8 things that sum up football in the 70’s
The 1970’s were a real changing time on and off the field.
On 15th February 1971, Britain ‘went decimal’ with shillings and old pennies becoming a thing of the past.
Glam Rock made its way onto the music scene, bands such as T-Rex, Sweet and Mott the Hoople made their way to the top of the charts.
Margaret Thatcher became the last Prime Minister of the decade in 1979, becoming the first female Prime Minister in the process.
Football was also changing rapidly over the course of the decade. Violence became a regular problem on the terraces and the players were becoming more celebrity figures than ever before.
I have listed below 8 things that I think sum up football in this decade:
High tackles
Watchng old footage of some tackles in the 70’s are enough to make you wince.
What is almost as shocking as the challenges is seeing the players getting back up and carrying on with the game. It makes you wonder what today’s players would do, especially as they dive and roll about at the faintest of contact!
‘Dirty’ Leeds
This ties in well with the previous point as Leeds gained the title of ‘Dirty Leeds’ because of their tough challenges during the 70’s.
Under Don Revie in the first few years of the decade, players such s Peter Lorimer, Billy Bremner and Joe Hordon would regularly hack opponents to the floor. They were also involved in several punch ups too!
Leeds were involved in the dirtiest of FA Cup Finals of all-time in the 1970 replay against Chelsea. Amazingly, only one player was booked in the whole game and Hugh McIlvanney wrote in the Observer “At times it appeared that Mr Jennings (the referee) would give a free-kick only on production of a death certificate”.
David Elleray, a leading referee from the 1990’s watched a video of the game a few years ago and said that if he was in charge then he would have given out 20 yellow cards and 6 reds!
England failing to qualify for both the 1974 and 1978 World Cup
Who would have known that when the final whistle blew against West Germany in the 1970 World Cup in Mexico that it would be another 12 years until England would play in the World Cup?
When Poland came and drew 1-1 at Wembley in October ’73 in one of the most one-sided games ever seen, it meant that England didn’t qualify for the 1974 World Cup in West Germany. This was the first World Cup that England missed out on for the for the first time that they had tried to qualify for.
The 1978 World Cup was going to be hosted in Argentina and England were in a qualifying group with Italy, Finland and Luxembourg. Yet again they came unstuck in the qualifiers and missed out on goal difference to the Italians.
Not qualifying for either tournament meant that several big-name players missed out on performing on the biggest stage in World football. We will always be left wondering what would have happened with the likes to Alan Hudson, Charlie George and Stan Bowles playing for England in the World Cup.
Introduction of pundits
When The Big Match on ITV covered the 1970 World Cup, they introduced a brand new concept to football broadcasting – football pundits.
Bob McNab, Paddy Crerand, Derek Dougan and Malcolm Allison, appeared as guest experts on a panel of pundits, delivering their opinions on the games. It was a novel approach and ground-breaking at the time. Brian Moore hosted proceedings from the ITV studio in London and would ask the panel for their thoughts and opinions on the games shown. It was a great success and is now completely normal on matchday coverage but at the time it was seen as a novelty.
Mavericks
Rodney Marsh, Frank Worthington, Alan Hudson, George Best, Charlie George, Robin Friday and Stan Bowles. Those are seven mavericks of the ‘70s and there were definitely more. Each of these players were skilful, long-haired and had talent in abundance but all had their flaws that stopped them from being world-class. The majority of these players were big drinkers, gamblers and womanisers and this lethal combination would hamper their playing ability and anger their managers. George Best once said “I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered”. Stan Bowles came up with the quote “I blew the lot on vodka and tonic, gambling and fags. Looking back, I think I overdid it on the tonic.” . These two quotes pretty much sum up the maverick football lifestyle in the 1970’s!
The emergence of Liverpool
Bill Shankly had taken over at Anfield towards the end of 1959 and had slowly started building Liverpool up to become the finest team in the land. An FA Cup win in 1965 having won the Second Division in 1962 as gaining promotion to the First Division. These two trophies were a sign of things to come from the Anfield club.
Liverpool reached the FA Cup Final in 1971 before losing 2-1 after extra time to Arsenal. Two years later they won their first League title and a year later won the FA Cup, beating Newcastle United 3-0. Shankly then shocked the football world by resigning. Bob Paisley took over the reins and Liverpool would win a further 3 league titles, 2 European Cups, 2 UEFA Cups and an FA Cup in the 1970’s!
No adverts on shirts
One thing that looks completely alien if you compare today’s game with that of the 1970’s is the complete lack of sponsorship on the team’s shirts. These days the kits are covered in sponsors with every inch of the shirt not being safe from company logo. England signed a deal with Admiral in 197X and that meant that there was only a small logo on their shirts. Kettering Town became the first team to pioneer shirt advertising but it wasn’t until the 1980’s when shirt advertising really took off.
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