British Soccer Leaves the Euro Zone!

Here's an article I wrote back in 2015 with British clubs eliminated from the Champions League prior to the semi-final stage. One wonders if Manchester City or United, Liverpool or Spurs can restore some British pride?

British Soccer Leaves the Euro Zone!

With this being election year and much talk about the possibility of Britain leaving the Euro zone in the wake of a Conservative victory, it seems that British football clubs have stolen a march on the politicians!

Despite the Premier League’s huge revenue generating capacity for the privileged few, some would say at the expense of the interests of the English national team and lower leagues, the English and indeed the British teams have once again been found wanting at the top table of European football!

As I reflected upon this sad state of affairs while devouring ITV’s latest helping from the Champions League at the semi-final stage, courtesy of the old lady of Juventus and the Galácticos of Real Madrid, my wandering mind transported me back to my childhood and the enduring appeal of European football!

As a nine year old Leeds United fan living in remote West Wales, the nearest first division club to the market town of Lampeter was Wolverhampton Wanderers. I can well recall my excitement standing outside the first proper football stadium I had ever laid eyes upon, Edgar Street at Hereford. 

It was 1972 and the exploits of Ronnie Radford and Ricky George were fresh in the mind! Great humiliation for the Geordies to rival this season’s capitulation under the hapless John Carver! Ironically Newcastle’s last major success came way back in 1969, when Bobby Moncur raised the old European Fairs Cup.

In those innocent days, European club football on Wednesday evenings had an alluring appeal as we were given a rare glimpse of footballing life in the far flung corners of the continent. Names like Lokomotive Leipzig, Carl Zeiss Jena, Spartak Moscow and F.C.Twente Enschede rolled off my Welsh tongue with great excitement!

Long before the days of wall to wall coverage of live European football, courtesy of Sky, ITV and Channel 5, the only way of monitoring the progress of British clubs, was via your dependable transistor radio and the voice of Bryon Butler crackling over the air waves from some exotic sounding far away destination, in some far flung corner of the European continent. 

If your parents were in a charitable mood, permission was granted to watch the latest serving from the table of European football on the BBC’s Sportsnight programme. A prayer would be offered that soccer would take precedence over boxing and the unmistakeable voice of Harry Carpenter! Another prayer would be offered in return for Don Revie’s charges being able to deliver the goods, despite some dubious refereeing decisions!

At this juncture, despite success for Celtic and Manchester United in 1967 and 1968, we Brits would have to wait until Bob Paisley’s gallant Reds got the better of the Germans on a rare occasion in 1977, when defeating  Borussia Mounchengladbach to lift the ultimate prize. 

In those days the European Cup was contested by only the winners of each nation’s respective top league. Today this fine competition goes by the name of the Champions League, which seems to fall foul of the trade descriptions act! Why not rename it the Champions, Runners Up and Third and Fourth Placed League!

Today’s overpaid gladiators will get several bites at the cherry and even if you fail to advance from the group stage, you can still gain access to the Losers Cup, otherwise known as the Europa Cup. Many teams view this competition as a potential kiss of death in terms of the Premier League, with Thursday night fixtures and the necessity of playing twenty games to win this weird looking pot of gold!

In the good old days, it was simply four or five rounds comprising of two legs up until the final, with the final contested on neutral venue. Teams would not be afforded the luxury of being seeded according to ability and the second chance nature of group competition. A straight knockout competition, where you could be drawn against Europe’s finest in the first round and left packing your bags after just two games.

In those days we had three tiers of European competitions. The European Cup for the league champions, the European Cup Winners Cup for the F.A.Cup winners and the UEFA Cup for those teams finishing the season as runners-up, third and fourth placed in the league, as well as the winners of the League Cup.

It was refreshing in the 1970s to find that great respect was afforded to the F.A.Cup, and eventually after much suspicion, the League Cup. While England would have to wait their turn for a place at the top table, our teams enjoyed great success in the second tier competitions. 

In the European Cup Winners Cup, Tottenham Hotspur came to the fore in 1963, Chelsea in 1971, followed by Glasgow Rangers in 1972. Into the eighties and Aberdeen in 1983 and Everton in 1985 duly obliged.

The UEFA Cup was also a fertile hunting ground for the English clubs, with Liverpool victorious in 1973 and 1976. Not to be outdone, Spurs claimed a brace of wins in 1972 and 1984, with Bobby Robson and his Ipswich maestros victorious in 1981.

When the long wait for glory in the European Cup came to a sudden end in 1977, it was a similar scenario to waiting for a bus! To add to their unlikely success in 2005, Liverpool proved to be top of the pile in 1977, 1978, 1981 and 1984! Brian Clough with his magic wand engineered the ultimate success for the east midlands outfit of Nottingham Forest in 1979 and 1980, with Aston Villa continuing the trend in 1981 against the mighty Bayern Munich!

In order to replicate the excitement of an European night of football, I decided to turn to my trusted ally in the shape of Subbuteo. This wonderful invention provided the ideal backdrop for an evening of European football on my mother’s antique table. 

The green baize Subbuteo pitch, continental black and white ball and those iconic floodlights in each corner, now a scene from the distant past, given our modern stadiums!My beloved Leeds Utd in their pristine white kit would do battle with the great Ajax of Amsterdam. 

A kit unlike no other, with that broad red stripe down the front of their white shirts. Also unique was their brand of total football and the wizardry of the great Johan Cruyff. When the indoor thrills and spills was substituted for a kick about in the park, I would spend hours trying to perfect the Cruyff turn, leaving my friend chasing shadows!    

I had also acquired a copy of the 1971 Esso Yearbook of Soccer at a local jumble sale. Within its covers were the results of the previous season’s European club cup competitions. A sudden brainwave transpired, as I set out to re-enact the draw for the European Cup, with each tie played out in the comfort of our lounge! 

These strange sounding names of European clubs were written out on lined paper and then cut into individual strips, folded and placed in an old plastic tub of butter. From this tub emerged some great ties and remote West Wales being the unlikely neutral venue for the gladiators of European football!

Innocent days indeed, seemingly never to return given today’s pretentious world of professional football, with overpaid stars performing in stadiums lacking the character of the old stadiums such as Molineux at Wolverhampton and of course the Mecca that was Elland Road! 

Aled Evans