The Big Match - December 1969 - Part 2

Last week we brought to you 'The Big Match - December 1969 (Part 1)' from David Poza, creator of the epic 'On This Day' series on YouTube that showcases historical football matches for every day of the year. Here, we present Part 2!

DEBATE

So, game finished, 2-1 for the R’s and we are back to the studio with Jimmy Hill and our guest, a “handsome skipper Terry Venables” (would that sound acceptable today?) talking in very polite terms about the game itself. And for this, ladies and gentlemen, we see a SLOW MOTION REPLAY! For most of us, it seems very normal to have 450 replays focusing frame by frame on how good a player moves his hair in order to head a ball, but in 1969 we had to wait to the end of the highlights to see the goals and some actions with the voice of the protagonists.

Sat in the marvellous “glam rock” studio, both Hill and Venables discuss the first goal by Birmingham, pointing out the poor defence they had when they conceded the goal (Venables points out that they will be practising that sort of free-kick on Monday).

And then, another big development appears: A camera behind the goal, which was very advanced at that time, and twinned with the slow-motion it gives us the chance to answer a question Hill poses: “Did Barry Bridges touch the ball in the first goal before the ‘keeper gets it?” The slow-motion machine stops and... definitely, he touches the ball before. So, no chance for a 6-year-old lad who might consider writing to Brian Moore and asking about it!

The Birmingham defence is also mentioned, because Venables thinks that with that defence (two players going to head a ball with only one QPR player) they would not be able to beat Chelsea in the Cup the following week (and they didn’t - they lost 3-0).

Jimmy Hill finally is very scared about the reputation of both teams’ players as hard men, because in the Sunday papers that morning the reader could see three players were booked. He thinks they could bring the game into disrepute, but in fact one of those bookings was a very funny moment when a Birmingham player makes a “fantastic” save.... on the halfway line!

Another booking was merely for a QPR player showing dissent. If Jimmy is seeing today’s football (I’m absolutely certain that he is) he must be very proud if a team finishes the game with only one booking. We all know that in those days the game was very hard, but Hill seems to think that three names taken means big trouble for the future of the sport. Nowadays, we have Pepe, the Dutch team in 2010 World Cup Final... and nobody is yelling “They are spoiling soccer!”

MORE GAMES

Here, Jimmy apologises again when presenting the Sunderland vs Manchester United game. He said in the beginning that it was Joe Baker’s first game for The Mackems, but Brian Moore corrects him. You wouldn't see this these days, what with having Twitter and Facebook to correct it!  In fact, it was Joe’s first goal for the team from the north-east. So, time for the presentation of the game, and this is one of the most famous sentences used by the anchormen when presenting a match:

"Let’s just watch it now, with pictures by Tyne-Tees Television, and the commentary by Geoff Thomas."

No caption to mark the game, but a picture of the new scorer. And this game is one of the strangest I have seen on The Big Match. Apart from seeing the goal and some near misses, accompanied by the “over-excited” commentary of Mr Thomas, there's something missing...

Where is Manchester United's goal?  Where is Brian Kidd’s effort to make it 1-1?

Unfortunately there were technical troubles during two minutes of that game and it was during that time he chose to score the goal! So for all Manchester United fans from London (still no “glory-hunters”) there's a huge disappointment; waiting nearly 50 minutes to see the goal, and nothing! Also, notice the heavy fog at Roker Park. Where is the ball you may ask? I certainly don’t know!

Time for the last game, Ipswich Town vs Tottenham, with pictures from Anglia Television and Gerry Harrison is the commentator. We have a caption to show which game we're seeing. And at Portman Road, one of the rarest cameras we have seen to cover a game: behind the goal. Anglia, and his director, Bob Gardam, had many problems placing a camera where it is natural to have it; at the halfway line, and decided to put it in behind the goal. It was also common at Norwich until 1972.

The game finished 2-0 for the Tractor Boys, and we finally mention two things: another delightful scoreboard, and one of the last games of Jimmy Greaves in a Spurs shirt (at least on TV) until he joined West Ham. Here, he wears the number 8.

So, three games, a different commentator, a camera behind the goal, a goal missing, Terry Venables and his stupendous haircut and of course, Jimmy Hill. As this was the last edition of THE BIG MATCH of the 1960's, Jimmy sums up by wishing all of us a happy New Year. Finally some new year predictions are shown (the actual outcome is shown in brackets):

• Arsenal – Winning the Fairs Cup (ACCOMPLISHED)
• Chelsea – Win the League Title (Not at all - they won the FA Cup)
• QPR – Win promotion to Division One (They finished 9th, despite winning that day)
• Orient and Luton – Promote to Division Two (ACCOMPLISHED)
• Brentford – Promoting to Division Three (Finished 3 points behind)

So, 2 out of 5, Jim. Not bad! See you in 1970 (or we are in 2013?) with a goal by Barry Bridges. And with that, the show finishes with scenes of Loftus Road emptying, along with its terraces and floodlight pylons. Bring them back I say!

A huge thanks to David for this excellent piece! If you'd like to share your nostalgia memories with us, why not get in touch? Just drop us a line to admin [at] thefootballattic [dot] com and we'll do the rest!

Greatest Shirt Sponsor Ever - Semi Finals

So we're down to the final four, and despite it looking like the Final was to be a re-run of the 1986 Milk Cup Final between Oxford and QPR, fate has intervened and made it a semi final encounter instead.

In the other semi, that there London meets Oop North so expect bare-chested barrel-shaped supporters and plenty of apples and pears... or something...

So, will it be an all-London final? Or will you all go for some full on Wang action (honestly, this stuff writes itself)? Or will we all be gannin' doon tha' toon for a bottle o' Newky Broon?  Ant n Dec... Spuggy...

Once again, our thanks and gratitude go out to John Devlin for kindly allowing us to use his fantastic illustrations. John's work can be found at the True Colours site and he is also on Twitter so pay him a visit and give him a follow.

Rules:

1) You are voting for the SPONSOR, not the team that it adorned.

2) Voting for Round 2 closes at 23:59 GMT on Sunday 24th December - what a lovely present for the finalists on Christmas day!

3) This is a bit of fun... if you don't like the results, take a deep breath, smile and accept that democracy is flawed... ;-)

NB Again, the polls will no longer show the results after you've voted. Results will only be revealed at the end of the round.

Gor Blimey... Pet...

Greatest Shirt Sponsor Ever - Quarter Finals

From the 96 came just 8 - It's The Greatest Shirt Sponsor Ever Quarter Finals!

Round 4 ended last night and there were several more shock exits.  Both of Liverpool's remaining entries took a bow, falling to the mighty Wang (fnarrr) and a concerted campaign by Ipswich fans to keep Pioneer in.

And so we come to the final 8 and what a line up it is! But enough of this...I mean, seriously, I know no-one's reading it...I could just say what I want here...I could call Frankie Boyle a racist...he'd never know! As it is, I'm not going to say that as it's patently not true...or relevant...so...where was I?

Once again, our thanks and gratitude go out to John Devlin for kindly allowing us to use his fantastic illustrations. John's work can be found at the True Colours site and he is also on Twitter so pay him a visit and give him a follow.


Rules:

1) You are voting for the SPONSOR, not the team that it adorned.

2) Voting for Round 2 closes at 23:59 on Monday17th December (ignore what I said on twitter)

3) This is a bit of fun... if you don't like the results, take a deep breath, smile and accept that democracy is flawed... ;-)

NB Again, the polls will no longer show the results after you've voted. Results will only be revealed at the end of the round.

Hadouken!

Greatest Shirt Sponsor Ever - Round 4

Yes it's Round 4 - The Round of 16 - of The Greatest Shirt Sponsor Ever!

Round 3 finished yesterday (Thursday) and as usual the results can be viewed here. Coventry finally bowed out to frankly more deserving sponsors, but the greatest shock of the round was Sharp, stalwart of Man U for 12 years, being ousted by QPR's Guinness. Honestly, is this the point we've reached? ;-)

Anyway, this is where it gets really interesting with the final 16 sponsors battling it out. Hitachi may have gone, but Crown Paints and Candy still fly the red flag, but the legendary CP faces seriously stiff competition in the form of Wang...stiff..Wang...is anybody actually reading this anyway?

Once again, our thanks and gratitude go out to John Devlin for kindly allowing us to use his fantastic illustrations. John's work can be found at the True Colours site and he is also on Twitter so pay him a visit and give him a follow.


Rules:

1) You are voting for the SPONSOR, not the team that it adorned.

2) Voting for Round 2 closes at 23:59 on Tuesday 11th December (ignore what I said on twitter)

3) This is a bit of fun... if you don't like the results, take a deep breath, smile and accept that democracy is flawed... ;-)

NB Again, the polls will no longer show the results after you've voted. Results will only be revealed at the end of the round.

Let's get it on!

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.