New Kits for '83/'84

A new football season is almost upon us once again, but as the world fawns and coos at the sight of kits being launched for 2013/14, let's go back 30 years to see what English football fans had to look forward to in 1983/84...

As Canon make history by becoming the first sponsors of the Football League, many First Division teams have a wide range of new kit designs ready to burst onto the scene during the coming season. First of all, Arsenal's much disliked green-and-navy-blue away kit has been ditched, the Highbury club returning to a familiar yellow and blue combination. The kit is made by Umbro and features pale yellow shadow stripes and navy blue shorts with red trim.

Aston Villa, meanwhile have two new kits for home and away, manufactured by Le Coq Sportif. Gone are Villa's traditional light blue sleeves and white shorts - they're replaced by two light blue side panels on the shirt and claret shorts. The away kit is now all white and the shirt features thin claret and warm yellow horizontal stripes.

Birmingham City have added a third kit to their range. In addition to the blue and white home strip and the reversed away strip, Patrick have applied the same styling to an all red version. Twenty-five miles due east, Coventry City have finally abandoned their infamous 'Talbot' kits (along with the alternatives to be worn on TV only) having formed a new partnership with Umbro. The new home and away outfits have two-tone shadow stripes flanked by dark blue pinstripes, the home version being in sky blue as usual while yellow is now Coventry's away colour rather than red. Tallon replace Talbot as the club's main shirt sponsor.

Heading away from Umbro are Everton. They've teamed up with Le Coq Sportif for the coming season and have three kits all using the same design as that employed for Aston Villa's home outfit. Featuring a triangular inset below the neck and a pair of double stripes on the socks, Everton have elected for grey and blue away kit and a more familiar yellow and blue colour scheme on their third kit.

Leicester City and Notts County have not only both switched to Admiral as their new kit manufacturer but have also chosen near identical away kits. The home and away outfits for both clubs use the same 'double pinstripe' motif but it's the dark green and amber versions that Leicester and Notts County will wear for away games. The only difference between the two is in the socks - Leicester's will be green, County's will be amber.

At home, Leicester retain their familiar blue shirts and white shorts, but Notts County fans are in for a surprise. For the first time in 30 years, the black and white stripes have been replaced with a predominantly white shirt - something that will no doubt prove controversial among County's die hard supporters.

Less controversial are the new QPR home and away kits for this season. At Loftus Road, Rangers continue to wear their famous blue and white hoops, but the new Adidas shirts now have a subtle red horizontal pinstripe dividing the two colours. Away from home, QPR welcome some matching hooped shirts in red and black but without the pinstripes. Guinness also now featured as QPRs first shirt sponsors.

Like Notts County, Stoke City may also be expecting a few letters of complaint as they, too, have done away with their traditional stripes. Umbro's new home shirts for The Potters have a white body and red sleeves with red pinstripes replacing the old thick red stripes on the chest. For away games, Stoke have a new two-tone blue strip that follows the same template as their home equivalent.

Sunderland, however, have returned to their roots after two years wearing a controversial kit of their own. Le Coq Sportif's 'double pinstripe' kits lasted two years but have now been replaced with a set of three provided by American sportswear company Nike. This is Nike's first official contract with an English team and Sunderland fans will be pleased with their decision to reinstate the thick red and white stripes for home matches. Away from home, the Roker Park club can choose between a sky blue kit with dark blue sleeves and horizontal pinstripes or a pale yellow outfit with navy blue trim.

Finally to West Ham where Adidas have added a white collar, white cuffs and a sky blue horizontal band to the home shirt, while The Hammers' white away shirt now includes sky blue pinstripes. Both shirts have a simple badge of crossed hammers instead of the original club crest and local company Avco Trust now appear as West Ham's first shirt sponsors.

We look forward to seeing them all during the coming season.

Retro Random Video: Man United NOT appearing on Top of the Pops

We've seen it so often before, the sight of a football team appearing on Top of the Pops, singing (or rather 'miming') badly to their latest chart hit (if indeed 'hit' is the word we're looking for there).

But in 1983 there was one occasion when a football team were due to appear in the BBC studios to perform their song but didn't. This was because Manchester United, the team in question, were rendered unavailable on account of their participation in the 1983 FA Cup Final replay at Wembley against Brighton & Hove Albion.

What to do? The answer: Simply show a selection of recent Man United goals (and one Brighton one) with their song "Glory Glory Man United" playing in the background. This rendered the 21st May 1983 edition of Top of the Pops (already shortened because the match was shown directly afterwards) nothing more than a musical version of Football Focus. As for the song, it proved to be as unconvincing as Pat Sharp's presenting style, yet it still hauled its way up to number 13 in the charts. If anyone knows how that happened, please get in touch.

So here it is then - Manchester United's non-appearance on Top of the Pops, preceded as it is by Big Country's rendition of 'In a Big Country'.

If you want to get straight to the Man United bit, you'll need to fast forward to 05:06. If, on the other hand, you want to know when the Man United bit starts so you can avoid it, you'll need to hit the stop button at 05:06.

Warning: Video contains images of Pat Sharp pretending to be interested in the FA Cup Final replay.

The News of the World Football Annual 1983/84

The arrival of the 1983/84 season prompted many to wonder how far football had fallen in recent times. The game had lost its allure and was in something of a tailspin but The News of the World Football Annual, through its anecdotal ponderings, acknowledged this for the ages and tried to offer some cause for hope at the start of a landmark campaign.

The season began with a new name for an old competition. The Football League was now known as the Canon League. According to the Annual, an announcement was made on May 5 1983 that a deal had been struck with the Japanese camera and business equipment maker to the tune of £3.2 million, lasting three years.


If that figure seems paltry compared to today’s big money deals, consider this. When shared out, Canon’s money ensured every First Division club would benefit by just £10,000 each. Considering Watford’s Luther Blissett had moved from Watford to AC Milan for £1 million during the summer of ’83, it really didn't seem like much at all. True, more money was distributed for the high achievers in the League, but even then the First Division champions would only get an additional £50,000. Even the winners of the Milk Cup could expect £64,000.

Fortunately, clubs could finally rely on a greater source of income from the new TV deal that had been thrashed out between the Football League (sorry – Canon League) and the two main broadcasters, BBC and ITV. Under the terms of the new agreement, ten live games would now be shown every season. Match of the Day would show five on Friday nights, while the other five would appear on The Big Match on Sunday afternoons. No club would appear in a live match more than once, although the usual weekend highlights would continue in their regular form on both channels.

According to the News of the World Football Annual 1983/84, the new TV deal wasn’t the fait accompli it may have at first seemed. The League were reluctant to allow live games to be shown for fear that it would discourage people from attending matches in person, while the broadcasters were hesitant about showing team shirts with sponsors logos on them. In the end a compromise was reached ensuring this would be the first season where shirt advertising was seen on our screens.

Elsewhere, further changes were being made to the game. For the first time in 1983/84, the Milk Cup Final would be played on a Sunday, and to ensure the pitch was in good condition (and provide an all-round facelift), a new 20-year £4 million contract had been signed by the FA and Wembley Stadium Ltd in May 1983.

Yet such talk of contracts and high finance masked the growing malaise creeping into the international game. In England, attendances for domestic games had plummeted by 1.24 million in the past year reaching their lowest total since the Second World War. Even across Europe, only eight countries had seen an increase in the number of fans passing through the turnstiles (Scotland being one, curiously).

International matches were suffering too. Within the pages of the Annual it’s noted that the British Championship match between England and Wales at Wembley in February 1983 saw the lowest attendance ever for an England match – just 24,000 paying to see a starting XI featuring such talent as Alan Devonshire, Derek Statham and Gary Mabbutt.



As for success on the pitch, things were little better as English clubs were finding their run of dominance in Europe seemingly at an end. The previous season had seen holders Aston Villa knocked out in the quarter finals of the European Cup by Juventus along with English champions Liverpool, beaten on aggregate by Polish side Widzew Lodz.

In the other competitions, the misery continued. In the Cup-Winners’ Cup, Tottenham had been eliminated by Bayern Munich in the Second Round while Arsenal, Ipswich, Manchester United and Southampton all fell at the first hurdle in the UEFA Cup. Perhaps the English clubs could turn to Scotland for inspiration what with Aberdeen winning the European Cup Winners Cup and Dundee United unexpectedly reaching the UEFA Cup quarter finals.

The times were certainly ‘a-changing according to the News of the World Football Annual 1983/84, not least because Liverpool, the biggest club in the country, were about to begin a new era under the managerial leadership of Joe Fagan. The 1982/83 campaign had ended with Bob Paisley retiring from the game after a nine-season run in which The Reds had picked up 20 major trophies. They were now faced with the task of trying to maintain their unprecedented success by once again promoting from within the Anfield boot room. No-one could be sure Fagan would be able to do so, but a look back at Paisley’s roll of honour would provide his team with ample inspiration for the coming season.

If Liverpool had one quality above all others it was the ability to score goals, yet amid a period of uncertainty and negativity, it was pleasing at least to be reminded of one final statistic from the 384-page pocket annual. The 1982/83 season had provided the highest number of goals across all four English divisions for 15 years, and which team stumped up with the most goals of all the 92 teams? Why Wimbledon, of course. The Division Four champions scored 96 in total - nine more than Liverpool.

Great Tracksuits of Our Time: No.6

The sixth installment in our 'Great Tracksuits' series comes courtesy of Sam Swaffield, co-editor of The Seagull Love Review. A devout Brighton fan, Sam's keen to draw our attention to the apparel worn by his team during one of the high points of their history...

"As a kid growing up in the 90's, all I'd known was Albion kits manufactured by highly suspicious brands. The likes of Ribiero, Super League and Sports Express all had a shot at the stripes, and none of them are in business today.

The 80's though, as we all know, was a golden era. Our Adidas days, between '79 and '86, are viewed by my generation as some sort of kit utopia, where the historic stripes were dropped for an all royal blue dream, the West Germans no doubt unequivical over the phone to Hove; "For you Brighton und Hove Albion, ze stripes are over".

Pictures of the kits are easy to find. The British Caledonian emblazoned sheen of the '80 shirt is a classic, and the red Nobo away shirt of '86 is definitely worth a look. For what I like to call 'Leisure Wear' though, it is a different story.

Official team snaps from '82 show a classic Adidas 2-piece tracky; coaching staff in royal blue trousers and body with white sleeves and customary box fresh Copa Mundials.

For the FA Cup Final in '83 however, Adidas went into overdrive. First a new kit just for the Final (a cotton number with red and white pinstripes, danke schön), and then a new tracksuit for the journey to the team hotel and subsequent round of golf. This classic Albion apparel, a set of which I've never seen apart from in the video below, scrapped the white sleeves for dashing white and red go-faster stripes across the chest and embroidered FA Cup Finallist detail under the badge.


As Albion kit goes, this is the pinnacle. If I had one, I, too, would wear it with royal blue suede Sambas, and saunter around Brighton, king of sports casual, seagull savant, pride of Sussex.

It's worth noting in the video Chris Ramsey looking like Marvin Gaye, Jimmy Case rejecting Adidias and dressing like a crap Scouse Bruce Springsteen, and David Icke, dodging the lizard people, to actually present the piece. Happy days indeed."

Our grateful thanks go to Sam Swaffield for telling us about his 'Great Tracksuit', and don't forget, we'd love you to do the same by dropping us a line. Email us at admin [at] thefootballadmin [dot] com with all your details, and you, too, could see your words appearing in a future 'Great Tracksuits of Our Time' article!

Subbuteo poster, 1983

Nothing could be more guaranteed to brighten up a young child’s bedroom wall than a Subbuteo poster. It’s been proven scientifically, probably. By the time this masterpiece came out in 1983, the masters of the flick-to-kick revolution had been annually publishing posters and catalogues for decades, each with its own distinctive graphics and identity.

The premise, as ever, was a simple one: to show off the myriad teams and accessories available to buy for the avid collector. Here, those same teams could be seen surrounding the big football motif; row upon row of colourful sporting soldiers, marching (as best they could when their feet were glued to a hemisphere) across this parade of printed perfection.

Click for larger version

As is always the case, it’s the vast array of team strips that captivate the idle dreamer. Chances are you wouldn’t end up buying many of them, but that’s neither here nor there. This was a chance to wonder at the well-established kit designs we all knew and their exotic-looking counterparts. Who in their right minds, for instance, wore the pink-purple strip with a white chevroned shoulder panel on the shirt, numbered 341? What sort of team wore the white shirts with a big black plus sign, numbered 91? And just who was it that prescribed the increased medication for the designer of kit 83, probably the only one featuring two parallel slanted stripes on only one side of the shirt?

Click for larger version

These questions and many more were prompted by the endless gawping and gazing on the part of the Subbuteo fan, yet this wasn’t a confusing landscape to find oneself in back in the day. This was an entertaining education in the art of football kit design. Look carefully and you’ll find Coventry’s ‘Talbot’ kit (378) – banned from being shown on TV, remember – and a series of funky NASL outfits (540 – 560). Then there were the teams from Brazil, Argentina, Europe and South Africa.

But that was just the front of the poster. Turn it over and there you’d find two full listings (one alphabetic, the other numeric) to help you identify which team wore which kit. This time, instead of the designs being exotic, it was the names of the teams that sent the mind racing. The West German clubs alone sound bizarre in a modern-day perspective; who knows how strange they sounded then. Has anyone ever heard of Wormatia Worms, Kickers Offenbach or SpVgg Bayreuth? Thought not…

As for the big football on the front, there were all the usual bits and pieces on show to make your Subbuteo collection that little bit more special. The two stand-out items for me, however, are the Skills Trainer and the Team Carrying Case. I wanted the former SO badly when I was a kid. The very thought of practicing my shooting by flicking the ball through those obviously-way-too-small holes seemed like Subbuteo nirvana to me, let alone dribbling around the miniature plastic cones.

As for the beautifully designed carry case, even my juvenile self saw through the initial allure of this one. The clear cover on a green plastic tray capable of housing two teams for transportation looked amazing when I was 12, but how would I carry my other 16 teams with me? I had the answer in the form of an old carry case designed for holding LP’s. It was far bigger and could contain my scoreboard, TV Tower and lots more besides. It even had a handle.

All of which goes to prove that where Subbuteo was concerned, it was best to suspend your awareness of practicality, even if you were at such a young age. Design was the thing to appreciate, whether you were dealing with a brightly painted team of players, or a poster showing you all the things your heart desired.

Click for larger version

Click for larger version

Football Monthly (November 1983)

The perm or the straight-cut?  This was the question perplexing grown-up kids and young adults alike in February 1983 when they bought the latest issue of Football Monthly.

The subject, Bryan Robson, was seen on the front cover and on page two, the latter being an advert for New Balance boots. The Manchester United and England star claimed he’d helped the company to “shape, test and refine” their boots under every possible playing condition - “including World Cup competition.” Judging by the picture on page one, he’d had also had a similar involvement with the production of hair-straightening equipment too.

But let’s not be distracted for Football Monthly wasn’t all about the hairstyles of injury-prone internationals. It concerned itself with hard facts and copious statistics, and this was proven in the ‘Transfer Market’ feature on page five. Here we get an interesting snapshot of who was moving where 29 years ago.

Charlie Nicholas was top of the list, moving from Celtic to Arsenal for £750,000, but many other well known names were also changing clubs. Kerry Dixon had moved from Reading to Chelsea for a bargain £175,000 while in the sub-£30,000 bracket Sam Allardyce switched from Millwall to Coventry and Gerry Francis moved from Coventry to Exeter. There’s also an ‘R Savage’ leaving Liverpool for Stoke. Surely he’s not *that* old, is he?

Despite qualifying for the 1982 World Cup, England were struggling to qualify for the 1984 European Championships and this issue of Football Monthly was ruthless in its review of England’s recent games. When Bobby Robson’s men were defeated 1-0 by Denmark, the magazine claimed this was “without doubt England’s worst-ever performance at Wembley”. It went on to say “Apart, possibly, from the 1950 World Cup defeat at the hands of the USA, this was England’s most inept display in 111 years of international conflict.”

A look at the magazine’s Formscope scorecard, however, gave a different view. Peter Shilton was rated “7 out of 10 - Good”, Phil Neal “8 out of 10 - Very good”, Russell Osman “7 out of 10 - Good” and so it went on. Every player scored either 7 or 8 out of 10 with the exception of John Gregory (6) and Paul Mariner (5). A little confusing, to say the least...

Football Monthly was on safer ground when, for no explainable reason, they listed all 92 league club managers from Division One to Division Four. Unordinary though it may seem on the surface, it actually provides an interesting view of the experienced and not so experienced men in charge of their teams back then.

In Division One, Larry Lloyd was manager Notts County - just across the city from his old boss, Brian Clough at Nottingham Forest. Clough’s old partner Peter Taylor, meanwhile, was in charge at Second Division Derby County while elsewhere in the division, two former Leeds players - Norman Hunter and Eddie Gray - were learning the ropes at Barnsley and Leeds respectively.

One manager doing rather well was Terry Venables. Having guided QPR into Division One, he’d overseen the introduction of the Omniturf pitch at Loftus Road and, at the time of publication, was putting together a consortium to buy the club outright. All things considered, Venables was the recipient of much praise having seen his team into the FA Cup Final of 1982, a feat made possible thanks to some diligent purchasing. The record-breaking sale of Phil Parkes to West Ham had freed up lots of cash, and the former Crystal Palace manager spent it well on some decent players.

A mixture of flair, experience and youth was undoubtedly the hallmark of Venables’ side. Along wth old stagers Bob Hazell and Terry Fenwick, Mike Flanagan and Clive Allen had arrived from Palace like Venables himself. Utility player John Gregory was playing well enough to break into the England team (as we’ve already heard) and with the likes of Ian Dawes, Gary Waddock and Peter Hucker in goal, QPR clearly had all the talent they needed to eventually finish the 1983/84 season in fifth place. “The First Division is going to have more to worry about than just a plastic pitch” claimed Football Monthly, and with some justification.

Other articles in this issue included ‘Ron’s Reds Poised To Take The Title’ in which Man United’s Ron Atkinson was “quietly confident” of his side winning the title (they’d finish fourth) and ‘Ipswich Are Standing At The Crossroads’ in which the Portman Road club were assessed in the light of so many key players leaving (they’d finish 12th). In many ways, though, Football Weekly leaned heavily on the tried and trusted features of similar publications that were available at the time.

The centre pages featured a colour team picture of Manchester United in the style of Shoot! while at the back was ‘Scoreline’, a three-page statistical reference containing recent results, scorers and attendance figures as per World Soccer. There was even a ‘Classified Page’ containing the ubiquitous ad from Steve Earl Football Programmes to make you think you were thumbing through Match magazine.

All in all, then, Football Monthly appeared to be a publication of some distinction due to its lengthy no-frills articles and factual information. Clearly it was pitched at the youngsters that considered themselves a little too old for Shoot’s glossy colour pictures and easily digestible text, but seemingly there was a gap in the market for just such a title. It appeared in newsagents right the way through the 1980’s and despite its slightly cock-eyed England match reports, it rightly became a trusted source of football reporting throughout.

World Soccer: June 1983

SV Hamburg: champions of Europe. That statement might jar your sense of reality unless you transport yourself back to June 1983 when World Soccer reported on the European Cup Final.

The reigning Bundesliga titleholders had out-thought and outplayed their opponents, Juventus, to win 1-0 in Athens, the only goal of the game scored by current Wolfsburg manager Felix Magath. Keir Radnedge described in detail how the Italian outfit had been found wanting in the grand finale, not helped by the new signings brought in to improve the Turin club.

“One year ago, their midfield was the best organised in Calcio” said Radnedge, yet Liam Brady had been ousted from the team in favour of Michel Platini and Zbigniew Boniek -  initially to little effect. The two stars of the 1982 World Cup struggled to adapt to life at the Stadio Comunale and were soon campaigning for a change in team tactics. Though that would ultimately reap its rewards, the 1983 European Cup Final arrived too soon for them to play at their best as Juventus were silenced by the managerial brain of Hamburg boss Ernst Happel.

Happel, leader of the Dutch side that almost reached the 1978 World Cup semi-finals, overcame the absence of one or two key players to create a masterplan which frustrated the Turin side. Players such as Jürgen Milewski, Horst Hrubesch and Wolfgang Rolff were allowed the space and freedom to switch positions, run at the Juventus defence and generally cause panic while their opponents stuck rigidly to their positional setup.



Radnedge summed up the Italians’ enforced tactical inferiority concisely: “Magath’s early goal meant that for Juventus the age-old Italian tactic of defend and strike on the counter-attack was useless. They had to come forward, and they didn’t seem to know how.”

The Road to Mexico

Sharing the opening page of World Soccer in June 1983 was the news that FIFA had unanimously chosen Mexico as hosts of the 1986 World Cup Finals. FIFA had originally given the hosting rights to Colombia as far back as 1974, but the South American country had stepped down in 1982, admitting they couldn't afford to stage the event.

Mexico ultimately won the bid to be the 1986 hosts when the world governing body’s executive committee met in Stockholm. Canada and the United States had also submitted bids, the latter ruffling a few feathers by enlisting Pele, Henry Kissinger and Franz Beckenbauer for their presentation.

As it is, FIFA president Joao Havelange needed little persuasion in awarding Mexico its second World Cup Finals, but some were surprised. The Brazilian had seen fit to only send an investigative commission to Mexico, dismissing the other two bids without further consideration. “Canada and the United States failed to reply to some important questions” said Havelange. “We could not keep on postponing the decision.”

Brian Glanville, writing in his column on page 20, was outraged for different reasons. He believed the 1986 World Cup should have gone to Brazil. Glanville felt that a Brazilian bid was doomed to fail because of the inharmonious relationship between Havelange and Giulite Coutinho, president of the Brazilian Soccer Confederation. He cited Don Balon who claimed the FIFA president had allegedly made a trip to Mexico City in the private jet of Emilio Azcárraga Milmo, millionaire chief executive of the TV chain Televisa. Hardly conclusive proof of underhandedness, but worth thinking about, claimed Glanville.

Club clash

Elsewhere in his column, Brian Glanville commented on Robert Maxwell’s on-going attempts to merge Oxford United and Reading into a new club, Thames Valley Royals. Glanville stood with both feet firmly in the anti-merger camp, saying “At the time of writing, it appeared the opposition to the merger had but modest chance of success, but I must say I wish it no success at all.”

Assessing Maxwell’s motives for combining the two clubs at a new location in Didcot, he went on to say: “When did families, per se, ever go to watch a game en masse in Britain? And why should they start now, just because Robert Maxwell dumps a leisure centre in the middle of the Thames Valley, with its egregious population of 1.8 million?”

Both sets of fans made their opinions known in the form of protests, while Maxwell threatened to close down Oxford United if the merger didn’t go ahead. It’s just as well he didn’t: Oxford United won the Division Three championship the following season, reached Division One in 1985 and would have played in the UEFA Cup in the 1986/87 season were it not for the ‘Heysel’ ban on English clubs in European competition.

Finals galore

As well as the European Cup, the finals of the European Cup-Winners’ Cup, the UEFA Cup and the FA Cup also featured heavily in this issue. For Alex Ferguson, there was the chance to bask in the glory of a 2-1 extra time win over Real Madrid in the Cup-Winners’ Cup Final.

On a bleak, rain-soaked night in Gothenburg, Eric Black and John Hewitt scored the goals to maintain a seventh consecutive season in which a British team had won a European trophy. “This is the greatest moment of my life” said Ferguson. “It was a magnificent performance in the conditions and I thought we thoroughly deserved victory.”

The two-legged UEFA Cup Final was won by Anderlecht, 2-1 on aggregate over Sven-Göran Eriksson’s Benfica. The Belgian side had become a force to be reckoned with in European football, appearing in the European Cup-Winners’ Cup Finals of 1976, 1977 and 1978, winning the first and last of those. Here, under the managerial leadership of legendary Belgian midfielder Paul Van Himst, they travelled to the second leg in Lisbon with a 1-0 lead from the first match in Brussels.

Though Benfica scored first through a 32nd-minute goal by Han Shéu, they relaxed too much, allowing Anderlecht to score a valuable equaliser six minutes later through Juan Lozano. The goal appeared to knock the wind out of Benfica’s sails, thus allowing the Belgians to comfortably stay on top in the second half and finally win the trophy.

On the domestic front, Manchester United needed a replay to overcome Brighton and Hove Albion in the FA Cup Final having drawn 2-2 at the first time of asking.

In the second match five days later, Brighton played well for the first 25 minutes before United struck four times – twice through Bryan Robson – to seal the victory. It was Man United’s first major success for six years and, as Paul Parish reported, spectators “would have fonder memories of Wembley’s excitement than the slide-rule boredom produced in Athens [in the European Cup Final].”



England hosts UEFA U-18 tournament

Staying on English soil, Keir Radnedge reported on a French victory over Czechoslovakia in the UEFA European Youth Championship Final held at White Hart Lane. World Soccer’s Associate Editor explained how the FA had made a bad job of organising the event, attracting only 30,000 spectators in total across the 28 matches. “In West Germany and Switzerland in the past” said Radnedge, “large crowds have been roped in by the simple expedient of giving away thousands of free tickets in local schools.” Not here and not back then, as it turned out, although the FA would soon catch on in a bid to fill Wembley Stadium more often in future.

Graham Taylor’s England side eventually finished third in the tournament, beating Italy 4-2 on penalties at Watford’s Vicarage Road ground. Taylor felt that the Italians were the best side in the tournament, but Keir Radnedge reserved a more critical view:

“The big disappointment was centre forward Roberto Mancini, the 18-year-old who cost Sampdoria £1.2 million a year ago. Apart from looking a little heavy for his height, he gave a distinct impression of a man who found this tournament too far beneath him after the hurly-burly of calcio.” Whatever happened to him, I wonder?

Transfer talk

With the domestic season over, World Soccer considered the rising stardom of Celtic’s 21-year-old striker Charlie Nicholas. The Glasgow-born footballer joined the Parkhead club in 1980 and had averaged better than one goal every two games by the time this issue had been published.

Reporter Alex Gordon was quick to praise the goal-scoring talents of Nicholas, giving a timely forecast about where his immediate future may lie. “All the speculation of his joining Liverpool/Spurs/Manchester United/Aston Villa/Real Madrid/SV Hamburg/Uncle Tom Cobbley United hasn’t sidetracked this amazingly mature and extremely popular young man.”

As it is, Charlie Nicholas left Celtic only days after this article reached the news-stands, but the fact that he was heading for Arsenal had not been so well predicted. The Scotland international apparently had a free choice of contracts from many of Europe’s top clubs. Liverpool, however, were probably the least likely club to snap up the future Sky Sports pundit. It was rumoured they were about to table a ‘measly’ £1 million bid for Nicholas AND Celtic’s star midfielder, Paul McStay. Hardly a surprise, then, that ‘Champagne Charlie’ never got to grace the pitch at Anfield…

Back page

Finally, with all the talk of Anderlecht doing so well throughout World Soccer’s pages, it was apt that the back cover depicted Ludo Coeck, the skilful Belgian midfielder who in 1983 moved from Les Mauves et Blancs to Internazionale.

Coeck made nearly 300 appearances for Anderlecht and enjoyed a 10-year-spell in the Belgian national team, scoring once in his side’s 10-1 win over El Salvador in the 1982 World Cup.

Unfortunately the move to Inter wasn’t a successful one for him and after a brief switch to Ascoli he returned to Belgium by signing for Molenbeek in 1985. Tragically, Ludo Coeck’s life was cut short when, at the age of only 30, his car crashed through roadside barriers near the Belgian town of Rumst. He died in hospital two days later, only two years after this edition of World Soccer was published.

Evening Standard London 5-a-Sides, 1983

You don't see much indoor football on TV these days, and when you do, it's usually the Masters series in which one-time great players shake off their walking frames and career-threatening injuries to entertain a provincial crowd of a few hundred people.

Once upon a time, however, people in the Thames TV area could look forward to the annual treat of the Evening Standard London 5-a-Side tournament at Wembley Arena. Here, the other end of the football spectrum fell under the spotlight, namely those players trying to break into the first team at any number of clubs around the capital.

Here's a chance to see some of the action from the 1983 tournament featuring eventual winners Millwall. Keep your eye open for a future England team physio in goal for Arsenal, a legendary England striker in the making for The Lions and the scorer of the opening goal for The Gunners who, little did we know it, had a glittering future in club management ahead of him...