JIMMY "DODGING" AT HIGHFIELD ROAD

Football on May 19th 1977 Football Season coming to a conclusion:

The final days of the 1976/77 season saw one of the closest - and most controversial, TOP FLIGHT, relegation battles. These were the days when two points were a awarded for win. 

Tottenham and Stoke had finished their First Division league programme and were both relegated - Spurs were at ROOT with 33 points and Stoke one next up, on 34 points. 

The last relegation place would go to one of these clubs, each on 34 points - Sunderland, Coventry and Bristol City. Hard to imagine City being there!

The three clubs had one match left to play, all on Thursday 19th May 1977 with the Saturday reserved for the FA Cup Final. 

Sunderland had the slightly better goal difference but had a tough match away to Everton while amazingly Coventry and Bristol City were paired against each other at Coventry's old Highfield Road home. 

The permutations of scorelines to whom would be relegated filled the newspapers but nobody could have believed what was to happen. All the matches were due to kick off at the same time but Coventry 

Managing Director Jimmy Hill held back the kick off of the Coventry v Bristol City match for over 10 minutes due to 'crowd congestion'. He's a clever boy!! 

So when the full time whistle went at Goodison, where Everton had beaten Sunderland 2-0, Jimmy's boys were still playing at Highfield Road where the scoreline was 2-2. Jimmy Hill got that result at Goodison announced over the PA system which meant that the crowd and players knew that if the score line remained at 2-2 both Coventry and Bristol City would be saved and Sunderland relegated. 

But if a fifth goal went in at Highfield Road, the losing club would go down and Sunderland would stay up. With that knowledge the players had a gentle kick-about in those remaining few minutes with no thought of scoring. So the match ended 2-2, Coventry and Bristol City stayed up, a very upset Sunderland were relegated. 

A Football League inquiry followed and Jimmy Hill received a reprimand but the result stood and Sunderland were even more upset. As if the Football League stiff shirts would do anything else!

17	West Ham Utd	42	11	14	17	46	65	−19	36
18	Bristol City	42	11	13	18	38	48	−10	35
19	Coventry Utd	42	10	15	17	48	59	−11	35
20	Sunderland (R)	42	11	12	19	46	54	−8	34	Relegated
21	Stoke City (R)	42	10	14	18	28	51	−23	34
22	Tottenham Hotspur (R)	42	12	9	21	48	72	−24	33

Spurs and Stoke's long spells in the First Division came to an end with relegation. Stoke sacked their manager Tony Waddington. Spurs' manager was Keith Burkinshaw who was born in Higham, Barnsley and began his footballing career with Midland League side Denaby Utd while working at Dodworth Colliery. Features here courtesy of the WWW.Blogger.com

Senior career*
Years	Team	Apps	(Gls)
–1953	Denaby United
1953–1957	Liverpool	1	(0)
1957–1965	Workington	293	(9)
1965–1968	Scunthorpe United	108	(3)
Teams managed
1964–1965	Workington
1966–1967	Scunthorpe Utd (caretaker)
1976–1984	Tottenham Hotspur
1984–1986	Bahrain
1987–1988	Sporting Clube de Portugal
1988–1989	Gillingham
1991	Pahang
1993–1994	West Bromwich Albion
1997	Aberdeen (caretaker)
2005–2007	Watford (assistant)

THE EUROPEAN CUP IN GLASGOW

 FOOTBALL ON THIS DAY 18th May 1960 was the date of the first final of the European Cup (later the Champions' League) to be played in Britain, at Hampden Park, Glasgow. The participants in what was the fifth European Cup final were Real Madrid, who had won the first four European Cup competitions, and Eintracht Frankfurt. Eintracht were the first German side to play in the final but had made a name for themselves in Glasgow a couple a weeks earlier, when they won 6-3 at Ibrox to complete an amazing 12-4 aggregate victory over Scottish champions Rangers in the semi-final of the competition. Eintracht were one up in the final after 18 minutes but a hat-trick from Alfredo Di Stéfano and four from Ferenc Puskás saw the Spaniards finish comfortable 7-3 winners. Despite the one-side nature of the scoreline the match is still considered one of the classic European finals while the attendance - 127,621 - is a European final attendance which surely will never be bettered.

The first time, when champions of two European leagues met, was nicknamed in the 1895 World Championship, when English champions, Sunderland beat Scottish champions Heart of Midlothian (Hearts) 5–3. Ironically, the Sunderland line-up in the 1895 World Championship consisted entirely of Scottish players – Scottish players who moved to England to play professionally in those days were known as the "Scotch Professors".

Prior to that, other "championships" took place, however, those were between Scottish and English Cup winners, as the respective leagues were not yet established.

Club competitions between teams from European countries trace their origins back as far as 1897, when the Challenge Cup was founded as a competition between clubs of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, that under normal circumstances would not meet in competition. This competition ran until 1911, with its last winners, Wiener Sportsclub, retaining the trophy. 

Simultaneously, English and Scottish clubs competed in the Football World Championship, known as The Sir Thomas Lipton Trophy, was played for in 1909 and 1911 in Turin, Italy, involving clubs from Italy, Germany, Switzerland and England. The FA refused to be associated with it and declined the offer to send a team. Not wishing to have England unrepresented in the competition, Thomas Lipton invited  amateur club, West Auckland, a side from County Durham, mostly made up of coal miners, to take part.  Some verbal tradition in West Auckland was that the FA intended to send Woolwich Arsenal but West Auckland were invited instead as they shared the same initials.

West Auckland won the tournament and returned to Italy in 1911 to defend their title. In this second competition, West Auckland beat the then amateur team Juventus 6–1 in the final, and were awarded the trophy outright.

In January 1994 the original trophy, which was being held in West Auckland Working Men's Club, was stolen. An exact replica of the original trophy was commissioned and is now held by West Auckland FC. I visited the club a couple of years ago and kindly local associated with the club let me in to see the Trophy.

The Challenge Cup is considered to be the forerunner of the first true pan-European club competition, the Mitropa Cup, which came about following the demise of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I. At that time, the various nations of central Europe were introducing professional leagues. The introduction of an international club tournament was intended to assist the new professional clubs financially. The Mitropa Cup was first played for in 1927.

An early attempt to create a cup for national champion clubs of Europe was made by Swiss club Servette, in 1930. The tournament called "Coupe des Nations" was a great success and the champions of the ten major European football nations of the time were invited. The cup was won by Hungarian club Ujpest. Despite the great success, the tournament was never organised again, due to financial issues.

Following World War II, the reduced standing of the Mitropa Cup led to the foundation of a new competition, the Latin Cup, for teams from France, Italy, Spain and Portugal. This competition was played as a mini-tournament at the end of each season by the league champions from each country. 

The summer of 1953 saw Wolverhampton Wanderers play a friendly match against a South African XI to begin a remarkable run of victories over the next months. Wolves played a series of friendlies against foreign opposition, such as Racing Club of Argentina, Spartak Moscow of the Soviet Union, among others, before meeting Honved of Hungary in a game televised live on the BBC. Wolves won 3-2 which led their manager, Stan Cullis and the British press to proclaim them as "Champions of the World". 

The UEFA Congress of March 1955 saw the proposal for a European competition raised, with approval given in April of that year, and the kick-off of the first European Cup the following season.

The English league winners, Chelsea, were denied entry by Football League secretary Alan Hardaker who believed it was in the best interests of English football and football in general for them not to enter! Forward looking!!

TONIGHT:https://news.stv.tv/west-central/family-turns-celtic-pub-into-rangers-bar-for-europa-league-final

YOU HAVE TO GO-BOOK NOW.

AN EXHIBITION OF FOOTBALL DESIGN

AT THE DESIGN MUSEUM, KENSINGTON HIGH STREET, LONDON

with reference to the Design Museum.

Until August 29th (other photos taken by MJB)

Discover the historic and present stories of the beautiful game. Perfect for sporting people and those interested in design, marketing, art work, photogaphy and more-or just a good day out.....

The history of books, boots and jazzy scarves, kits and whistles

tragedies and success

Fabulous football photography from all over the World

Historical events that made the game

This is Archibald Leitch 1924: the famous Scottish architect who was known as the...... 

"Grandfather of Football Design". 

Between 1899 and 1939 he grabbed the opportunity to design 20 football stadiums across Britain including the original stadia of Arsenal, Villa, Chelsea, Liverpool, Man U, Preston NE, Glasgow Rangers, Sunderland, Tottenham H and Wolves. 

His early work focussed on the design of FACTORY buildings in Ceylon (Sri Lanka) and Glasgow, his home city. His landmark stadium, Ibrox was completed in 1899. 

and the origin of  this week's PLAY OFFS (from this blog)

Football League test matches were a series of post-season football play off matches organised by the Football League, to determine the membership of each division, between the worst finishers of the First Division and the best of the Second Division. These matches were first contested at the end of the 1892-3 season following the inaugural season of the Second Division, and were replaced with automatic promotion and relegation from 1898-9.

Unlike the modern-day England Football League SKY BET Play-offs, contested since 1987, which are only contested between the four teams below the automatic promotion places in each division, test matches involved the bottom teams of the First Division and the top teams of the Second Division going head-to-head. This meant that the Second Division champions were not guaranteed top-flight football, as was the case with Small Heath in 1893. On no occasion have all of the Second Division and First Division sides been either respectively promoted and relegated or remained in the same division in any season through this system.

From 1893 to 1895, six teams competed for three places in the top division. Below is the 1893 Test Match Series. Each team played one match against the corresponding team from the other division (Second Division champions versus the bottom First Division side, and so on) at a neutral venue, usually close to the designated home team. The winners of each game were considered for election for First Division membership for the following season, whilst the losers were invited to the Second Division. SO Newton Heath (now Manchester Utd) beat Small Heath (now Birmingham City) 5-2 after 1-1, Darwen (now AFC Darwen in Non-League) beat Notts County 3-2 and Sheffield Utd beat Accrington Stanley 1-0.

motto: Without Work Nothing!

 

150 YEARS OF THE FA CUP

150 years of the Football Association Cup, with the Final yesterday and I was entertaining grandchildren who prefered to run around the garden like headless chickens, rather than settled down on the sofa and watch the game. Mind you, they are both under 6 so they have an excuse. You will gather, I was not watching yesterday's FA Cup Final. 

When I was 6 years old, I watched the cup final on the family TV, a very small black and white Bush telly....1957; it was Aston Villa v Manchester United. Won by Villa 2-1 as they became the first club to lift the Cup seven times. Aston Villa lifted the club at four different venues and that season, became the first club to lift the FA Cup after conceding a goal in every round. They were the third club to appear in nine FA Cup Finals!

Photo below from "Villaunderground.com"

In 1872, the Cup was completed after the first ever Cup ties were held in November 1871. 15 teams started, and Hampstead Heathens were awarded the first bye. Maidenhead v Marlow was one of those early games and historically the oldest fixture still possible today. The first goal scored was by Jarvis Kenrick for Clapham Rovers, who best Upton Park 3-0. Jarvis scored two and Clapham of course the first to score three goals in one game.

* Upton Parkwas made up from public school boys from Brentwood and Felstead. Of course, several clubs were formed by old boys of local schools; Clapham Rovers, Barnes FC and Harrow Chequers to name a few.

The first goal less draw in the Cup was between Hitchin FC and the original Crystal Palace in a First Round tie, nevertheless both teams were allowed to continue in the cup, no replays. Reigate Priory and Harrow Chequers (old boys of the Public School), scratched from the competition, giving The Wanderers and The Royal Engineers the first walkover. Hampstead Heathens were awarded the first bye. The first Scottish club to join in the cup, Queen's Park, played one tie through the four rounds, allowed to progress to save travelling and they reached the semi-final, courtesy of the FA, scoring no goals and remaining unbeaten.

The first replay was between Barnes and Hampstead Heathens who drew their first tie 1-1 in Round 2. The Heathens won the replay 1-0. 

1871-2 Final: at the Kennington Oval, Edmund William Cresswell broke his collar bone in the tenth minute of the game, playing for the Royal Engineers v TheWanderers. But stoic, he carried on to the end of the game. Charles W Alcock scored the first ever "disallowed" goal in an FA Cup Final. Morton P. Betts scored the first goal (he was also known as A.H.Chequer...if you search this blog history you will find out why!). Below is Betts.

1874-5 Final: Cuthbert John Ottaway (below-Oxford Dictionary of National Biography) of The Old Etonians became the first player not to complete the full 90 minutes of a Final v The Wanderers. He left the field of play after 37 minutes with a sprained ankle and his team lost 0-1. 

1922-first competition to have over 600 clubs start in the earliest tie. 

1971-2 the first time an FA Cup tie was settled with penalties when Stoke City beat Birmingham City 4-3 after a 0-0 draw in a 3rd/4th Play Off game; AND Ted MacDougall scored 9 in a Proper Cup tie for AFC Bournemouth beating Margate 11-0 in  Round 1. Photo from "Sporting-Heroes.net".

 2022 9 subs/5 substitutions and 6 if needed in extra time!!

 (Reference to Phil Annets FA CUP:150 and www.)

13th MAY-LUCKY FOR SOME.....

Football On This Day – 13th May 2018 Bobby and Jackie Charlton are of course well known footballers, however, a third Charlton brother - Tommy - made his England footballing debut on this day....at the age of 72. He was a player for the "Mature Millers" in Rotherham - and Tommy made his debut for the England Over 60's side in the first ever Walking Football international. Against Italy, the match  was won 3-1 by England, played at Brighton's Amex Stadium. Tommy certainly looked like Bobby but he didn't manage a goal on his debut although he had two good attempts during the fixture.

On May 13th 1997, Sunderland played their final match at their historic, Roker Park. Sunderland beat Liverpool 1-0 in a friendly fixture with John Mullin scoring the last goal at the famous old ground. Why Liverpool?? They had been the visitors for the first match at Roker Park, 99 years earlier on 10th September 1898, a First Division fixture which Sunderland had won 1-0. The Black Cats now play at the Stadium of Light at Monkwearmouth, an old colliery area for 100 years, which was closed in December 1993. It was opened to football in July 1997. 

On this day, 2006, the 125th FA Cup Final, was held at the Millenium Stadium Cardiff, between Liverpool and West Ham. It turned out to be a belter and was named The Gerrard Final. Remember the game? With reference to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFgn1xvsyP4

WILLIAM GARBUTT

With reference to the WWW. and Day of the Match-by Scott Murray and Rowan Walker.

Willy Garbutt was born in a small village near Stockport. His family was large, sharing his home with his parents, grandmother, six older sisters and a younger brother. Joining the army at a young age, the young William Garbutt first played football there for the Royal Artillery.

He began his club football playing career with Reading FC during the 1903 season in the Southern League, before leaving in December 1905. when the young winger moved to join Woolwich Arsenal for two seasons, and made his debut in a First Division match at Preston NE on 23 December 1905, a game that ended 2–2. He made 80 appearances for the London club in three years, including 52 in the League, despite injuries ruling him out of much of the 1906-7 season. He was part of the Arsenal side that reached two FA Cup semi-finals in successive seasons. However after spending much of 1907-8 in the reserves he left for Blackburn Rovers at the end of the season.

He spent four seasons playing for Blackburn Rovers, making 82 league appearances and reaching another FA Cup semi-final; he also played for the Football League XI. His playing career having been blighted by injuries, he retired from playing in 1912, aged 29.

He moved to Genoa in Italy in May 1910 (which is described as the most English town in Italy), to work on the docks after retiring from playing football, to support his family.

He was appointed as the new head coach of Genoa FC on 30 July 1912, with no previous experience and only aged 29. It is not clear how he came to be their manager, some reports say he was recommended by Vittorio Pozzo who would go on to coach Italy to two World Cups. Others state it was Genoa's youth coach, an Irishman named Thomas Coggins, who pushed for Garbutt's appointment.

Garbutt restructured the training regimes, putting a heavy emphasis on players physical fitness and tactics. This was not the only part of managing in Italy that Garbutt set the proto-type for; he conducted Italy's first ever paid player transfers, where he signed two players from club Andrea Dorio and one from A.C.Milan. As well as making Genoa the first Italian football club to play outside of Italy; thanks to his connections back home in England he was able to take Genoa to play his old club Reading.

From when Garbutt first took over in 1912, until 1927 when he left the club, Genoa were victorious in the Italian Championship three different times; 1915, 1923 and 1924. The latter of which to this day, is the last time Genoa won the Seria A championship. AFTER Genoa:

On 22 July 1927 a new club was founded from the merger of numerous clubs in Italy's capital of Rome, A.S.Roma and Garbutt was brought in as their first ever manager. He stayed there for only two years but captured a tournament named Coppa CONI with them, as well as helping them reach third in group A of the Italian Championship..

Garbutt moved on next to Naples, taking over from Giovanni Terrile at SSC Napoli. It was a legendary time for the Napoli with the new club records; finishing third in both 1932-3 and 1933-4 seasons of  Serie A. Napoli would not achieve this again until the 1960s.

In search of a new adventure, Garbutt moved to Spain in 1935. He took up the position as manager of  Athletico Bilbao,leading them to the Spanish Championship topping Real Madrid by two points. He returned to Italy in 1937, taking over very briefly at SC Milan. 

William Garbutt soon moved back to the club where he was held in such high regard; Genoa. Since Garbutt had left in the 1920s, Genoa had gone into a slump even being relegated at one point. But with Garbutt back at the helm he coached the club back up to 3rd in his first season back.

His return would be short lived however, as a British citizen he was exiled under Mussolini's fascists and returned home to England. After the end of WW2, Garbutt returned to Genoa for a third time and then returned home. By the time Garbutt died in 1964, he was an anonymous octogenarian livng in relative poverty in Leamington Spa. In Italy, every newspaper in Italy carried his lavish obituary. He was deeply mourned, in Pozzo's words as 'the most important man in the history of Italian football'

DON, JOE, KEVIN, REG, TEL, FRANK,

On Saturday 11th May 1985, I was driving a minibus full of A Level students to Tideswell, Derbyshire, for few days' field trip in the Peak District. En route, listening to the radio, we heard news of the tragedy at the Bradford City v Lincoln City match at Valley Parade. A discarded match thrown down to the floor started a fire in the wooden Main Stand of the ground, underneath which lay paper from previous match spectators. The stand was soon engulfed in flames, leaving 56 dead and over 250 injured.

On Friday May 11th 1979
Despite having scored fewer goals than relegated Sheffield United, for their last match of the season Crystal Palace had everything to play for. They were fourth in the Second Division (now called the Championship) table but the top three sides, in the promotion spots, had all completed their League fixtures. Palace were catching up after a poor season of weather-related postponements. A win for Palace on that Friday night would see them finish top and deny great rivals Brighton the championship. A draw would see them miss out on the title, but still win promotion to the top flight, while a defeat would see them stay in the Second Division. A record Selhurst Park crowd of 51,482 witnessed a goalless first half against Burnley. Goals from Ian Walsh and David Swindlehurst in the last quarter of an hour gave the Londoners a 2-0 victory and the Second Division title!

On Tuesday May 11th 1976, Elton John played at a concert at Earls Court and on that day, Jim Bonser resigned as chairman of Watford FC, with his replacement being one Reg Dwight, aka Elton John. Elton said ' I'm really serious about this. I hope people will not treat this as a gimmick. I've supported this club since I was seven years old.' Graham Taylor was an early appointment as manager and between them in ten years they turned Fourth Division Watford into a club who had finished second in the top flight, reached an FA Cup final and had played in European competition. This was not a gimmick, as the appointment of Elton John proved to be one of Watford's greatest signings!

On Sunday May 11th 1975 England thumped Cyprus 1-0 in Limasol in a Euro Qualifier, Keegan scoring. A month earlier, Malcolm MacDonald (remember his bandy legs) scored all 5 in a 5-0 rout of Cyprus at Wembley.

On Saturday 11th May 1974, after England manager (remember the 1966 World Cup?) Alf Ramsey had been sacked by the FA and before the appointment of Don Revie as his successor, the Coventry City boss (at the time) was Joe Mercer, who became temporary manager of England for 7 matches in 5 weeks. The first of those games was on this day, when England visited Wales for an England Home International match played at Cardiff City’s Ninian Park ground. England won the match 2-0, the goals coming from Kevin Keegan, his first goal for England in his third appearance for his country, and QPR’s Stan Bowles, whose goal was the only one he scored in his five England appearances. The England team was: Shilton, Nish, Pejic, Hughes, MacFarland, Todd, Keegan, Bell, Channon, Weller, Bowles. That front line was "Maverick" wasn't it? Only Frank Worthington missing! Frank won his first cap in the next game v N.Ireland-we won 1-0. Scotland beat England in the next game 2-0. Frank only won 8 caps.

Joe Mercer’s seven matches in charge of England:- won three, drew three, but lost to Scotland. Many hoped he would take permanent charge of England but he didn't and back to Coventry City he went. In that time Joe cheered everyone up, but saw some of his players disgrace themselves: including Kevin Keegan taken away by local police, from the luggage carousel at Belgrade airport, where he was riding on the suitcases! The England players were prepared to boycott the game as a result. Joe solved it with diplomacy. Stan Bowles walked out of the squad, following his substitution v Northern Ireland and was not selected for the next fixture against Scotland.