8 things that sum up football in the 80’s
The 1980’s was a bad time to be a football fan. Crowds had dropped to an all-time low, fighting between rival fans was becoming an all too frequent occurrence and the grounds were dated and falling apart.
There were a few disasters over the course of the 80’s which changed football forever. A fire took 56 lives at Bradford City’s ground and a few days later 39 fans lost their lives at the European Cup Final between Liverpool and Juventus in 1985 at the Heysel Stadium in Belgium.
As a result of the Bradford fire, numerous clubs had to knock down and replace wooden stands at their grounds. All English clubs were banned for six years as a result of the the Heysel Stadium disaster and Liverpool were given a ban for seven years.
In 1989, 96 Liverpool fans lost their lives at Hillsborough in the FA Cup Semi Final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest. Poor crowd control by South Yorkshire Police and fencing at the front of the terrace caused the disaster.
After a lengthy inquiry into the Hillsborough Disaster, all clubs in the top two divisions had to have all-seater stadiums by 1994. The 1980’s really was football’s darkest time.
I feel that this background information needs to be included to give a sense of perspective of football in the 80’s. Here is my list of things that best sum up football in this decade.
Mullets
Hairstyles were very questionable back in the 80’s and looking back now, many if not all the players who had mullets probably question why they had one!
Chris Waddle and Glenn Hoddle were both team mates and appeared together on Top of the Pops singing ‘Diamond Lights’. The song reached number 12 but they fitted in well with the pop stars of the time with their flamboyant hairstyles!
Other players with mullets at the time were Charlie Nicholas, Gerry Francis, Rudi Voller and most of the West Germany team!
Short shorts
Looking back now, these were just awful! Some of the shorts worn in the 1980’s are smaller than men’s underwear today!
If a player didn’t tuck his shirt into his shorts, sometimes his shorts would disappear from sight altogether! He would look as if he was wearing a dress! It is for the best that these fashion disasters were left back in the past!
Plastic pitches
Queens Park Rangers were the first club in England to have a plastic pitch put in and that was back in 1981. It lasted a whole 7 years before it was ripped up and grass returned to Loftus Road.
Peter Hucker, QPR’s goalkeeper during that era said this of the pitch in a previous interview on this blog:
” It was extremely painful. Basically the pitch was like a thin carpet on concrete. The burns were the worst. As a goalkeeper there was no way you could play without tracksuit bottoms and you would go through a pair every couple of games!”
Other clubs to put down a plastic pitch were Luton Town, Oldham Athletic and Preston North End who finally reverted back to grass in 1994.
In recent times, a new 3G surface has started to be used by various non-league clubs but they are not allowed in the Football League as yet.
Trouble on the terraces
This is something that has thankfully all but disappeared from today’s stadiums but it used to happen at most grounds across the country at nearly every game.
Chelsea chairman Ken Bates even suggested electric fences be put up at grounds across the country to prevent crowd trouble. Luckily the FA had enough sense to refuse the suggestion. The video above shows the fences being put up but were rapidly removed soon after!
Moustachioed players
Following on from my Moustache XI article on 23rd October, there were definitely a lot of players who had moustaches back in the 1980s!
I don’t think we will see them returning anytime soon, especially back in Liverpool where their players advertise Nivea Moisturiser!
Liverpool winning everything!
These glory days may well be returning to Anfield very soon. Having won the Champions League last season and reaching the final the season in 2018, they also lead the Premier League by 8 points and have gone 31 league games unbeaten.
Long unbeaten runs and trophies were the norm for Liverpool fans in the ’80s and their honours list for the decade is quite incredible:
6 league titles, 2 FA Cups, 4 League Cups (in a row!), 5 Charity Shields and 2 European Cups
Terracing
Throughout the 80’s you could turn up on the day as a fan, pay on the gate and watch top-flight football from the terraces.
The terraces may have offered poor viewing for many and the terraces were often crumbling and the facilities were poor at best. But fans still look back and want them back.
Football stadia in 2019 is incomparable in contrast to the 1980’s. Nowadays you are treated to a comfortable seat, a perfect view of the pitch and excellent facilities.
Safer standing is also slowly being introduced back into the game but we are a long way off seeing large standing areas being introduced in the top flight.
Regular England vs Scotland matches
Crowd trouble caused an end to annual matches between the Auld Enemy with the last of the Rous Cup clashes in 1989.
The next match between the two countries was seven years later in the 1996 European Championships at Wembley. Six further games between the two have occurred since Euro ’96, four of them qualifiers for major tournaments and two friendlies. Fans are calling for an annual match between international football’s oldest rivals but nothing has been set in stone as yet.
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