http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2008/nov/27/scott-murray-85-86-football-season
The forgotten story of ... the 1985-86 First Division season
In the first installment of our new feature examining sport's forgotten stories, we look at the mid-80s season when football leapt from the doldrums with a campaign full of absorbing twists and turns
The denouement of the 1984-85 season would be the pitiful nadir of English football: Millwall fans setting about the police at Kenilworth Road, a young lad killed after skirmishes between Birmingham City and Leeds United fans, 56 dead as a result of entrenched regulatory failings at Bradford, another 39 victims in the riot at Heysel. Throw the crippling financial implications of the resulting Uefa ban on English clubs and all-time low attendances into a depressing mix, and it's easy to see why there were serious concerns over football's ability to maintain its position as the country's No1 sport. Or indeed — the climate was this bleak — continue as a spectator pastime at all.
Eighties football in general gets a bad press to this day — and no wonder, as hooliganism would continue to blight the game for pretty much the entire decade, while at Hillsborough another entire city would be forever scarred by the myriad failings of those supposedly in control — so it's understandably easy to forget the odd bright point. But the 1985-86 First Division was one, and it came at exactly the right time. It was going to take something special to rescue football from the doldrums in 1985. And something special — on occasions frankly surreal in its ability to surprise and entertain at every turn — was exactly what we got.
FA Cup holders Manchester United came flying out of the blocks, winning their opening fixture against Aston Villa 4-0, then going on to win the following nine games as well, running three goals past Nottingham Forest, Newcastle, Oxford and Manchester City, scoring five at West Brom, and winning at Arsenal. United had gone 19 seasons without a league title and having started the season with 10 straight wins, a run that took them nine points clear of Liverpool and 13 points ahead of champions Everton (who had romped the 1984-85 campaign in imperious style), looked odds-on to end that sorry run.
But Ron Atkinson's side would stagger and fall, almost as though there was a trollying booze culture at the club. After going the first 15 games of the campaign unbeaten, they went on to lose 10 of their remaining 27. Bryan Robson's hamstring problem was a major factor, but then so was the fact that half the team were so lightweight they only bothered the scales after a particularly heavy shower of Mancunian rain. It's also worth noting that some of the teams played in that 10-in-a-row run were none too clever: West Brom and Ipswich would go down, Villa and City were heading that way the season after, and Arsenal were a total shambles under Don Howe.
Doubly annoying for United fans all across the country was the fact they couldn't see the games on TV while the going was good. Club chairmen had, preposterously, decided this was exactly the time to get bolshy with the BBC and ITV over the £17m the broadcasters had offered for the televised rights. They somehow, however, failed to recognise that not only was English football at its lowest ebb, the BBC and ITV operated as a cartel, and satellite television had yet to establish itself in the country. A ludicrous stand-off followed, which saw the game off the screens until the new year, when a compromise deal was reached. Still, Manchester United's armchair contingent would at least be able to witness one of the defining images of the season live on television in March: Bryan Robson's shoulder falling from its moorings at West Ham, a stark symbol of their crumbling season. Sometimes life just isn't fair, is it?
The TV stand-off also robbed viewers of West Ham United's blistering start to the season. The then practically unknown Frank McAvennie had joined the Hammers in the summer from St Mirren, and set about First Division defences with the sort of relish he would later reserve for Special Powder, booze, women and Special Powder. Leading the goalscoring charts, with his strike partner Tony Cottee not too far behind him, Macca was invited onto Wogan, Denis Law trotting alongside him as a nation put a face to the name. By the end of the year, John Lyall's side were four points off the top of the table. They would remain in the race until the last week of the season, before running out of steam.
Chelsea were second at the turn of the year, two points behind Manchester United. John Hollins' stint in charge at Stamford Bridge would go disastrously wrong in time, but six months into the job he looked like the new Ted Drake; Kerry Dixon and David Speedie were the only strike partnership to rival the one at West Ham and bothering goalkeepers for amusement. They would still be in the title race in mid-March: a 1-0 win at Southampton put them four behind leaders Everton with two games in hand. They had to, however, play the final of the new-fangled Full Members Cup against Manchester City the very next day. They won 5-4 — "If football is dying, I hope it's dying like that," said Hollins after the game — but they would only pick up nine points from the last 33. The fixture list surely conspired against Chelsea, though whether that fully explains away their two subsequent results after the FMC final — a 4-0 home reverse by West Ham and a 6-0 shellacking at QPR — is a moot point.
It was a whirlwind of nonsense alright. But as ever in the 80s, it was always going to be about Merseyside. Yet even this was strange. Liverpool were very much in transition, the team still to properly recover from the loss of Graeme Souness in 1984 to Sampdoria. Everton meanwhile had the best side in their history. The reigning champions, who had added Gary Lineker to the mix, had started sluggishly, but by February 22 — when they steamrollered Liverpool 2-0 at Anfield to go three clear of Manchester United with a game in hand, and eight clear of their arch-rivals — the league looked sewn up.
But no. While the 1985-86 Liverpool team was hardly a vintage one, their response to that defeat was frankly ludicrous. Their very next game was away at Tottenham, and after three minutes Bruce Grobbelaar practically threw one into his own net (no jokes, please). But Jan Molby equalised from long range midway through the second half, before Ian Rush scored a brilliant last-minute winner. Liverpool would go on to win 10 of their remaining 11 games, drawing the other. Everton would draw three times and lose twice, the second defeat a crucial 1-0 loss at Oxford, to hand the title to Liverpool, who would then go on to complete the double in what was, behind Coventry's effort of 1987, the most dramatic FA Cup final of the decade.
Any attempt at rational analysis is futile. This was palpably the worst title-winning Liverpool side in living memory, yet they had put together one of the greatest late charges in the history of the league. Then they became only the fifth club to win the Double, still a rare feat in those days, and probably should have won the domestic Treble, a late own-goal knocking them out at the semi-final stage of the Milk Cup against QPR. (Although whether they could have coped with the Oxford whirlwind that blew Rangers away in the final is another matter. As is Oxford — Oxford! — winning a major trophy. Truly this was a great season.) Everton meanwhile have never sparkled brighter — Lineker scored 40 goals that season — yet ended up with nothing.
One thing is clear, though: this was the year Liverpool, Everton, West Ham, Manchester United and Chelsea gave top-flight English football the shot in the arm it so desperately needed.
Though having said all that, it was possibly nothing compared to the dramatic nonsense that was concurrently unfolding in the Scottish Premier League.
Scott Murray is co-author of Day of the Match: A History of Football in 365 Days
