The reminder that it was in fact 40 years ago today that Blyth Spartans hosted Wrexham in a FA Cup 5th Round Replay got me thinking once again about cup football in the 1970s. The Blyth Cup run is arguably the high-water mark when it comes to FA Cup plucky-underdog-giant-killing folklore and though it sadly came to an end against Wrexham Blyth were at least able to get their own back in another cup competition… the Debenhams Cup. The following is a chapter from my book Cup Football: An Exploration which is available for £4.50 on Amazon.
After the creation of the major European tournaments of the 1950s and 1960s the 1970s saw no sign of any let up for silversmiths. New cup tournaments proliferated in the era with many pushing innovation to – and sometimes beyond -its limit. At the very beginning of the decade came the Anglo Italian Cup. This followed on from the Anglo Italian League Cup which had hastily been created to when a UEFA ruling prevented the 1969 League Cup winners Swindon Town from being able to take up the place in the UEFA Cup their win had earned them owing to their lowly third tier status. Similarly this rule had prevented 1967 winners QPR from participating in Europe and the controversy then had been enough for the Football League to now seek a solution which would at least go part way to compensate Swindon.
The man who provided this solution was Gigi Peronace. Something of a wheeler-dealer Peronace is often referred to as the first football agent. At one point a goalkeeper for Reggina in his native Italy during the war years Peronace had made use of his English language skills by helping to organise games with British troops following their arrival in the country. After the war those same language skills saw him acting as an interpreter for Juventus’ Scottish manager William Chambers and Peronace would later go on to act as an independent scout and agent based in Britain. Credited as being a force behind the abolition of the maximum wage back in 1961, he also had a hand in the transfer of a number of high profile players from the English league to Italian clubs such as John Charles, Denis Law, Joe Baker, Liam Brady and Jimmy Greaves. The latter recalling Peronace in his autobiography Greavesie provides a colourful description of a larger-than life character who, he says, looked as if he could have stepped from the pages Mario Puzo’s novel The Godfather:
If a crocodile could talk it would sound like Gigi Peronace. He was an imposing figure, one to be wary of, yet he could charm a bracelet. To look at him you were immediately wary of the man. When he first spoke your reservations were seemingly confirmed, but as his conversation unfolded he displayed great charisma and charm, and you ended up being enchanted by the man.
With a foot in the worlds of both English and Italian football Peronace had reportedly mooted a contest involving teams from the two countries for some time and the Swindon situation provided something of an opportunity to test the water and a one-off, two legged fixture was arranged between Swindon and Coppa Italia Holders Roma, titled The anglo Italian League Cup. In the first leg played in Rome’s Olympic Stadium in late August of 1969 Roma emerged with a slender 2-1 lead however, in the second leg Swindon turned the tables, stunning a Roma side managed by the legendary Helenio Herrera and including future England boss Fabio Capello with four goals to win 4-0 on the day and 5-2 on aggregate
Importantly for Peronace’s vision the Anglo Italian League Cup was viewed as a success, opening the door for a more ambitious full-blown tournament. It was also opportune that with an extended close-season looming, due to the 1970 World Cup, clubsfaced cash-flow pressures when it came to paying players wages meaning that additional revenuegenerating games over part of this period would be welcomed. Utilising his contact book Peronace set to work, crafting this expanded contest. In total twelve teams were recruited fror this new Anglo Italian Cup. From Italy’s Serie A there came Napoli, Fiorentina, Lazio, Juventus, Lanerossi Vicenza and Roma. The participating English clubs included the inaugural Anglo-Italian League Cup winners Swindon Town, along with Middlesbrough, Wolves, West Bromwich, Sunderland and Sheffield Wednesday.
Beginning shortly after the 1969/70 season had come to a close, the tournament adopted a rather complex format whereby the clubs were split into three groups of four with two English and two Italian teams per group. The clubs then played the two teams in their group from the other nation in a home and away fixture, making four games in total. After these four games the Italian clubs and English clubs were ranked in separate tables with the top club from each contesting the final. Just to add to any confusion the tournament also introduced the innovation of additional points awarded for goals scored.
Notably however, there was no involvement from the bigger English clubs. Of the football Leagues deputation Wolves had the highest league position, finishing 13th in the first division. Both Sunderland and Sheffield Wednesday had finished in the two relegation slots whilst Middlesbrough and Swindon were in the second-tier. Despite this seeming disparity the English clubs nonetheless achieved some good results; Second-tierSwindon continued with their impressive European-run securing a double over Juventus, who had finished 3rd in the previous seasons Serie A, winning a 4-0 at home and 1-0 away whilst Wednesday secured a 4-3 win over Napoli and West Brom and Middlesbrough defeated Roma 4-0 and 1-0 respectively. One hypothesis put forward by 1971 Anglo-Italian Cup Winner, and 1972 runner-up, John Burridge for the relatively good performance of the English sides is that the points-for-goals system led to an emphasis on attacking football which was less suited to the cautious, low-scoring “cat and mouse” style of play which was more typical among the Italian clubs.
It was however, more for the wrong reasons which the tournament is most remembered; Violence featuredboth on and off the pitch and the tournament quickly gained an unwanted reputation for trouble. Among the most serious incidents was West Brom’s visit to the home of Lanerossi which ended with the referee having to abandon the game with quarter of an hour to go. The score tied at one-a-piece Tony Matthews describes the scene in his book Baggies Abroad: the Complete Record of West Bromwich Albion’s Global Travels
When Asa Hartford robustly challenged Lanerossi’s captain Roberto Di Petri all hell let loose: players started fighting each other, spectators raced on the pitch to join in and there were flare-ups in the stands and on the terraces.
Perhaps wisely the game was not replayed. Instead as punishment both teams were awarded a 2-0 loss for the game. The scenes at Lanerossi were however, just a prelude for what would take place at the final itself, between Napoli and Swindon Town at Napoli’s Stadio San Paolo. For their part Napoli had several players away on international duty, including goalkeeper Dino Zoff and team-captain Antonio Juliano, but nonetheless were by accounts still an outfit to be reckoned with. Certainly few of the 55,000 who had turned up to watch the game would have expected Swindon torace into a commanding lead. However, just as the little Wiltshire side had surprised Arsenal in the 1969 League Cup final and shocked Capello’s Roma in the Anglo Italian League Cup so they too caught Napoli unawares with Peter Noble netting either side of half time. When Arthur Horsfield added a third, rounding the Napoli ‘keeper, the crowds shock turned to displeasure which they gave vent to by tearing apart the stadium and raining down chunks of debris onto the pitch. With the police responding with tear gas the game was abandoned on 79 minutes. In the trouble a total of 40 police and 60 fans were injured.
This reputation for trouble would continue to follow the competition much to the obvious displeasure of the organisers who felt that undue attention had been given to the cup’s disciplinary issues. Referring to the 1972 Anglo-Italian Cup they attempt to use statistics to mount the case for the defence:
Those who attacked the Tournament based their criticism on the fact that there had been trouble in a match between Cagliari and Sunderland, in which an Italian player was sent off, and at Stoke when Roma were the visitors, three players were dismissed. These disciplinary measures were given unwarranted emphasis in the light of the fact that 23 other matches were completed in a spirit of complete amity. The dismissal of four players in 25 matches was less than five per cent of the average in both English and Italian Leagues
Indeed there were other accounts which do at least show another side of the tournament. In his book Budgie The Autobiography of Goalkeeping Legend John Burridge the former Blackpool ‘keeper quotes a report by the Blackpool Gazette’s Patrick McEntee of the 1971 final in which Blackpool defeated Bologna which contrasts sharply with accounts of the previous year’s final:
Standing in the press box, I had a perfect view of Mr Bob Stokoe’s jig of delight along with the other Blackpool officials when the final whistle ended 120 minutes of gruelling action on a hot Italian night. The small but loyal band of Blackpool supporters, who had made their trip to Italy in charter flights, waved their union jacks and tangerine and white scarves high on the terraces. The disappointed Bologna fans, who did so much to restore the faith in the sportsmanship of Italian soccer supporters, sportingly waved their red and black banners in tribute as the victorious Blackpool team did a lap of honour, skipper John Craven waving the 22-inch high gold trophy aloft.
In any case the organisers felt that there was a need to at least appear to act. Channeling the spirit of the age that there was no problem which a piece of silverware couldn’t solve, in 1973 a cup was introduced for the best behaved club, taking into account behaviour both on and off the pitch. According to the tournament programme the cup would be a accompanied by “a large financial incentive” and would be awarded by a specially formed committee which included representatives from the respective leagues, referee representatives, broadcasting representatives, press representatives and finally Peronace himself.
The cup also had its supporters both on and off the field. For Burridge the cup was characterised by exciting, attacking football and for him personally it provided the excitement of travel, including the first time he had been on an aeroplane. Burridge could not have been alone in his positive assessment of the contests worth as in its second year total spectator numbers increased, rising to 395,000, up from the1970 total of 279,000, bringing in just under a quarter of a million pounds in gate receipts. This was sadly not enough to save the cup. Total attendances slid back to 280,000 for 1972, with a particular fall in popularity in Italy where the figure for total attendances had fallen from 234,000 in 1971 to just 138,285. Crucially the cup had also failed to convince bigger clubs of its worth and it came as little surprise when the contest came to an end after 1973.
The story did not however, end there and the cup was re-born just a few years later in 1976 as a contest between semi-professional sides and was following the death of founding father Peronace of a heart attack, whilst away with the Italian national team in 1980, named the Gigi Peronace Memorial from 1982 onwards. In this iteration it appeared that the tables had been turned somewhat as whilst English sides had enjoyed more success in the cup’s professional era, winning the cup on three out of four occasions, the opposite was true of the semi-professional contest; Sutton United were the only ever English club to ever win the cup when they beat Chieti 2-1 in 1979, but despite this one-sidedness, judged solely in terms of longevity, this version was the most successful to date lasting ten whole seasons before the axe fell in 1986.
In 1992 it would return once again as a professional tournament, this time involving second tier clubs. Many clubs were however, less than enthusiastic. Even Swindon Town – a club which surely should hold most affection for the tournament – approached the contest with a decidedly lukewarm attitude, as summed up by first team coach Andy Rowland’s programme comments ahead of their group game against Lecce in 1994
So on to tonight’s game with Lecce, who like ourselves are looking for their first win in the competition. This evening could be another opportunity to give one or two of the younger pros a run out as we did in Venice for a bit of first team experience bearing in mind that in no way would we devalue the tournament by playing understrength sides.
Significantly some of the same old problems around indiscipline also reared their head, most notably in a 1995 game between Birmingham City and Ancona at the Italian Sides Stadio del Conero. Writing in The Two Unfortunates blog Birmingham supporter Rob Doolan summarises the on-pitch scenes as recounted by one observer:
Colin Tattum of the Birmingham Evening Mail was the only English journalist present, and he described the events of the evening as “some of the most amazing scenes I have ever seen on a football field”. According to Tattum’s report, the flashpoint seems to have come when midfielder Marco Sesia hacked down playmaker Paul Tait (the previous season’s Wembley hero), who reacted angrily, grabbing the Italian’s shirt. This proved the catalyst for a number of Sesia’s team mates to pile into the Birmingham man, and for Ancona manager Massimo Cacciatori to stride onto the pitch and strike Tait, before grabbing another Blues player, Ricky Otto, around the throat. From there, the game descended into scenes more befitting of the Royal Rumble. Hunt was kicked off the ball by striker Vincenzo Esposito. Francisco Tomei was very much kicked on the ball (or at least “between the legs” as Tattum puts it) by Birmingham’s Norwegian striker Siggy Rushfeldt. Goalkeeper Paulo Orlandoni near-throttled Steve Castle. Tentoni threw a punch at Blues physio Neil McDiarmid while he tended to Tait.
Despite this chaos, it seems – remarkably – that no one was sent off. Moreover there was more to come after the final whistle:
If the game had been ugly, all hell would break loose in the tunnel afterwards. There is no reliable account available of precisely what happened, but the brawl that ensued left Cacciatori with a fractured cheekbone and Lloyd with a broken finger when he tried to intervene. Fry recalled seeing “blood everywhere”. Birmingham captain Liam Daish was the chief suspect, but claim and counter-claim on both sides are so cartoonishly dubious that it’s hard to know what to believe. Orlandoni suggested that “four or five” Blues players jumped on the Ancona boss and “savagely and repeatedly” kicked him. Birmingham’s official statement, meanwhile, was equally iffy, claiming that Cacciatori had instigated things by grabbing Daish “around the windpipe”. The Blues’ captain, it continued, “did not strike, headbutt, or retaliate in any way. Fearing for his life, hepushed Cacciatori away from him in the chest area. Cacciatori fell to the ground and his face hit the floor”.
Shortly afterwards, police burst into the Birmingham dressing room and began confiscating players’ passports, with Fry suggesting that the squad’s black players were singled out. After they were eventually allowed to return home, Daish, as well as defender Michael Johnson and coach David Howell (who almost certainly weren’t involved) were formally charged by the authorities in Ancona, and extradition and a stint in an Italian jail seemed a serious possibility.
Such scenes would hardly do much good for any tournament, but for one with the historical baggage of the Anglo-Italian Cup they were especially problematic. Perhaps unsurprisingly the 1995/96 edition was the last, the official reason being that the two respective leagues failed to reach agreement over dates for the fixtures for the 1996/97 season.
Yet, write off the Anglo Italian Cup at your peril – the story may not be over; in the summer of 2015 it was reported in La Gazzetta dello Sport that Serie B president Andrea Abodi signalled an intent to institute a cup competition featuring the winners of Serie B, The Championship and the 2. Bundesliga with the aim of increasing international exposure of the leagues. Looking at the past there are perhaps few who would bet against the Anglo-Italian Cup making another reappearance.
The Texaco Cup
One of the key features of 1970s cup football was the appearance of a number of competitions which bore the names of sponsors. One such contest was the Texaco Cup which began in 1970. The tournament had originally been intended to go by the none-too-catchy name of the International League Board Competition, but the name was changed when Texaco – who had recently taken over and rebranded the Regent filling station chain – stepped in with their sponsorship cheque and the tournament was duly renamed in their honour. The cup brought together those club sides from England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland which had just missed out onEuropean qualification. It also brought English and Scottish clubs together in a competitive cup tournament, something which had come to an abrupt end when a Scottish Football Association ruling in 1887 forbade its member clubs from entering the FA Cup.
This pan-British isles tournament was a reasonable success in its inaugural season with the cup being won by Wolves, who had defeated Hearts 3-2 on aggregate over the two-legged final. Unfortunately the tournaments scope was curtailed somewhat when the troubles intervened and led to the withdrawal of Irish Clubs after the first two seasons, leaving just the Scottish and English clubs. The oil giants involvement with the contest then came to an end after the 1974-75 edition however, a very similar tournament, the Anglo Scottish Cup, was set up to run in its place from 1975. This was in turn itself wound-up in 1981 when the Scottish clubs withdrew en-masse, tired of the indifference with which English clubs seemed to regard the tournament. It can be claimed however, that the Anglo-Scottish Cup was a precursor of the Associate Members Cup, therefore in a rather convoluted cup- family-trees way it can be said that the Texaco Cup has survived, albeit much changed.
The Watney Cup
The now defunct Watney Mann Brewing company is remembered chiefly for two things; Watneys Red Barrel, the beer which was once ubiquitous in British Pubs in the 1960s and 1970s and is still remembered fondly by those of a certain vintage and the football tournament which bore the companies name, the Watney Mann invitational Cup. Like the Texaco Cup, the Watney Cup also began in 1970, but was somewhat more light-hearted; Played over the pre-season period its entrants were to consist of the two highest scoring, non-promoted, clubs from each division.
If one desire of this set-up was to see high scoring games then the approach evidently worked: The first two finals produced an impressive tally of thirteen goals as Derby County defeated Manchester United 4-1 in 1970 and Colchester United and West Brom played out a 4-4 draw a year later (Colchester ultimately winning the tie 4-3 on penalties). This high scoring was possibly possibly helped by a tweaking to the offside rule in the 1971 edition making it only applicable inside the opponents area. The cups most notable innovation however, was the introduction of the penalty shoot-out and a semi-final between Manchester United and Hull City in 1970, was the first occasion in England where a penalty shoot-out was used to decide the outcome of a tied game. Manchester United would emerge as victors with George Best being the first player to score in a penalty shoot-out, whilst Denis Law became the first player to miss after his effort was saved by Hull keeper Ian McKechnie.
The Debenhams Cup
At the other end of both the football season and the decade the Debenhams Cup provides an illustration of just how easy it was in the era to come up with a concept for a cup competition and see it become a reality. Like the Cup Winners Cup the Debenhams Cup was a cup which effectively piggy-backed onto another cup; The cup was to be to be contested in a two-legged fixture by the two clubs present in the first round proper of the FA Cup who had reached the furthest stage of the tournament – in other wordsclubs from below the top two divisions, or lower. The idea behind the cup, which originated with consultants working for the department store retailer Debenhams, was to provide a piece of silverware for the trophy cabinet of one of these giant-killing clubs.
The programme for the 1977 contest sets out the story of the cups journey from a mere idea to a concrete item on the fixture list, beginning when one of Debenhams consultants put the idea to the sales director. Within two weeks it received board approval and it was then, as the programme puts it, “a tale of three Fridays.” The first Friday was a meeting at Lancaster Gate between the sales director, the consultant and Football Association Secretary Ted Croker who liked the idea enough to put it on the agenda of the FA Council which was due to meet the following Friday. The Council approved the plans, pending the agreement of the Football League. This was then given and the details and costs were worked out on the third Friday at Lancaster Gate
As part of their proposal the consultants had created a list of clubs who would have contested the cup, had it existed, going back to the start of the post-war periodin 1946-47. By coincidence the first pair on that list, Chester and Port Vale were also the first to compete for the trophy in 1977. Both Division Three clubs had made it into the far reaches of the fifth round and along the way Port Vale had claimed the scalps ofDivision Two sides Hull City in the third round, and Burnley in the fourth round, before meeting with a 3-0 defeat to Division One high-fliers Aston Villa. Chester had themselves overcome Division Two’s Luton Town 1-0 at home in the fourth round, before succumbing to a narrow 1-0 defeat in the fifth round to a Wolverhampton Wanderers side who were on their way to the Division Two title. Initially it looked as if it may be Port Vale who would get a little something for their trophy cabinet to go with their FA cup memories, inflicting a 2-0 defeat on Chester at Vale Park. Chester however, turned things around by winning 4-1 at Sealand Road to make it 4-3 on aggregate and become the first winners of the Debenhams Cup.
Whatever these two sides had achieved in the FA Cup however, paled into insignificance when it came to the cup run of the following seasons Debenhams Cup contenders Blyth Spartans. The Northern League club’s 1977/78 cup run remains one of the most remarkable of the post-war, or indeed any, era and is a shining example of cup football at its very best. It is a tale – saga even – involving skill, determination, luck and ultimately a dose of injustice thanks to a wobbly corner flag and some questionable refereeing.
As with all such cup runs things began almost unnoticed in the well-below-radar was the first occasion in England where a penalty shoot-out was used to decide the outcome of a tied match early qualifying rounds. It was in these depths of what some would later term ‘the real FA Cup’ that Blyth defeated four local sides to win through to the first round proper. There they met with another non-league side Burscough, seeing them off with a 1-0 victory. Blyth then went on to collect their first league scalp in the second round with a 1-0 win over Third Division Chesterfield. Blyth were then drawn against fellow non-leaguers Enfield in the third round however, despite having home advantage Blyth were struggling with an injury crisis and were lucky to ride the early pressure before a sending off reduced their opponents to 10 men and Blyth scraped past with a headed goal just 13 minutes from time.
A return to league opposition then came in the fourth round as Blyth drew Division Two Stoke, away at the Victoria ground. Already the club had achieved much and progression to the fifth round would make Blyth only the third non-league side in the previous 50 years to make it to that stage. At half time Blyth were in the lead, gifted when the Stoke goalkeeper failed to deal with an incoming ball leaving Blythe’s centre-forward Terry Jones with the goal at his mercy. Stoke however, staged a come-back in the second half and by sixty minutes had nudged into the lead thanks to a diving header.
With Blyth visibly flagging it appeared that the order of things had been restored and it would be the league club who would be on their way to the next round, but with just ten minutes to go Blythe grabbed an improbable – and more than a little comical –equaliser when Blyth’s Ron Guthrie saw his powerful free kick deflect off the wall, strike the right hand post, get headed against the opposite post then finally come to rest at the feet of Steve Carney who applied the finish from close range. The stage was thereforeset for a fairy-tale finish. This duly came with justseconds left Terry Johnson picked up the ball from another Blyth free kick to score the winner and etch a new and compelling episode into the sagas of the giant-killers.
Although the fifth-round draw with Division Three Wrexham may not have been a glamour tie the luck of the draw had provided Blyth with a match-up with a side whose giant killing exploits in the tournament were at least equal to their own. In both previous rounds Wrexham – a side which featured Welsh internationals – had swept aside Division One opponents, demolishing first Bristol City 3-0 in a third round replay, and then Newcastle United 4-1 in a fourth round replay.
Blyth took around 4,000 supporters to the game who formed part of a crowd just under 20,000 strong at Wrexham’s Racecourse Ground. For a time it seemed that Blyth would succeed where both Bristol City and Newcastle had failed and the Spartans led at the half-time break having earlier taken advantage of an under-hit back pass to take the lead on 11 minutes. Much of the rest of the game saw Wrexham laying siege to the visitors with Dave Clarke in the Blyth goal under constant pressure. The non-leaguers however,managed to hold on and with just a few minutes to go looked as if they would be making FA Cup history.
Sadly it was not to be. With just minutes left Wrexham equalised and in the process went from being the plucky giant-killers of the last two rounds to being the contests ultimate party poopers. Ken Sproat recalled the moment the dream faded in issue 218 of the magazine When Saturday Comes in 2005:
Frustrating Wrexham, the semi-pros scrapped it out. With the end in sight, another home attack floundered against green-socked shins. Although the ball had clearly gone behind via a Wrexham player’s foot, referee Alf Grey gave a corner. To give himself more room, mid¬fielder Les Cartwright moved the corner flag so that it stood at an angle. As Clarke in the Blyth goal collected comfortably, Grey noticed the flag had fallen completely over. He ordered a retake and the flag was balanced into its frozen hole for Cartwright to swing the corner over again. Once more the defence repelled the threat but, incredibly, the flag had fallen over again. Another retake. This time the arc of the cross caught out the Blyth defence and Dixie McNeil managed to force it over the line at the back post. It was the final minute.
There was of course still a replay. Thanks to pressure from the police, who realised that demand to see the game would be far higher than Blyth’s Croft Park, ground could cope with the game was to be played be at Newcastle’s St. James Park. They were not wrong too, the 42,157 who turned up for the game was the biggest crowd that St. James’s had seen all season and was reportedly double the number who had come to watch Newcastle in the league the previous Saturday. Goodall’s FA Cup Non-League Giant-Killers Annual describes the game as being “a hard fought encounter with cut and thrust on both sides.” It was one however, which Wrexham just edged, winning 2-1. Both Wrexham goals came in the first half; the first on 11 minutes after referee Alf Grey awarded a hotly disputed penalty against Blyth’s Ronnie Scott for pushing and the second a volley from Dixie McNeil – who had up to this point scored a goal in every round of the cup. With the crowd behind them Blyth managed to pull a goal back late in the second half, but Wrexham resisted the pressure from both Blyth and the partisan crowd to hold on for a victory and the chance to play Arsenal in the quarter finals.
Returning to their role as underdogs Wrexham staged a plucky performance against Arsenal in the quarter finals, going down 3-2. Among the scorers was, onceagain, Dixie McNeil. This was not though quite the end of the story for Wrexham and Blyth; As the two sides were indeed the clubs from the first round who had got furthest in the cup they would therefore contest the Debenhams cup against each other.
After their earlier battles at the Racecourse Ground and St James’s Park the Debenhams Cup was always going to be something of an anti-climax, but nonetheless it provided the Northern League side with the opportunity to avenge what many must have felt to have been something of an injustice. The Blyth cause was helped as Wrexham’s Welsh internationals would be unavailable and the Spartans had reportedly turned down the Welsh sides request to have the game postponed until the start of the new season.
The first leg took place on the 13th May 1978 at The Racecourse ground in front of a crowd which sources put as being in the region of 2,300. In this game Blyth emerged 2-1 winners with goals from Terry Johnson and Dave Varty. It was perhaps the scent of revenge in the air which attracted a crowd in excess of 5,300 to the Spartan’s Croft Park – the biggest crowd enjoyed in the competition. After 20 minutes the crowd was treated to first blood, Dave Varty scoring for Blyth with a header just under the bar after a chip from Keith Houghton. Wrexham themselves got on the scoresheet in the second half to set up a tense finish, but Blyth held on this time and finally got the better of the club which had that season been crowned Third Division champions.
Both the Debenhams Cup and the Watney Cup lasted only as long as the sponsorship deals and subsequently disappeared as soon as these had run their course, after two years for the Debenhams Cup and four years for the Watney Cup. As for the fate of the trophies: In the case of the Debenhams Cup at least one online source claims that its whereabouts are unknown, with attempts by Blyth to locate it for its 1999 centenary exhibition drawing a blank – perhaps it like the Burnley Hospital Cup it is residing, forgotten, in a sack in a bank-vault, awaiting it’s future discovery, or it may turn up in twenty years from now when a former department store is torn down. Whatever the case may be, perhaps the reappearance of the trophy may lead to the resurrection of the tournament, but for the present time the thought of a contest such as the Debenhams cup is almost unthinkable.
The competitions can all however, claim to have left some sort of lasting legacy. Each one proved that cup football offers excellent space for innovation – the self-contained contests the perfect laboratories to test new ideas; Changes in the awarding of points, off-side rules, number of substitutes on the bench and penalty-kicks to name a few. These may not all have been carried forward, but some at least would find themselves, in time, becoming familiar features of the game. Perhaps the most significant legacy of the cup competitions of the 1970s though is the bridge they opened between football and commerce. For participating clubs – and governing bodies sponsorship offered a valuable income. The Texaco cup alone came with a £100,000 sponsorship package, while in the Debenhams Cup, a single tie played over two legs, one at each clubs ground, the participants could expect prize money of £7,000 and £5,000 for the winners and runners-up respectively while the governing body also reaped the reward of the £8,000the firm provided to the FA, earmarked specifically for youth football.
Whilst such commercial sponsorship is taken for granted today it is necessary to remember that in the 1970s the relationship was very different. In 1976 Kettering Town became the first senior English club to even sport a sponsor’s name on a shirt and the official response to this was less than favourable with the club promptly ordered to remove the offending logo by the Football Association. It was in this environment that cup football proved useful as a way of tentatively developing the relationship between sport and commerce. In a column simply entitled ‘Sponsorship’ in the programme for the 1970 Watney Cup final between Derby County and Manchester United Football League Secretary Alan Hardaker hails the role of the Watney Cup in opening up this new dialogue between football and commerce:
Watney Mann Limited have shown the way to industry in general and The League have taken the initiative to demonstrate to football authorities that there can be mutual co-operation on both sides without any loss of dignity to either party. Since details of the Watney Cup were announced there have been other approaches which have been engendered by a desire to use football for industry’s own ends. Not surprisingly, The League have refused to entertain any of these suggestions.
It is worth repeating what I have stated before: responsible sponsorship can become one of football’s major developments over the next decade in which case Watneys will have provided the lead for mutual co-operation between The Football League and industry in general.
Meanwhile in the two major domestic cup tournaments, the FA Cup and The League Cup, there was much to cheer about in the 1970s. The League Cup had at the start of the decade attained a new respectability whilst the FA Cup for its part continued to be an imperious presence on the national football landscape. With the single exception of the 1970 League Cup final both tournaments drew six figure crowds to Wembley for their respective finals throughout the decade and the FA Cup served up spectacles which only added to the tournaments already impressive mythological cannon, from Blyth’s plucky run to the ‘five minute final’ of 1979; The five minute final had been the last FA Cup final of the decade, between Manchester United and Arsenal and has become famous for what was perhaps the most dramatic and thrilling five minutes of football ever played. Leading 2-0 through two first half goals a Liam Brady inspired Arsenal looked to be heading for a sure victory with just five minutes to go however, the stakes were dramatically raised with two late Manchester United goals; The first from Gordon McQueen appeared to be little more than a consolation before Sammy McIlroy, scored after a mazy run, levelling the game. The game was decided only in the final few seconds when Alan Sunderland slid in the winner to claim the cup for the Gunners.
This high drama was the perfect way to end a decade where cups had played such a key role within football. Behind this however, there were troubling signs. Behind the veneer and the legend Wembley stadium was, like a great deal of footballs bricks-and-mortar, ageing. Matchday attendances were declining in both the league and the League Cup, whilst hooliganism and crowd trouble – not just confined to the Anglo-Italian Cup – was becoming an increasing problem. Many of these issues would come to a head in the 1980s in what would be for cup football, and football in general, a very different era.
Row Z 