After making a number of curious choices for winner of ‘Footballer of The Year‘ during the 1960s, the Football Writers Association (FWA), made more obvious selections during the decade that followed – conservative, perhaps a better description, given the UK elected a Tory government in the first and final year of the 1970s.
Of the ten winners between 1960 and 1969 only one, Danny Blanchflower (Spurs, 1961) featured in a title-winning team the season he collected the award – but in the 70s that increased to five, the last four players to win all playing for the league champions of that year.
Despite a number of predictable picks, the voters still managed to fly in the face of expectations with a one strange, somewhat nostalgic choice – in television terms think Jack Warner winning a mid-70s BAFTA – although two winning goalkeepers dispelled a belief the position was routinely overlooked when it came to bestowing the honour.
In 1972 Manchester City manager Malcolm Allison described English football as the best it had been since the war – his assertion no doubt based on the fact gifted individuals such as Rodney Marsh, Charlie George, Alan Hudson, Tony Currie and Frank Worthington (joined later in the decade by Stan Bowles), were illuminating Saturday afternoons on a weekly basis.
The FWA however, like the England managers’ many scribes were lambasting on the back pages, appear no more convinced by the merits of the maverick than either Sir Alf Ramsey or Don Revie. Both presided over failures of the national team to qualify for the final stages of international competitions – the paradox being as England floundered, the free-spirits flourished.
Indeed, in an era of Bowie and Bolan, those shaping the game either on the training pitch or press box, missed a trick in not putting more trust in these footballing tricksters.
But while the temptation is always there to become misty-eyed over a mazy dribble by Marsh or trademark slide-rule pass from Currie, the simple truth is that with the notable exception of George, a 1971 double winner with Arsenal, none of the ‘hair/flair’ bunch were part of a league title winning team.
Marsh had a near miss with Manchester City under Allison in 1972 – but was subsequently blamed in some quarters for destabilising the side after being signed from QPR two months before the end of the season.
The notion of say Hudson or Currie being incorporated into a Liverpool or Leeds side of the early-70s, then like now, seems as unlikely as a member of Monty Python joining Morecombe and Wise – the two clubs having tried and tested methods in terms of solo skills, the individual talents of say Steve Heighway or Eddie Gray being a dimension of the team rather than main component.
That said, it begs the question had Currie been with Leeds in 1973 would they have won the two cup finals that were lost? By the same token, might Liverpool have won the title in 1975 with Hudson in the side?
Anyway, with the renegades out of the running, the stage was clear for winners of a less flamboyant, more orthodox nature.
Which is not to decry those who did win. In many cases the recipient delivered a level of consistent excellence, a key contributor to the overall achievements of the team that even in the 70s was not to be sniffed at. More attuned, perhaps, to the true purpose of the award.
Equating football teams to rock bands, Charlie Watts or John Entwistle were having a moment in the spotlight, rather than Jagger or Townshend.
One final glance at the list also reveals the power-shift taking place in English football during the 1970s.
After six seasons where the winner comes from a different club, Liverpool produce three of the last four and added to an earlier success for Ian Callaghan account for almost half the names. The pattern established, from 1974 onward they would have 10 of the next seventeen winners.
After Bobby Charlton and George Best both won in the 1960s, there was no Manchester United representation and although Leeds and Spurs managed to produce a top individual in each decade, there is a strong sense from the 1970s winners’ list that Stoke City, Fulham and Nottingham Forest had produced their last ‘Footballer of The Year‘ winner for a very long time…………………
THE FOOTBALLER OF THE YEAR – 1970-79:
1970 – BILLY BREMNER (Leeds United): When April dawned Leeds were in the market for winning the European Cup, FA Cup and retaining the League title, but when the month ended they had drawn a blank on all three – consolation for their talisman Scottish skipper coming in the form of being named ‘Footballer of The Year.’
The third Leeds’ winner in six seasons, his drive and dynamism kept their competitive instincts at full capacity, Bremner at the head of a field sure to have included Chelsea FA Cup winner Peter Osgood and Colin Bell with his two trophies for Manchester City. Everton title-winners Alan Ball and Brian Labone would also have secured votes.
1971 – FRANK McLINTOCK (Arsenal): As captain of the ‘double-winners’ it is hard to make a case for anyone beyond the Arsenal skipper – and if there was competition more likely than not it would have come from inside Highbury, goalkeeper Bob Wilson and the flamboyant George both playing a significant role in each triumph.
1972 – GORDON BANKS (Stoke City): The first goalkeeper to win since Bert Trautmann in 1956, Banks pulled out all the stops, so to speak, as in winning the League Cup The Potters finally won a major honour. Six years on from being a World Cup winner, his sterling form for club and country showed no sign of being on the wane – the same also said of Spurs UEFA Cup winner Martin Peters.
Defenders Roy McFarland and Colin Todd also made their mark, as under Brian Clough Derby prevailed in the tightest on title races. By way of sad irony, Banks was the reigning ‘Footballer of The Year‘ when an eye injury sustained in a car crash ended his career in October 1972.
1973 – PAT JENNINGS (Spurs): No goalkeeper winners for sixteen years, then like buses two come along at once. If many considered Banks the best in the land, the rest argued for Jennings, 1972-73 just another season of routine distinction – his cause was helped by Spurs winning the League Cup and by saving two penalties at Anfield as Liverpool closed in on the title.
Both players he denied from the penalty spot, Tommy Smith and Kevin Keegan, along with skipper Emlyn Hughes, would also have featured in the polling as The Kop acclaimed its first championship since 1966.
1974 – IAN CALLAGHAN (Liverpool): In some ways an unlikely winner, but in others a player who could be considered a contender every season, such was his peerless consistency.
Already 14 years into a Liverpool career that so far had amassed three league title triumphs, a UEFA Cup winners medal and being a member of the World Cup winning England squad – a second FA Cup success following within weeks of his individual recognition.
Just as Liverpool had chased Leeds in the league, so Callaghan would have had to withstand a strong challenge from a number of Elland Road title-winners.
1975 – ALAN MULLERY (Fulham): The most peculiar season of the decade was reflected in this strange choice, the Football Writers’ appearing to cast their votes for sentimental rather than substantive reasons.
Through the mid-60s/early-70s as captain of Spurs, Mullery had been one of the most effective midfielders on the circuit – but was now plying his trade at second division Fulham, who in fairness he had led to the FA Cup Final.
Even so McFarland and Todd, backbone of another Derby title win, could feel aggrieved at being overlooked – while for his sublime display in the Wembley defeat of World Champions West Germany, Hudson did enough to top the voting, irrespective of some sparkling displays for Stoke.
1976 – KEVIN KEEGAN (Liverpool): And so it begins. With their first league championship under Bob Paisley, thus began domination not only of domestic football (and soon to be European) but near monopolisation of ‘Footballer of The Year‘ – the ebullient Kevin Keegan this years’ winning model.
But it might have been all so different had QPR not fallen tantalisingly short in the title shake-up – glittering displays from Bowles and skipper Gerry Francis worthy of taking the individual award to W12.
1977 – EMLYN HUGHES (Liverpool): ‘No Elvis, Beatles or the Rolling Stones‘ sang The Clash (‘1977‘) in year zero of punk rock, but in football terms it was, in effect, status quo – and although Keegan, Ray Kennedy, Ray Clemence and Terry McDermott could all have been named without bat of an eye-lid, in retaining the league title and then lifting their first European Cup, skipper Emlyn Hughes understandably topped the poll.
Developing into the most formidable force seen in English football for a generation – the first team since Wolves in the late-50s to retain the championship – it was becoming a case of perm (no pun intended with regard to a hairstyle sported by several of the side) anyone from six for ‘Footballer of The Year.’ It wasn’t like they had anything to fear from the likes of newly-promoted Nottingham Forest for example………………
1978 – KENNY BURNS (Nottingham Forest): Suffice to say few, Liverpool included, saw this coming. Converted by Clough and assistant Peter Taylor into a defender after being bought as a striker, Scottish centre-back Burns was one of three signings added to their promotion side, (Archie Gemmill and goalkeeper Peter Shilton being the others) as Forest hit the front early – the unthinkable becoming reality some way from the finish line.
Any one of Gemmill, Shilton, winger John Robertson or striker Tony Woodcock could have made off with the prize, Burns the pick of a hardy bunch who showed admirable application in landing Clough his second league title of the decade – picking up the League Cup along the way.
At Liverpool their front-line performers had to be content with another European Cup – the goal taking the trophy back to Anfield scored by Kenny Dalglish, whose impact on being signed from Celtic was immediate.
1979 – KENNY DALGLISH (Liverpool): In a title race that was more showjumping than a steeplechase, Liverpool hit the reset button to dominate on the home front – Dalglish feted for his brilliant all-round game and penalty box instincts not seen since the heyday of Law and Greaves.
As for a challenger the best case could be made for Shilton, whose Anfield heroics in an early round continued thereafter as Forest advanced to the first of successive European Cup triumphs.
With their choices of ‘Footballer of The Year‘ during the 70s, the Football Writers Association reveal themselves a staid, almost reactionary group, their thinking more Beatles than Buzzcocks, ‘Dixon of Dock Green‘ than ‘The Sweeney‘ – the first six winners of the decade, Bremner, McLintock, Banks, Jennings, Callaghan, Mullery (Hughes later making a seventh) all being players who initially made their mark during the 60s.
Given their conventional thinking when casting votes, the FWA seem reluctant to acknowledge the 70s has begun, Kevin Keegan (1976) the first definitive representative of the new decade to win.
For a student of football and rock music trends, the timing could not have been more ironic – the 70s beginning the same year for a swathe of UK teenagers on hearing the Sex Pistols swear at Bill Grundy……………
This article was first published on 18/12/2020;
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