Newcastle United 1968-69 – the last chorus of Blaydon Races

NEWCASTLE UNITED fans like to think of their club as one of the truly big footballing institutions in the country, and in terms of the Magpies’ support, heritage and potential, they are not too far wrong. But the problem is that Newcastle’s glory days are now more than half a century away and the era in which they were indeed the top club in Britain go back to the gas-lamp.

Mystery Magpies

The last triumph was in 1968-69, the curiously-named Inter Cities Fairs Cup, the tongue-tied elder brother of the UEFA Cup, which was the father of the bastard child that is now the Europa League. The pity of it is that the Fairs’ Cup is guilty by association and while in 1969, it meant something real, the plight of Europa has devalued the entire series of competitions. A shame, because as you will discover, the old Fairs and UEFA Cups were very strong – “harder to win”, said one journalist when comparing it to the old European Cup.

That Newcastle were in the competition at all was something of a mystery. In 1967-68, they finished 10th, but because of the Fairs’ Cup’s “one club, one city” rule, Newcastle scraped in. Liverpool (3rd) and Leeds (4th) were both qualifiers, Everton (5th) were not permitted, Chelsea (6th) were in, Tottenham (7th) were not permitted, WBA (8th) had qualified for the European Cup Winners’ Cup, Arsenal (9th) were not permitted, so the final place went to 10th placed Newcastle!

Joe Harvey’s side went into the 1968-69 season with just one new face, Partick Thistle’s Tommy Gibb. There was little hint that the European campaign would be as exciting as it turned out. Newcastle’s home form was good, but away from home, they were something of a soft touch. With players like the under-rated Bryan ‘Pop’ Robson, Welsh international forward Wyn Davies – who had taken his time to settle in after joining the club from Bolton in 1966-  Irish international goalkeeper Iam McFaul and skipper Bobby Moncur, Harvey had some talent to call upon, but consistency and strength in depth was always a problem.

  

Date of birth

Birthplace

Caps?

Previous club

Signed

Willie Mcfaul

GK

October 1, 1943

Coleraine

N.Ireland

Linfield

1966

David Craig

F

June 8, 1944

Belfast

N.Ireland

 

 

Frank Clark

FB

September 9, 1943

County Durham

 

Crook Town

1962

Tommy Gibb

HB

December 13, 1944

Bathgate

 

Partick Thistle

1968

Ollie Burton

CH

November 11, 1941

Chepstow

Wales

Norwich City

1963

Bobby Moncur

CH

January 19, 1945

Perth

Scotland

 

 

Jim Scott

RW

August 21, 1940

Falkirk

Scotland

Hibernian

1967

Bryan Robson

FWD

November 11, 1945

Sunderland

 

 

 

Wyn Davies

FWD

March 20, 1942

Caernarfon

Wales

Bolton Wands.

1966

Preben Arentoft

IF

November 1, 1942

Copenhagen

Denmark

Greenock Morton

1969

Jackie Sinclair

LW

July 21, 1943

Culross, Fife

Scotland

Leicester City

1968

Alan Foggon

FWD

February 23, 1950

County Durham

 

 

 

Holland, Portugal, Spain and Scotland

In the first round, Newcastle were drawn at home to Feyenoord, who a year later would be crowned European champions. Feyenoord had almost half of the Dutch international side, a nascent team that would eventually almost conquer World football. The first leg was a resounding 4-0 win for the Geordies, surely enough to see Feyenoord off. Over in Rotterdam, the Dutch scored twice but that four-goal win proved too much.

In the next round, Newcastle were seconds away from winning in Lisbon against a formidable Sporting, but conceded a last-gasp equaliser. In the second leg, a magnificent goal from Pop Robson settled the tie 2-1 on aggregate. This was an impressive win – Sporting were runners-up in Portugal to the mighty Benfica.

Real Zaragoza were next and in Spain, Newcastle were beaten 2-3. Back at St.James’ Park, 56,000 people turned up to see the second leg on a bitter night. Robson and Tommy Gibb scored to give United a 2-0 lead but Zaragoza pulled one back making it a nervous finale. Newcastle hung on to go through on the away goals rule. The next round was a meeting with another Portuguese side, Setubal,  but a 5-1 win at home virtually sealed a place in the last four. Setubal won 3-1 in the second leg, so it was 6-4 over the two legs.

Glasgow Rangers were the opponents in the semi-finals. Almost 76,000 saw the first leg at Ibrox Park, a Fairs Cup record crowd. Iam McFaul was Newcastle’s hero, saving a penalty from Andy Penman as the game ended 0-0. The second leg was marred by crowd violence, but goals from Jimmy Smith and Jackie Sinclair sent Joe Harvey’s men through to the final to meet Ujpest Dosza, then referred to – as all Eastern European sides were in those days – as  the crack Hungarians.

Moncur’s moments

Újpest Dózsa breezed past Goztepe Izmir in the semi-final, but it was their two-legged victory (3-0) over Don Revie’s Leeds that prompted people to say Ujpest were “the best team in Europe”. A little elaborate praise, perhaps, but Ujpest were a tough outfit and they had Ferenc Bene, one of the successors to the Mighty Magyars of the 1950s, in their ranks. They had also beaten Aris Thessaloniki and Legia Warsaw on route to the final and received a bye against Union Luxembourg, a game that would surely have caused them no difficulties. Their route to the final had been somewhat easier than the Geordies.

The first leg at St. James’ Park was tight for 45 minutes, but in the early stages of the second half, a free kick by Tommy Gibb was aimed at the head of Wyn Davies, who sent the ball goalwards, only for Újpest Dózsa keeper Antal Szentmihalyi to save. As the ball spun out, Moncur left-footed it just inside the post. His first goal for the club. Ten minutes later, he did it again, playing a wall pass with Danish midfielder Preben Arentoft before hitting another left-foot drive low past the keeper.

Newcastle scored again through Jimmy Scott, a surging run, a one-two with Arentoft and as he squeezed past a defender, he lifted the ball over the advancing goalie. Three-nil to the good, surely Newcastle were home and dry?

It was June before Newcastle travelled to Hungary and were under pressure from the kick-off in the Nep Stadium, the scene of England’s humiliation in the 1950s.  Bene, the danger man, scored after 30 minutes. Just before the interval, Janos Gorocs extended Újpest Dózsa’s lead. By the 50th minute, Newcastle were level, Moncur – incredibly – scoring on 46 and Arentoft, with plenty of space, shooting the equaliser on 50.

With 16 minutes remaining, substitute Alan Foggon, a player rich in promise but ultimately, falling short of fulfilling it, went on a long run, struck the crossbar and followed up to score Newcastle’s third. The aggregate score was now 6-2. Newcastle had their successors to “Wor Jackie”.

Legacy

Newcastle’s success was considerable. After all, the clubs they beat on the way to winning the Fairs Cup were all highly-ranked. With the exception of themselves, they would mostly be competing in the Champions League today. But Newcastle failed to build upon this achievement. They are still waiting for their next piece of silverware. It’s long overdue, but the “Toon” regulars won’t need reminding of that.

Red Star Belgrade 1973-74 – the team that changed English football

IN 1978, Chelsea chairman Brian Mears, desperate to change the fortunes of his ailing club, started to court Miljan Miljanić the Yugoslav coach rated among the best in Europe.

Miljanić sat in the Stamford Bridge stands, dark glasses shielding him from the autumn sun and watched a calamitous first-half display by Chelsea against Bolton Wanderers. For a man used to rubbing shoulders with Europe’s footballing elite – he had coached Real Madrid between 1974 and 1977 – the prospect of fighting relegation at a club that was clearly in decline was not enticing. Chelsea came back to win 4-3 and Miljanić told Mears, “With spirit like that, you can get out of trouble.” Miljanić  had his escape route and within weeks, he was appointed manager of Yugoslavia’s national team. He was wrong about Chelsea, though, for they endured five years in the old Football League second division.

The fact that Miljanić was Chelsea’s target was not just a publicity stunt – it was the second time in three years that a London club had been seduced by his methods. Arsenal, when they were looking to replace Bertie Mee, had toyed with the idea of installing him as coaching supremo at Highbury. English football was not quite ready for such a bold and forward-thinking hiring, but if he had joined either Arsenal or Chelsea, he might have had the sort of lasting impact that Arsene Wenger had two decades later.

red

He made his name with Red Star Belgrade, a club that enjoyed a reputation in the cold war years of being one of the trickiest eastern European teams to play against, especially on their own turf. Red Star won the European Cup in 1991 amid the troubled region the Balkans became, but in the 1970s, under the charismatic  Miljanić, they were more influential than many people realise.

In some ways, Red Star were distant and cautious relatives of the Dutch/German Total Football axis. Given the politics of the time, they were never going to be as revered as the pseudo-hippy Dutch or the ruthlessly efficient Germans, but Yugoslavia was considered to be “user friendly” Communist – people “even” went on holiday there, stepping into the unknown with their Ambre Solaire, telling themselves it was a cut-price Italy.

In 1970-71, football pundits, including the much revered Geoffrey Green from The Times, predicted a Red Star win in the European Cup, a victory that would have made them the first eastern bloc team to lift the trophy. The team had shown some quality in beating Hungarian champions Ujpest Dozsa 4-2 on aggregate, coming back from a 2-0 defeat in Budapest, UT Arad of Romania 6-1 and Carl Zeiss Jena of East Germany 6-4 on aggregate. In the semi-final, they were paired with Greek champions Panathinaikos, who were managed by none other than Ferenc Puskas. The media expected Red Star to reach the final, especially after a Stevan Ostojic hat-trick helped them to a 4-1 first-leg win. But in the second leg, Red Star capitulated and were beaten 3-0, allowing Panathinaikos to win on away goals. Most people agreed that Red Star versus Ajax would have been a far more interesting final than the emerging Dutchmen against the Greeks.

Generally, Red Star didn’t travel well away from home, but in Yugoslavia, they won the league title four times in six years between 1967-68 and 1972-73. They also lifted the Cup three times in that period.

It was a two-legged tie with English champions Liverpool in 1973-74 that really woke people up to the technical brilliance of Yugoslavian players. The national team had always been seen as a team of “nearly men” that could challenge the more fancied nations like Germany, Italy and England. In 1968, they had reached the final of the European Championship, with England beaten 1-0 in the semi-final. The players who knocked England out, Dragan Džajić, was a Red Star hero and finished third in the 1968 European Footballer of the Year voting. Even the likes of Pele enthused about Džajić: “He is a Balkan miracle, a real wizard. I’m just sorry he’s not Brazilian, because I have never witnessed such a natural footballer.” In 2013, he was named the greatest Yugoslav player of all time.

Yugoslavia missed out on both the 1966 and 1970 World Cups, but they were in Germany in 1974 and hosted the 1976 Euros. Consistency was always their problem, but as far as raw skill and ability was concerned, Yugoslav players were among the best. Not for nothing were they nicknamed “the Brazilians of Europe”.

Džajić didn’t play in the two games with Liverpool in the autumn of 1973, but Red Star were built around the pace and trickery that he brought to the team. Miljanić’s team relied on swift counter-attacking and precision passing. It was largely Serbian, but also included Montenegrins like Nikola Jovanovic, later of Manchester United,  and Macedonians.

Miljanić was a big fan of Rinus Michels’ Ajax and the West German team of 1972. He bought into the “total” aspect of their ethos: “It is necessary that the player in possession of the ball finds himself as often as possible with a very rich choice of several solutions. This can be done only when a team’s players all take part in the attacking play and in defence.” He was also a scholar of English football, in particular the Tottenham “double” winning team of 1961. Following the 1966 World Cup, he spent quite a bit of time with Bill Nicholson, manager of Tottenham, to study the Spurs way.

Miljanić’s approach was perhaps a little more defence-minded than the Dutch and Germans, but Red Star could produce devastating football when they stepped up a gear. Liverpool were beaten twice by 2-1 and Bill Shankly and his backroom staff were devastated. Red Star had been too “smart” for Liverpool. The 4-2 aggregate defeat prompted Liverpool to reassess the way they played in Europe. What followed was a more patient, passing style that might not have always entertained, but demonstrated a more continental, “game management” style that would shape Liverpool’s football for 15 years and raise the bar for English football.

Red Star, after beating Shankly’s men, went out of the competition in the next round. But the games with Liverpool did bring Red Star’s players to the attention of other European clubs. Yugoslavia introduced a new market economy in the late 1960s and although the concept of buying and selling footballers was alien to a Communist bloc nation,  players were permitted to travel abroad when they were 28, so as the Red Star team reached their more advanced years, they were snapped up by French clubs – Ognjen Petrovic (Bastia), Kiril Dojcinovski (Troyes), Slobodan Jankovic (Lens), Stanislav Karasi (Lille) or, like Vladislav Bogicevic (New York Cosmos), Petar Baralic (Tampa Bay Rowdies) and Vojin Lazarevic (Toronto), they went further afield to North America.

Miljan Miljanić left Red Star in 1974 to take up a lucrative offer from Real Madrid. A few years earlier, he had received an offer of USD 50,000 from Brazil to prepare the great team of 1970 for the Mexico World Cup, but he elected to continue the work he had started at Red Star, where an academy had been established that yielded almost 150 players. At Real, he won La Liga in his first two seasons but after 1976-77 ended without silverware, he resigned.

History will look at Red Star’s 1991 team as the pinnacle of the club’s history, but the line-up from the early to mid-1970s taught a wily and opinionated old Scot how to reshape his team for an assault on Europe’s top prize. They still talk about that night in Liverpool in November 1973 as a catalyst for a new era for English football. From 1977 to 1984, English teams won the European Cup seven times. Prior to 1977, it had happened once. Red Star Belgrade and Miljanić clearly taught us something.

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