Football in the 1950s

[Sporting]

I was watching this (Liverpool - Everton FA Cup 1955):

As far as I can make out the Liverpool goals (2 in each half) are celebrated by a whole bunch of fans at each end. I presume no segregation (when did this begin on a wide scale basis?)

But what a decade! Portsmouth champions in 1950, Wolves won it three times, Preston were second twice, Blackpool once. Ok, so Man Utd won the league on two occasions but at least honours were more shared than they are today.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

The FA Amateur Cup Final was every bit as big an event as the FA Challenge Cup final, and used to attract 100,000 fans to Wembley.

[Jah Womble]

(I was struggling to make one team from the other there...)

Segregation came in during the mid-seventies, pretty much at the same time as the first firms/crews. (There was a fatal stabbing at Blackpool's ground - of all places - which certainly hastened it.)

The fifties is still regarded by many as a the game's golden era. From the mid-seventies it's felt like a slow-changing series of processions, but it must've been fascinating to have followed the game from post-WWII up to that time, with the cultural changes that took place, not to mention the coming-and-going of what now seem like unlikely footballing powers.

[elguapo4]

Manchester United were still pretty much the lovable underdogs, and the Busby Babes were generally popular everywhere

[Benjm]

Wolves' approach during their decade of success wasn't exactly easy on the eye. 'Direct' was a favoured adjective for their style of play. In fairness to Billy's lot, the English game in general was still trying to wean itself off that philosophy thirty years later.

[Sporting]

Before this thread gets too England-centric I thought I would do some research and find out the state of other major (and one less so) leagues were doing in the 50s with a view to seeing how competitive they were at the time (concentrating in most cases from 1^st to 3^rd places) and how far the dominant clubs at the time are still so today. I’m also asking a few supplementary questions.

I’m taking the 50s as seasons 1949-50 to 1958-59. But let’s begin with the old first division in…

England

6 different champions and no one team with more than 3 titles (Man Utd and Wolves). The other winners were Portsmouth, Spurs, Chelsea and Arsenal, three of whom have remained – with lapses – among the elite. Interesting that Arsenal have been largely untroubled by relegation worries while the others have all dropped at least a division. Have they been better run over the years than their London rivals, for example?

Clubs apart from the above who finished 2^nd or 3^rd were: Sunderland, Blackpool, Preston, WBA and Huddersfield, few of whom have bothered the bookies since. But they were there or thereabouts. I’m assuming that the abolition of the maximum wage in the 60s had a hell of a lot to do with the decline of most of these clubs. But maybe there were other economic issues (decline of northern cities as industrial powerhouses? Dunno…a theory thrown out to be chopped down).

Spain

Only four different champions (mind you, more spread out than today!), namely: Real Madrid, Atletico Madrid, Barcelona and Athletic Club. 2^nd and 3^rd places went to Deportivo, Valencia and Sevilla. Apart from Deportivo, who though pretty successful have also been something of a yo-yo club the other clubs have remained up at or near the top, and in the case of Madrid and Barça spectacularly so. Spanish football hegemony has always pretty much been concentrated in two cities and so the 50s saw no big changes in this respect, nor were things going to change.

Italy

Another country where what you saw then is pretty much what you see today, with Juventus, Milan and Inter taking 9 of the ten titles on offer and Fiorentina chipping in with the other. Any second or third places not occupied by one of these clubs were taken by Udinese and Padova (once each) and Lazio (twice). Fiorentina haven’t done so badly since then though the big three have swept up no end of trophies. (Why were Roma so mediocre in this decade?)

I’m guessing that there was no salary cap in these years on Italian clubs, so why did the big three become such early dominators (especially since there was no real European club competitions to attract the best players)? And finally, how much did these teams – however unwittingly - “benefit” from the 1949 Torino plane crash?

France

Things have certainly changed here. 5 different champions in the decade: Nice, Reims, Lille, St Etienne and Bordeaux. 2^nd and 3^rd slots for Le Havre, Toulouse, Sochaux, Lens, Monaco, RCF Paris and Nimes. Since 1990 those champions have won just three titles between them. And where is Lyon (third largest city in France)? Well, they were only founded in 1950 so I guess we can excuse them their early lack of success. Or maybe rugby was more important in the city?

Germany

Football in Germany in the 50s was still run on pretty much an amateur basis. There were seven different champions in the decade of whom Eintracht[H3] Frankfurt, Borussia Dortmund and Schalke are still in the Bundesliga, Hannover and Stuttgart in the second division, and Kaiserslautern and Rot Weiss Essen somewhere else. But due to the Bundesliga itself only being formed in 1963, perhaps comparisons between the 50s and now are not altogether informative. Or perhaps they are?

Portugal

So the big three were already ruling the roost here, with Benfica, Sporting and Porto taking all ten titles between them. The only other two clubs to finish 2^nd or 3^rd were Atletico CP and Belenenses, who had won the title in 1946 and actually finished 2^nd on 6 occasions in the 50s. After this, very little apart from another second place in 1973. Why the decline? Did big city neighbours sweep up all the best players once the European Cup had started? Were there financial reasons?

[Amor de Cosmos]

In England the maximum wage was, of course, a huge (though grossly exploitive) leveller. It meant every match was, theoretically, very competitive even in the early rounds of the FA Cup. As a kid it made it all very exciting, even if you supported a local "amateur" team every week.

[White No Sugar]

The FL wanted to kick Sunderland then nicknamed The Bank Of England Club down into Div4 in the late 50s after the under the counter payments “ straw men” scandal. They didn’t because Jimmy Hill seized the chance of becoming a PFA deity by obtaining signed statements from former players of the other 91 clubs to the effect that they too had received similar tax free payments.
The football authorities not wanting this out in the open settled on banning our board for life instead. Society being more deferential back then they simply swallowed it. Yer modern day board members of any club wouldn’t take that lying down now. Our first relegation soon followed.
At the time only Arsenal & Villa had more league title wins than us. Utd, Liverpool & Everton had less. City & Chelsea are still now only level with us. European and televised football was just around the corner......
Hopefully we’ll still exist when football restarts. The Netflix football comedy show STID series 2 starts in two days time on April the first.

[tee rex]

The first FA Cup Final Grandstand.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

I speculated on a thread a few years ago who would have won the first European Champions Cup, had the idea got going 5 years earlier. Portsmouth and Rangers would have been right in it, although even then up against the Latin Cup sides of that year like Juventus, Atletico Madrid and Bordeaux, not to mention the Mitropa teams like Rapid Vienna. The tragedy of even speculating about it, as someone pointed out, is that the great Torino side had all died in that plane crash in 1949, so had there been a first European Cup in 1950 it would have been played with black armbands.

[Sits]

The first FA Cup Final Grandstand.

Blimey, David Coleman already in place.