It is impossible to say with any certainty at a distance of fifty years whether there was higher than normal expectation among football followers as the 1973-74 season approached – although evidence to the fact does suggest heightened anticipation.
True, on looking around familiarity was to be found everywhere as revered managers Don Revie (Leeds United), Bill Shankly (Liverpool), Bill Nicholson (Spurs), Brian Clough (Derby County), along with Sir Alf at international level were all in the jobs that had defined them – but second division Sunderland upsetting the odds to win the FA Cup a few months before had reintroduced an ‘anything is possible‘ dimension back into the domestic game.
It was still outlandish to think anytime soon Carlisle United would reach Division One, Fulham the FA Cup Final or something so extreme as Nottingham Forest becoming league and then European champions, yet the Wearsiders’ shock Wembley triumph had at least brought back the concept of dreaming big.
For some higher up the football food chain aspiration needed to become actual success for a welter of clubs who, for various reasons, needed something tangible in the form of a trophy to either forge or further their status among the elite.
Since the turn of the decade, Wolves, Newcastle United, Ipswich Town and West Ham United had won plaudits but not an actual prize, while three years had quickly passed since Everton or Manchester City last saw silverware – Chelsea and Arsenal suddenly two seasons down the road from their last honour.
Through the season ahead strong title challenges could be expected from champions Liverpool (the championship not retained since Wolves managed back-to-back success in the late-50s), perennial chasers Leeds and Derby – who under the outspoken auspices of Clough also warranted being taken seriously.
With a trophy paraded at White Hart Lane in each of the past three seasons Spurs were always a good cup bet, their recent record in complete contrast to the ongoing conundrum that was Manchester United.
Struck in a barren spell now in danger of becoming a drought, those who thronged the Stretford End since the European Cup triumph of 1968 had become embroiled in a football version of ‘The Long Goodbye‘ as the ’60s faded further into history. The recent departures of Bobby Charlton and Denis Law, with George Best now a wayward or peripheral figure, made memory lane a better place to dwell than Old Trafford in its current form as the mid-70s approached.
The Division One results on the opening day of 1973-74, like any other first day (eleven fixtures all kicking off at 3pm, giving football an inclusive feel, unlike the weekend process of today), as ever spoke volumes and at the same time said nothing.
Yet with hindsight it is clear some results and performances – be they collective or individual – were indicative of the weeks and months to come.
The warm sunshine under which the campaign began (your genial host here at SAMTIMONIOUS.com able to provide first-hand if hazy recollections of being at Molineux), was prelude to a stormy, systemic season, that in England saw giants rather than giant-killers win the FA Cup, a one horse gallop to the title, a relegation that had been on the cards for eighteen months – and failure of the national team to achieve World Cup qualification.
Few would have envisaged that twelve months on from that afternoon in late-August 1973, Revie, Shankly, Clough and Ramsey would all be in different jobs, if in the game at all – and although Nicholson and Dave Sexton (Chelsea) would survive for another year, neither would be in post much after the schools went back in September 1974.
Therefore the opening day fixtures of 1973-74 can be viewed as the beginning of the end and also the end of the beginning of early-70s English football………………
DIVISION ONE – SATURDAY 25 AUGUST 1973:
LIVERPOOL 1 STOKE CITY 0 (52,935)
The biggest crowd of the day gathered on Merseyside where champions Liverpool made a winning start to their defence of the title with a hard-fought victory over Stoke.
Having seen the team he had created over the past couple of seasons return silverware to Anfield for the first time in seven years with a league championship and UEFA Cup double, manager Shankly reverted back to the mid-60s with regard to consistency of selection – eight of those on opening day duty in action when Liverpool would end the season triumphantly under the twin towers of Wembley.
One such performer, winger Steve Heighway, would find the net in the first and last match of the campaign, scoring in the FA Cup Final against Newcastle while also weighing in with the goal that set their season off and running.
ARSENAL 3 MANCHESTER UNITED 0 (51,501)
There was also a 50,000-plus gate at Highbury where the home side, runners-up last time out, entertained Manchester United, now only a big name amongst the also-rans.
During the proceeding week Football League President Len Shipman had called upon the government to issue tougher sentences to those convicted of football-related violence, his comments borne out by a number of unruly incidents at this fixture. It is tempting to suggest the terrace clashes were more evenly contested than what occurred on the pitch – Arsenal ahead in the second minute through Ray Kennedy and never really threatened thereafter.
With eight of the ’71 double side on view (nine including George Graham who lined up for the visitors), the home side also had Alan Ball in their ranks, the World Cup winner directing operations with a drive and purpose that was far too good for poor opposition.
Second half goals from striker John Radford and Ball, who rounded off a fine display by completing the scoring late on, made the score line an accurate representation of proceedings, United inadequate in every department, except that of goalkeeper where Alex Stepney did manage to emerge with some credit.
Curiously, given the team contained so much talent, for Arsenal this would be a highpoint in a campaign where they fell well below recent standards in finishing down the field. But if their season was disjointed, for Manchester United it would be disastrous – suitably so in the wake of this nightmare in N5.
DERBY COUNTY 1 CHELSEA 0 (31,847)
If during the months ahead storm clouds descended upon on Old Trafford, at Derby there were also portents of unsettled weather to come.
On the field they began in tidy style, the John McGovern goal that did for visiting Chelsea, (themselves set for turbulent times), a model of the incisive football Clough had espoused since arriving at the Baseball Ground six years before – the highlight of a journey that began in the lower reaches of Division Two being the league championship winning season of 1971-72.
While his forthright views on those in charge of regulating the game or with a different football philosophy to the one he embraced, endeared Clough to many, those on the receiving end of his barbs were quickly running out of patience. Not least in this category were the Derby board, who with the season less than two months old called his bluff when Clough resigned in a fit of pique.
In the short term the Baseball Ground directors were vindicated as The Rams under Dave Mackay, a former Derby player under Clough, would regain the title inside eighteen months. Yet by the end of the decade he and longtime compadre Peter Taylor had worked a modern-age miracle at Nottingham Forest – the last word invariably going to Brian Howard Clough.
LEEDS UNITED 3 EVERTON 1 (39,325)
In the firing line for many a Clough pot-shot were Leeds United, whose belligerent approach to the game raised his hackles on a number of occasions.
Few doubted they kept an element of skullduggery close to hand, but not to be overlooked was the abundant skill set that ran right through the team – long-serving boss Revie having established a method which had introduced Leeds into the trophy zone and kept them there infinitum.
While two cup finals and customary title bid yielded zip in the way of silverware last season, Leeds began the new one in ominous fashion. Visiting Everton were clinically swept aside with goals from three stalwart performers in skipper Billy Bremner, his midfield partner Johnny Giles and striker Mick Jones, the Toffees replying at the last knockings through Scottish forward Joe Harper.
Here, right from the off, Leeds already have the impetus that would carry them through an unrelenting start that manifested into a twenty nine match unbeaten league run. With everybody else left in their slipstream, the final season of the Revie era produced the second league title of a thirteen year tenure (he would leave to replace Ramsey as England boss in the summer of 1974) and with it came the most consistently attractive football of his Elland Road reign.
From their opening day reversal Everton recovered to finish a creditable seventh, a marked improvement on the previous season and one that would have generated more attention had it not been carried out in the shadow cast from the red side of Stanley Park.
MANCHESTER CITY 3 BIRMINGHAM CITY 1 (34,178)
If Manchester United were now existing in a vacuum of paradise lost, across town neighbours City were looking back to go forward.
When Scottish international Denis Law, the long-anointed ‘King of Old Trafford‘ was given a free transfer by United boss Tommy Docherty, City manager Johnny Hart moved to sign a player they had sold for a then British record fee (£110,000) to Italian club Torino twelve years before. Law subsequently returned to Manchester and joined United – becoming a third of the Holy Trinity along with Charlton and Best who made them so scintillating and successful through the ’60s.
On his return to Maine Road in a City shirt, Law joined a multi-talented outfit who spent much of the previous season flattering to deceive, the campaign descending into confusion when manager Malcolm Allison resigned with seven matches to play in order to take the reins at subsequently relegated Crystal Palace.
The opening day from a (Manchester) City perspective went to script, Law obliging in the role of returning hero by scoring twice as the home side eased to victory, their momentum briefly interrupted by Bob Hatton leveling for the visitors.
On target with the first and third goal (Law would also score their final goal of the campaign in a momentous last day game at Old Trafford), England international Colin Bell restored the lead after Birmingham had drawn level. At the end of the season Law would be selected for the Scotland squad contesting the 1974 World Cup Finals in West Germany, this after another fitful showing from City who reached the League Cup Final but failed to find any consistency in their league form – although having three different managers (Hart, Ron Saunders and Tony Book) through the duration was no recipe for stability.
As for Birmingham they were engaged in a relegation battle from first to virtually last, their top flight status preserved with an unbeaten five match run in the closing straight.
WEST HAM UNITED 1 NEWCASTLE UNITED 2 (28,169)
While both played a brand of attacking football that kept the faithful turning up for more, each of these sides, without silverware since the ’60s, needed a trophy to be recognised as a serious ’70s entity.
That both could contribute to a game, by all accounts, as entertaining as this was a given, the pitch littered with individual talents for whom excellence was commonplace – the most renowned performer on view, Newcastle centre-forward Malcolm Macdonald, netting a second half brace as the visitors rallied to take the points after former St James’ Park favourite Bryan ‘Pop’ Robson had given The Hammers a first half lead.
The season ahead was to prove a strange mix of the familiar and frustrating for both parties. West Ham played in a likeable if error-prone manner dropping in the process from sixth in 1972-73 to the lower reaches – and while ‘Supermac‘ maintained an impressive strike rate, Newcastle reached the FA Cup Final where they failed to do themselves justice and bumped along to a bottom half league finish.
COVENTRY CITY 1 SPURS 0 (25,004)
As a yardstick for the capabilities, or not, of each side, this Highfield Road encounter serves its purpose.
Decided by a first half goal from Sky Blues full-back Mick Coop, Coventry were always a useful proposition on their own patch, exemplified by winning their their first five home games of the season, a sequence that also included victories over Liverpool, Derby and Manchester City.
Spurs on the other hand were a continual mixture of brilliant or baffling. Being excellent one week and exasperating the next put paid to any notion of a title challenge, their best displays in the time ahead reserved for cup competitions.
Had this fixture been a UEFA Cup away-leg fixture (Tottenham going on to reach their second final in three seasons at the end of 1973-74 ) in all probability Nicholson’s side would have gone back to White Hart Lane with a draw to show for their efforts.
QUEENS PARK RANGERS 1 SOUTHAMPTON 1 (18,602)
Hosting its first Division One fixture of the decade – Rangers making a one season top flight stop in 1968-69 – Loftus Road was about to experience the best of times at the start of a memorable four year run.
In the first throes of the expressive football that would raise many an eyebrow over the next few seasons, they secured a draw with a late Don Givens equaliser after England striker Mick Channon, destined to become first division top scorer in a bewildering, ultimately doomed season for the Saints, had struck for the visitors.
While a point was hardly headline grabbing, it was the first Rangers would collect on the road to a laudable eighth-placed finish, making Shepherd’s Bush home to the highest-ranking London club – an achievement they would repeat in each of the next two seasons.
SHEFFIELD UNITED 0 BURNLEY 2 (25,003)
The previous season QPR had been promoted as runners-up to second division champions Burnley – who would make their top flight presence felt to an even greater extent.
Making the relatively short trip to Bramall Lane where Sheffield United were by now a three-season established Division One outfit, Burnley immediately found the form which carried them impressively over the next nine months – a timespan that yielded the sixteen victories that would ultimately secure sixth place (missing a UEFA Cup spot on goal average) and progress to an FA Cup semi-final.
Returning to the top flight after a three year absence they marked the occasion by collecting both points, victory over The Blades ensured through second half goals from midfielders Doug Collins and Martin Dobson – the latter making his England debut before the season was out.
Despite this reversal Sheffield United for the most part continued to acquit themselves well, finishing just below halfway in 1973-74 the calm before the storm of two wildly contrasting seasons that followed.
IPSWICH TOWN 1 LEICESTER CITY 1 (20, 207)
For two sides who would go on to score nearly league 120 goals between them in the term ahead (Ipswich outscoring everyone else in Division One), a low-key draw was a curious way in which to start.
The home side received a helping hand when given the lead by a Malcolm Munro own goal only for Leicester to hit back after the break with a Jon Sammels equaliser.
Although no trophies would go the way of either Portman Road or Filbert Street come the season end, each club could afford themselves a pat on the back when the curtain came down. Both produced positive football on a weekly basis which for Bobby Robson’s Ipswich meant a fourth placed finish and UEFA Cup qualification for the second season running, while Leicester climbed from fifteenth to ninth and reached the last four of the FA Cup along the way.
WOLVES 3 NORWICH CITY 1 (22,744):
While Ipswich continued motoring along in the fast lane, East Anglian neighbours Norwich ran out of first division road – things, literally and metaphorically speaking, crashing down around them from the off.
After a skin of their teeth survival the previous season, a visit to Molineux represented a tough start, free scoring Wolves having just finished fifth while reaching the semi-finals of the League and FA Cup.
It took the home side just eight minutes to find their way back into the goal groove, veteran Northern Ireland international Derek Dougan on hand to score when the visitors were quickly breached. The Canaries regrouped to level before the break but Bill McGarry’s side continued to dominate, the lead restored in unconventional circumstances just after the break. In racing back toward his line in attempting to thwart a Dougan lob, Norwich ‘keeper Kevin Keelan collided with a post, the impact bringing down the crossbar at the North Bank end.
There were celebrations, confusion, reconstruction work, (on the woodwork as well as the prostrate goalkeeper), the sight of him being declared fit enough to continue greeted with generous applause – although quickly drowned out by loud cheering when it became clear the goal had been awarded.
With seven minutes left Jim McCalliog netted to put the issue beyond doubt, Wolves inflicting on Norwich the first of twenty defeats they would suffer in finishing bottom. Five months later City returned to Molineux for a second-leg League Cup semi-final when a John Richards goal saw the home side through to Wembley.
The prolific Richards went on to score decisively in the final, his winner securing a 2-1 victory over Manchester City – and while a season of mixed fortunes in the league, Wolves lifted their first trophy in fourteen years.
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NEIL SAMBROOK is the author of ‘MONTY’S DOUBLE‘ – an acclaimed thriller available as an Amazon Kindle book and now in paperback.
