the first British club to participate in European competition. Hibs defeated Rot Weiss Essen 4-0 in Germany (5-1 on agg) in their first round. Barely any English paper reported the match or even published the result. Tough luck on the British press for not spotting an historic moment.
Hibs got through to the semi-final beating Djurgarden of Sweden 4-1 and then lost to Reims.
Real Madrid (13 times winners), who beat Milan in the semi, started their European record reign with a victory over Reims in the final, 4-3 in Paris.
16 teams took part in the First Round.
http://www.europeancuphistory.com/euro56.html

The first goal scored in the European Cup was by Joao Baptista Martins for Sporting Lisbon in a 3-3 draw with Partizan Belgrade.

FORMING THE LEAGUE: "NOT OF GENTLEMEN"

1888 Queen Victoria on the throne, W.G.Grace captained England's cricket team for the FIRST time at the age of 40, Wyatt Earp was still shooting, Florence Nightingale still nursing, the pneumatic tyre first put pumped up and the first beauty contest held.

William McGregor, unsurprisingly, a Scot from Perthshire, who ran a drapery shop near Villa Park, Birmingham, had never played the game, but he saw that football in its present form was "in a mess" and needed organising.

Although the game had been played and refined in schools, universities and in the forces, mainly in the officers' mess, international football was established, the FA Cup was 16 years old and professionalism had been legalised. But the only other fixtures were friendlies that were easily cancelled, leaving fans stranded, there was no income from crowds and no money to pay wages.

McGregor wrote to Bolton Wanderers, Blackburn Rovers, Preston NE, West Bromwich Albion and his own club Aston Villa. From an in initial meeting in March 1888, his second conference at the Royal Hotel, Manchester on April 17th, agreed "battle lines".

Twelve clubs from Lancashire and "The Midlands" were invited to form the new league. No southern club was invited because they were not professional. McGregor became the first "President".

The first set of fixtures took place on September 8th 1888 and the first league goal was scored for Preston by  Jack Gordon, the club that towered over everyone else that season. By the end, Preston played 22, won 18, drew 4 and scored 74 conceding 15. Aston Villa came runners up 11 points behind and Stoke came last winning 4 games and drawing 4.

In 1892 the Second Division was added with 12 clubs and the First Division expanded to 16 clubs.

For those clubs not included in the new official set up in 1888, there was an issue and since there were only 22 "Saturdays" occupied by the new divisions, there were free Saturdays for clubs to benefit from financially lucrative friendlies and good fun, of course.

On April 27th 1888, The Football Combination was formed and was much more flexible than the official League. Clubs did not have to complete matches against all other Combination members. At the end of the first season, Newton Heath (fledgling Man U) came "top" with 14 games played and 1.571 pts/game (come across that before?).
Blackburn Olympic came bottom with 0.400 pts/game.
The clubs chose who they wanted to play against, arranged their own dates, aiming for a minimum of 8 fixtures. Olympic and Grimsby Town only played 5 games, although Grimsby did manage 4th place with 1.4 pts/game. The Combination collapsed in disarray on April 5th 1889.

20 clubs were initially involved in order:
Newton Heath, Northwich Victoria, Bootle, Grimsby Town. Small Heath, Notts Rangers,
Wallsall Town Swifts, Long Eaton Rangers, Birmingham St George, Darwen, Halliwell,
Crewe Alexandra, South Shore (Blackpool) in photo, Lincoln City, Derby Midland, Burslem Port Vale,
Derby Junction, Gainsborough Trinity, Leek and Blackburn Olympic.

In 1889-90 the Football Alliance was set up to take over from the "Combination". A meeting in Crewe, in April 1889 intended to form a second league. Although the meeting was timed for 4pm, a "break away group" meeting took place before hand and decided to form their own league based on the Football Combination model.
The 12 clubs self-selected were:
Birmingham St George, Bootle, Bootle, Burselm Port Vale, Crewe Alexandra, Darwen, Derby Midland, Newton Heath, Notts Rangers, Sheffield Wednesday. Small Heath Alliance, South Shore, Wallsall Town Swifts.

This was still unstable and four clubs pulled out due to financial and practical reasons: Burslem PV, South Shore, Derby Mid, Notts Rangers. They went to a smaller Midland League.

Sunderland and Sunderland Albion stepped in Nottingham Forest joined from the Midland League and then Grimsby Town. Sunderland withdrew by June and Long Eaton Rangers took their place.

The others from the Combination became founder members of the Midland League and the other clubs played friendlies and cup-ties.
Blackburn Olympic, the first Northern Club to win the FA Cup in 1883 (beating the Old Etonians 2-1 at the Oval), disbanded in the summer of 1889.

In the Alliance's three seasons, Sheffield Wednesday, then Stoke and finally Nottingham Forest were champions.

NEWTOWN WALES

Excited by the Play Offs, I venture into Wales for a bit of inspiration. I could give you the low down on Fulham (West London) v Cardiff (South Wales) or Brentford (West London) v Swansea (South Wales) known as the M4 Derbies?? or perhaps pursued Newport County of the EFL League 2 or Wrexham from the National League, but I went for Newtown AFC, the oldest football club in the country, from Powys.
Powys is best known for mountains, caves, railways, lakes, walks and castles; not even much about rugby. Newtown, SEE MAO, is located near that "sticky out bit" on the eastern boundary of Wales, five miles from the England border. It is the biggest town in Powys (pop:130,000), weighing in around 12,000.


Founded in 1875 the Nowtown AFC was originally known as Newton White Stars and were founder members of the Football Association of Wales. The club eventually joined with Newton Excelsior to form Newtown AFC.  The club played in the first ever Welsh Cup match on October 13th 1877 and won the Welsh FA Cup in 1879 and were runners up in 1881.

Newton AFC then won the cup in 1895 and lay low until 1955, when they won the Welsh Amateur Cup. By then their ground, Latham Park had been upgraded and hold around 5,000, hosting Welsh Youth international matches, Women's internationals and the like.

Having had various league and cup successes in the Central Wales and Mid Wales Leagues, Newtown FC joined the Northern Premier League and then became founder members of the Konica League of Wales. There have also been Welsh FA Cup victories regularly between 1878-97 and most recently in 2014-15. Overall the club has won the Welsh Cup 2 times and been runners up 4 times.

They also have lifted the Arthur Barritt Cup in 1986-7. Arthur may be the same Arthur who managed Blackburn Rovers between 1931-6?! Who knows?

There have been ventures into Europe notably in 1995 to 1999 UEFA Cup Ties in Latvia v Skonto from Riga and Wisla from Poland. More recently there was excitement with a 4-2 aggregate win against Valletta, Malta and a defeat in Copenhagen. Their Ladies play in the Welsh Cup, winning it in 2004.

NOT to be confused with Newton Heath (the original Manchester United)......

and Newton Abbott from the Toolstation, South-west Peninsular League.

HARROGATE TOWN REVIVED

There it is, the joy and despair of the play offs, this time in the Vanarama National League where Jack Muldoon scored his 15th goal in 41 appearances for Harrogate Town on their artificial pitch. This pitch will have to be ripped up if Harrogate find themselves in the Football League, should they get past Notts County in the Promotional Final at Wembley, next Sunday.
It was the only goal of the game against Boreham Wood and the win ensured Harrogate take one step nearer big boys' football next season.
Of course, County were in the Football League only a season ago, having been Founder Members of the Football League in 1888. Boreham Wood have never been at such dizzy heights.

Harrogate has a population of 160,000 and sports locals such as Gareth Southgate, David O'Leary, George Graham and Danny Mills. It is of course better known as a SPA! probably why these old blokes have retired to the Yorkshire town... for their rejuvenation. The club went full professional in 2017, backed financially by the father of Town's manager, Simon Weaver.

Town were bottom of the Conference North in Weaver's first season, 2009, but were saved by Northwich Victoria's implosion. Weaver is the longest serving professional manager in England, taking his first coaching job at the age of 31.

County played in Division One of the Football League from its founding until the 1892-3 season, when they were relegated to the two year old Second Division. They then came 3rd in the next season, then runners up in 1894-5, but were not promoted for administrative reasons.

In 1896-7, County won the Second Division, were promoted and came bottom in Division One in 1904-5, by 6 points, but stayed up as the division was enlarged from 18 to 20 clubs.

In 1912-13 they were relegated coming 19th/20 just above Woolwich Arsenal!! and bounced back again the following season ahead of the newly named, Arsenal, who came third in Division Two.

War intervened.

Another old soldier, the ever green, Matt Rhead, led from the front for Boreham Wood yesterday, but sadly he could not match his past achievement when he scored a winning goal in Lincoln City's play off at Wembley, The Imps gaining promotion in 2016-17.
I saw Matt Rhead play a couple of seasons ago at Lincoln City, in the shadow of the Cathedral. He looked deceptively old but a clear leader. He played for them for four seasons until 2019, making 163 apps, scoring 43 goals.

The National League looked like this at the end of the "un-Covid" part of the 2019-20 season:
Top: Barrow 70 points who go straight to League Two, then Harrogate Town on 66 and Notts County 63 who went through to the play off semis. Yeovil achieved 60 pts, Boreham Wood 60, Halifax 58 and Stockport 58 and Boreham Wood made progress.

At the other end of the divsion are Ebbsfleet 42 pts, Maidenhead Utd 41 pts (referred to recently in a previous blog), Fylde 39 pts and Chorley 24 pts.

Other ex-Football League clubs in the National League (basically Division 5) include: Hartlepool, Aldershot, Barnet, Dagenham and R, Torquay, Chesterfield and Wrexham.

FWAFOTY and PFAPPOTY

Well done to Jordan Henderson (Liverpool) who was voted the
Football Writers' Association (FWA) Footballer of the Year.
Lots of positives about him have been aired over social media, particularly about his modesty and I am sure this is a popular choice.
Last season, in 2019 Raheem Sterling won it, before that Salah, then Kante, Vardy, Hazard, Suarez and in 2013 Bale.

Ronaldo won this award twice 2006, 2008,
Thierry Henry three times 2003, 2004, 2006,
Gary Lineker 1986, 1992,
John Barnes 1988, 1990
Kenny Dalglish 1979, 1983
Dany Blanchflower 1958, 1961
Tom Finney 1954, 1957 his award is shown here

Stanley Matthews 1948 (WON THE FIRST ONE) and also in his retirement year, 1962-63, when he returned to Stoke City (his first and home club having played for the Potters in 1932-3) and had an influence there winning the Second Division title in 1932-3, 1962-3!

38 winners have been English and THREE Goalkeepers...Pat Jennings, Gordon Banks and Bert Trautmann.

Clubs involved have won: Liverpool 14, Manchester United 9, Tottenham Hotspur 9, Arsenal 8.

The Professional Footballers' Association Players' Player of the Year (2019-20) has not yet been chosen, but last season it went to Virgil Van Dijk  (Liverpool).

There have been 46 seasons when this award has been given and there have been 41 different players chosen by their colleagues.
Gareth Bale (2011 and 2013) has won the award twice along with Ronaldo from 2006-8 and Thierry Henry 2002-4.

The first winner was Norman Hunter in 1973-4, followed by Colin Todd and then Pat Jennings.

Clubs: Manchester United players have won 11 awards, Liverpool 8, Tottenham Hotspur 5 and Arsenal 5.

Two goalkeepers won this award;  Pat Jennings 1976 and Peter Shilton 1978.
name them???

IT WAS THE OLYMPICS

 The Summer Olympic Games should be under way and Football very much part of the tournament. Covid of course has postponed the competition this summer and it has been moved to July 22nd -August 8th 2021, all being well.

The Women play in the 7th Edition, the first being held in 1996 in Atlanta.
The USA Women have won 4 Gold medals but not in 2016.
The following will take part next time:
Japan, Australia, Netherlands, Sweden, Great Britain, USA, Canada, Zambia, Brazil, New Zealand with two to come from China PR, Korea Rep, Cameroon or Chile

The Men will play in the 25th Edition of the tournament and the following 16 teams have qualified:
Asia: Japan Australia, Korea and Saudi Arabia.
Europe: France, Germany, Romania, Spain
Africa: Cote d'Ivoire, Egypt, South Africa
South America: Argentina, Brazil
Oceana: New Zealand with 2 remaining spots.
Professionals have been allowed to play since 1992 but with Under 23s and 3 over aged players.
Past players have included: Kocsis, Puskas,Yashin, Bene, Guardiola, Kanu, Tevez, Aguero, Messi, Jimenez,Jesus, Neymar.

Hungary have won 3 Gold medals. Argentina 2 Golds. Brazil holds 6 medals of different colours.

Medal games will be played between August 5th, 6th (Women Gold) and 7th (Men Gold).

In 1900, the first modern Olympics saw GB Men win in Paris, beating the hosts.
In 1904 the Canadians won in St Louis. USA came second.
In 1908 Britain Men won again in London between October 19th and 24th, the FA arranged an "Olympic" football tournament with 6 teams taking part. Matches were played at the White City Stadium. Here's the winning trophy:


Great Britain won the tournament with Denmark coming into silver place, Netherlands 3rd and Sweden 4th.

On October 24th, Britain won 2-0 with goals from Frederick Chapman and Vivian Woodward (below).
Chapman played a bit for Nottingham Forest, but was mainly an amateur and Woodward was a Spurs man until 1909(131 apps 61 goals) and then played for Chelsea up to 1915 (106 apps 30 goals).
He also played for the full England side 23 times, scoring 29 goals, as well as for the Amateurs 44 times with 57 goals. His career with the Football League XI lasted 3 games and 3 goals.
The War put pay to his post 1919 career, which ended at Clacton FC (6 apps 4 goals)

John Lewis of Great Britain reffed! 8,000 watched the final.
France entered an "A" and "B" side both of which were eliminated before the semis.
Denmark's Sophus Nielsen scored 10 in a 17-1 defeat of France in the qualification.

In 1912, 11 teams played in the next tournament with Sweden as hosts. England won again beating Denmark, again.
After the War, the mood wasn't great but there was another Olympic Tournament in 1920 and Belgium won that, with Uruguay taking the 1924 Gold Medal in Paris.

England have not featured again in the medal positions.

CONSPIRACY

I have done this subject before, I am sure, but can't ignore that in 1966, on this day at Wembley, Alf Ramsey, one of the milder managers in charge of English football, was so incensed by the behaviour of the Argentinian opponents, in our World Cup Quarter-final tie, that he prevented our blokes from swopping shirts after the game.
He called them animals and as you can see went into a shirt stretching competition with George Cohen ( a more mild mannered footballer you could not find).

England were also much bettered prepared for this home competition, with eight internationals prepared in the 6 months before the big kick off.

In 1950 and 1954 England had just 3 warm up games leading up to the tournament, in 1958 and 1962 they had 4. Against Poland, Bobby Charlton was unfit, so Burnley's Gordon Harris took his place, but it was Bobby Moore who scored his only international goal to create a 1-0 victory.
Nobby Stiles scored in the next warm up game, beating West Germany 1-0, but the Wembley crowd booed the England team off the pitch.
Playing 4-3-3 was Alf's plan and against Scotland the team won 4-3 with Bobby Charlton making all the difference on his return. Hunt 2 and Greaves score the others. After a match against Yugoslavia with Greaves and Charlton allowing a 2-0 win n front of 55,000 at Wembley, the squad went to Scandinavia scoring 11 goals to 1 in three matches at Finland (3-0), Norway (6-1) and Denmark (2-0).

Back home, the first group match was a dull draw against Uruguay 0-0 on July 11th. Then came Mexico 2-0 (16th July) and France 2-0 (July) making this the first time England had won two World Cup games in a row!
Greaves had been gashed in the leg against the French and Hurst took his place for the next game.

Journalist, Hugh McIlvanney described the Argentina game as "not so much a football match, but an international incident".
Captain Rattin was sent off, for "violence of the tongue" as stated by the ref, who spoke no Spanish.
Rattin tried to take his team with him, it looked as though the poor inadequate referee, Rudolph Kreitlein, ironically, a German, would abandon the game.

If you look for Ken Aston in a past blog, you will soon see how this game eventually led to the use of Yellow and Red Cards!

England had committed 33 fouls during the afternoon, and their opponents only 19! The anarchy went on after Hurst's wonderful glancing header and Alf, did not help matters by referring to his opposition as "animals". over 98,000 watched the game unfold!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbCuTGF29Qw Rattin's side of things in English.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aq0nxUlgXm8

Alf's strategy was to bring in Geoff Hurst in place of Jimmy Greaves who had played in the previous qualifying ties, a Hurst scored the winner. It was 1-0 but of course against 10 men and no subs. Was the start of the "rivalry" between the two countries?

Three days later England had to meet Portugal and Eusebio in the Semi-finals.

https://baileyfootballblog.blogspot.com/2018/11/the-falklands-v-england.html

In 1978, Rattin was employed by Sheffield United as a scout in the South American market and he brought Alejandro Sabella to the club. Later, Rattin entered politics and joined the Federist Unity Party, led by alleged torturer Luis Patti. Rattin was the first footballer to enter Congress.

NOT SO MUCH A HORROR FOR BUCKIE

You will know Stephen King, of course (Carrie and The Shining??). This is he, the well known "Horror" story author, who has featured the Scottish League club, Buckie Thistle FC, in his latest novel, "If it Bleeds". He could have chosen other Scottish clubs, but he liked the colourful name!

You will notice that King has adorned himself in the club's colours (not Celtic), sent to him by the Scottish club, who were impressed by being part of a "global" literary edition. Life membership for Stephen perhaps next?

Not to spoil your future reading, the book is one of 4 novellas with the recurring character, Holly Gibney. The story involves American youngsters from Pittsburgh, whose school, the Albert Macready Middle School, is threatened with a bomb and they share the horror with the local school in Buckie, through their  "pen pal" links.
Inevitably, the American kids, who have the very famous, baseball team, the Pittsburgh Pirates, on their doorstep, start supporting the Moray football club, Buckie Thistle FC, to cement their friendship with their new Scottish friends. The club gets mention in the novel, of course.
Buckie Thistle FC was founded in 1889.

King has donated two signed copies of the book to the club, to raise funds during "Lockdown". Buckie Thistle officials loved the "name check" and club man, Graeme Tallis, sent an email to King telling him about the club and got a reply from the "busy" man.
In return, the club sent King the club colours and King responded with the photograph with the attachment "Buckie for ever". King was promised by the "Jags", with life membership of the club and free entry to Victoria Park, should he ever cross "the pond".

Jamie Watt, who lives in Leyland, Lancashire, bought one of the copies for his daughter an enthusiastic King fan, costing him a few hundred pounds. The other copy is in pride of place in the clubhouse along with the club's 11 Scottish Highland League trophies.

Why the Jags?  Partick Thistle are also known as "The Jags", which refers to the Jagged Thistle known as "jaggies" and the Scots also called thistles "thrisses", The badge tells it all.

The Partick mascot says even more............

ATMOSPHERE

I have driven from the undulating South Downs for about 5 hours, to the rather more ruggedly, rolling South Pennines today.
Overhead, atmospheric conditions have changed during the course of the journey from some deliciously gentle cotton wool cumulus in Sussex at breakfast, to a little more threatening nimbo-stratus  over my head now, which to me suggests rain on the way. I have club training tonight...we might get a shower or two, on the pitches.

So, since I now have this new format, which has taken a few of my readers by surprise, one demanding I return to the Charterhouse maroon, another just sighing; whatever, let's hope I can cope with the change and hopefully, if in doubt, that my editor will "bale" me out...won't you?!

I shall stick with the "atmospheric theme" and you can have a read of these two past offerings; one on lightning, not a footballer's friend, and one titled "moon landing" (no atmosphere?), well that suits football at the moment, as we have to put up with lock down TV matches.

https://baileyfootballblog.blogspot.com/2017/07/lightning-strikes-ghost.html
https://baileyfootballblog.blogspot.com/2019/07/moon-landing.html

STADIA STUFF

A photo flew into my "inbox" today with a few shots of the Maidenhead United FC ground, claiming to be the oldest football ground in the World ! Well, York Road (I have played there but in the late 20th Century!) has been in continuous use since December 17th 1870. So fair enough.

Alan Devonshire was in charge of Brentford Women from 1995-6, then took charge at Maidenhead (men not women if you get my drift) 1996-2003, then he went away and came back to MU in 2015. He also has a race horse named after him.

I was reading somewhere that the Wolves FC ground, Molineux, apparently has a prison cell(s) under the South Bank, something that was discovered during plans being made for its development.

Griffin Park, Brentford FC, has a pub on every corner of the stadium.The Griffin is a Bird that features the club badge and is the emblem of Fullers' "Griffin" Brewery, a well known London brewery, that owned an orchard on the site of the proposed ground. There was also a pub there called the Griffin. Linking up with the Wolves, a Dick Molyneux (a coincidence), was manager of Brentford at the time of the negotiations to lease the site!

The Elland Road "cantilever stand", the East Stand, built in 1992-3, was the largest cantilever stand in the world, when it was built, holding nearly 15,000 people.

Oxford United FC is the furthest ground from sea in England (beaches between 65 and 72 miles), while The Hawthorns, at 92 metres asl (552 ft) , is the highest ground in the country. Boundary Park (Oldham Athletic) is at 526' and Vale Park (Port Vale) at 520' asl. (approx 159 m)

The lowest professional ground in England is Blundell Park (Grimsby Town FC) at 1 metre asl. St Mary's (Southampton) and the KC Stadium (Hull) match this with Arbroath which holds the Scottish record.

OT is the largest capacity in England holding 74,994...Tottenham' new monster has 62,303.

Portman Road has statues of TWO England managers at their ground. Alf Ramsey

LEEDS TO THE TOP, AGAIN?

https://baileyfootballblog.blogspot.com/2020/07/the-don.html and
https://baileyfootballblog.blogspot.com/2019/10/leeds-from-city-to-united.html

The blogs above will tell of the Leeds' football club history up to, at least, 1920 when they were elected to the Football League.You will also learn that thanks to Leeds' demise, Port Vale emerged as a League club, taking over the "dismissed" Leeds City existing results and fixtures. There is still a "Leeds City FC" playing in the West Yorkshire League.

Leeds United was founded in 1920 and made the First Division in 1924. BUT relegation came in 1926-7 and the club went up and down between the top two divisions. In that period with John Charles in their team in 1955-6, they were a force BUT they sold him to Juventus...a first transfer of that kind to Italy, Leeds benefitting by £65,000. Leeds were relegated in 1959-60.

(John Fox Watson from Scotland, whose career began at Bury FC, was transfered to Fulham and then to Real Madrid, where he played for a year from 1948-9. He later returned to Crystal Palace for 2 years and then ended up at Canterbury City FC. He died on April 1976  aged 58 in Southend.)


The Don turned up in 1961 and the club just avoided relegation to Division 3 at the final game of the season. What did they need? New kit!!
They left their Yorkshire pale blue and yellow behind for the all white like Real Madrid. It worked!

By 1963-4 they were in the First Division and Revie was so good at his job, that he was made England manager in October 1974.

Leeds had been no lower than 4th in the top flight for a decade, winning the league twice, r-up four times, an FA Cup Final, Inter-Cities Fairs Cup and runnuers up in the European Cup Winners Cup.

Clough took over Leeds United for 44 days (the DVD is worth watching) and Revie didnt stay long in charge of the national side either. In June 1977, Revie left the national team under curious circumstances. Remember?

Leeds United
1982 (relegated from Div 1)-1990 to Division 2.
1990-92 to Division 1.
1992-2004 the Premier League.
from 2002-3 Terry Venables was the first manager in the era* and by 2018 Leeds Utd welcomed Marcelo Bielsa.
*Between these two were 21 managers. Simon Grayson lasted longest between 2008-12.

2004-7 to the Championship.
2007-10 then League One.
2010-20 back to the Championship.
Neil Redfearn had three goes as "acting" manager.
2020- and now the Premier League.

Bill Hampson, the longest serving manager at Leeds from 1935-47...over the War years of course! AFTER THE DON (see above link) who served one way or another from 1961-74.

Best wishes Marcelo