Clive Thomas and “the most controversial decision that any referee has ever made.”
Back in 1981, Tottenham and Wolverhampton Wanderers played an FA Cup semi-final at Hillsborough. It was a game that I happened to be present at – my wife’s family all being dedicated Wolves fans. Late on in the game, Spurs looked to be on the way to Wembley, having been given the lead for a second time with a goal from Glenn Hoddle. Wolves had huffed and puffed, but this time, the house didn’t look like it was going to be blown down. Then, with time ticking away, Kenny Hibbitt ran into the Spurs penalty to be challenged by Hoddle. The midfielder fell to the floor and the referee, to the astonishment of Spurs players and fans, and the surprised delight of those clad in old gold and black, pointed to the spot. You know that phrase? “Never in a million years…” Yeah, it was one of them. Willie Carr stepped up to score and the game went to a reply, which Spurs won 3-0. Continue reading →
When an ex-Blackpool goalkeeper got the better of Johann Cruyff, Franz Beckenbauer and Rodney Marsh – Vancouver Whitecaps and the 1979 NASL.
In the nascent years of football trying to force its way into the North American sporting consciousness with the North American Soccer League, there was a perceived need to bring in ‘big’ names from Europe or South America to give the game a fighting chance of gaining a foothold in an environment dominated by Basketball, Baseball and Grid Iron. Whether the plan worked or not is probably open to debate. The NASL folded in 1984, but perhaps the lid on the ketchup bottle had been loosened sufficiently for the later iteration, the MLS, to secure a more solid platform.
The NASL ran its race from 1968 to 1984 and star players, particularly those reaching the salad days of their careers were drawn into the league by the money being offered by a clutch of nouveau riche clubs, some backed by global organisations. Warner Brothers, for example, bankrolled the New York Cosmos, attracting the likes of Pelé, Franz Beckenbauer and Georgio Chanaglia amongst many others. Whilst the Cosmos were the richest club and built to dominate, others secured star names as well. Los Angeles Aztecs, part owned at the time by Elton John, secured the services of Johann Cruyff and George Best. The Washington Diplomats club was backed by the Madison Square Garden Corporation and as well as signing Johann Cruyff from the Aztecs, they brought in Wim Jansen, Cruyff’s team-mate from the 1974 World Cup Final.
Sometimes though, as Leicester City proved so wonderfully in 2016, big bucks and big names don’t always get the job done and in 1979, the eccentrically named ‘Soccer Bowl’ was won by a club some 20 miles north of the border between the USA and Canada, as a team managed by a former Blackpool goalkeeper and featuring no less than nine aged players from Britain, with varying degrees of celebrity, became the NASL top dogs. It was the year that the NASL doffed its cap to Vancouver. Continue reading →
Here come the Men in Black! – Match Officials and stepping into that river.
Once upon a time, there was a referee with a whistle, a watch and a notebook with a pencil, plus two linesmen, each with a flag, and that was about it. The man with the whistle, aided by his two ‘assistants’ – to give them their modern nom de guerre – was there to govern the game. Or, to quote from Law 5, “Each match is controlled by a referee who has full authority to enforce the Laws of the Game in connection with the match.” For much of the life of the game of football, up to around fifty years or so ago, that’s the way it was, and that’s how everyone involved saw it. Continue reading →
When the heirs of the Magnificent Magyars met the Samba Boys.
Over the years, especially since the war, international football has seen a number of teams rise to prominence, and then be swept away by the next wave. These teams haven’t necessarily won everything, scooping the board of honours over a given period. More accurately, they have been the teams that have been widely acknowledged as the game’s leaders. The players at the forefront of the game’s development, setting new paradigms and patterns that others have copied or adapted.
Some ended their time in the sun with a hatful of trophies; others entered the field and left again, empty-handed. On occasions, there’s a game when the handing-on of the torch can be identified. In the World Cup of 1974, for example, Johan Cruyff’s ‘Oranje’ destroyed a street-fighter of a Brazil team that would have embarrased Pelé and the ‘Joga Bonito’ Samba Boys of four years earlier. It was a game when the Dutch ‘Totall Voetbal’ won the day and cherished the stewardship of ‘the beautiful game’ for a few years. In other times though, the change is seamless, but no less apparent for that.
In the fifties and sixties, two magnificent teams rose above the rest to dominate football for a generation. In the early part of the fifties, it was Hungary and the Magnificent Magyar team of Puskás, Hidegkuti and the cherry-shirted magicians playing under Gusztáv Sebes. The team that went from May 1950 to February 1956, winning 43 games, drawing a mere half-dozen, and losing just one – that one game however was the World Cup Final of 1954, and it denied the Hungarians the crown that would have rubber-stamped their dominance. Continue reading →
Dive!
Arjen Robben in the World Cup
It’s been labelled as a curse of the modern game and in post-match discussions probably causes as much controversy as any other subject, and a great deal more than most. What am I talking about? Some call it simulation. Others call it diving. For the purpose of clarity, whichever euphemism people choose to disguise it as, it is of course cheating.
You’ve all heard the managers and players justifying or bleating about it afterwards. “There was contact.” “He went down very easily” “It was soft.” “It was minimal.” There’s even my all-time favourite: “He was entitled to go down!” I’m not quite sure whether such entitlement was an inalienable right passed down from a particular deity, or just an element of the country’s constitution. I’m thinking probably neither. Continue reading →
Gary Thacker 