JOCK STEIN said it all really: “I want to be remembered for the football we played”. He was referring to Celtic’s first European Cup final appearance against the formidable Inter Milan in Lisbon and the possibility of defeat, something that Stein’s side were unaccustomed to experiencing. Fifty years on, the quality of Celtic’s football in […]
WINNING TWO consecutive World Cups has only been achieved once, by the brilliant Brazil team that lifted the trophy in 1958 and 1962. But when England travelled to Mexico for the 1970 World Cup, there were genuine hopes that Sir Alf Ramsey’s side could retain the trophy won in 1966. Indeed, the more patriotic contingent […]
THERE HAVE been more successful Manchester City teams in recent years, and certainly more expensive, but it is unlikely that any of the 21st century City line-ups will be as loved as the side that won four trophies in three seasons between 1967-68 and 1969-70. That team was immortalised in the late James Lawton’s new […]
SERIE A in the late 1980s and early 1990s was a fiercely competitive landscape with all-star line-ups comprising some of the world’s best players. Italy was a magnet for top talent, including Ruud Gullit, Marco van Basten, Diego Maradona, Gianluca Vialli and Michael Laudrup, to name but a few. The rest of Europe just sat […]
IF Chelsea had not got off to a miserable start in 1969-70, they may well have gone much closer to winning the Football League instead of their first FA Cup. Not that the Cup was a consolation, because in 1970, it really meant something and for the Blues, it was their first ever FA Cup […]
URUGUAY has long struggled to live up to its football heritage, but then any country of just three and a half million people battles against huge odds to win major competitions, especially with far noisier and more acclaimed neighbours on their doorstep. Yet two Olympic titles and two World Cups, along with 15 Copa America […]
AS in England, there’s always been something of a north-south divide in Italy. The industrialised northern cities of Turin and Milan are a marked contrast to the rural south and islands like Sicily and Sardinia. The big money in Italian football came from business families such as the Agnellis and the Morattis, giving Juventus, AC […]
THE mid-1960s through to the 1970s was Celtic’s time in Scotland, Jock Stein’s side winning almost everything on offer. Before the tide turned in Glasgow, Rangers completed a memorable treble in 1963-64. Ibrox Park regulars would have found it hard to believe if anyone had told them, in 1964, that the Gers would not be […]
WHEN Arsenal won the “double” in 1970-71, they received very little praise for their considerable efforts. Were it not for Charlie George’s messianic fall to the ground in the FA Cup final, Arsenal would be remembered for merely grinding-out results and out-slugging Leeds United’s relentless machine. But the seeds of Arsenal’s triumph were sown in […]
