Games when your club blew it

[Giggler]

I mentioned in the 'Today's results' thread about the last day of 08/09 when Bury blew promotion on the last day. The Raddy Antic thread has also reminded me that the Shakers blew it on the last day of 82/83 too; while Antic was busy saving the Hatters and relegating Manchester City, about 12 miles away as the crow flies Bury were losing 3-1 at home to already-promoted Wimbledon and missing out on automatic promotion from the Fourth Division:

Despite the heartache - 'Remember the Wimbledon game?' was shorthand for Bury fans for not putting all your eggs in one basket for years afterwards - there's a lot I love about this footage. The ground looks amazing for one thing. It doesn't however show Jim Iley leaping from the bench and dancing down the touchline in the mistaken belief that Scunthorpe, Bury's rivals for the final promotion place, are losing to Chester. It's mad how just five years later Dave Beasant was saving a spot-kick in an FA Cup final for the same club too.

It's the day on which The Forgotten Fifteen begins. If Bury had gone up, Iley would have been rewarded with a new contract and Martin Dobson wouldn't have come to Bury. As it was, Iley was gone within a year and crowds slumped to just over 1,000 as Dobson assessed what he had and what he wanted. In the summer of 1984 he signed Leighton James and Trevor Ross and Kevin Young, and the club was in the ascendancy.

[Gangster Octopus]

FA Cup 3rd round replay January 2004: Rotherham United 1 Northampton Town 2 (after extra time). The winners got to host Manchester United in the next round. It ushered in shit for the best part of the next decade...

[Wouter D]

A very recent Champions League semi final.

Arjen Robben flubbing one-on-ones with Iker Casillas twice in the same World Cup final.

Leverkusen not managing to beat fucking Unterhaching on the final day of the season. They're not even my team, but their failure handed the title to [spits on floor] Bayern München.

[kokamoa]

February 2018 - How Ipswich conspired not to register a first victory over Norwich in nine years after taking the lead at Carrow Road after 89 minutes still vexes me to this day. It was karma’s confirmation that Ipswich fans cannot have nice things and the two subsequent years have battered that message home remorselessly.

[elguapo4]

10th April 1993, Bohemians go into the last game of the season with a two point lead at the top of the table over Shelbourne and Cork City. That game was away to Dundalk, who were finishing strongly after a poor start to the season, but a draw should have been easily achievable.

Things started to go wrong when the team bus broke down just outside Dublin. The team had to get to the game through lifts from directors, fans driving by on their way to the game and very lucky taxis. The match started nearly an hour late, Dundalk got the only goal of the game from a corner that should have been a goal kick, and we generally played shit.

In any normal league we still should have won, because our goal difference was better than both Shelbourne and Cork, but at the time the league couldn't be won on goal difference (they changed the rules the following year, bitter, moi?) So we had to go through a NINE game playoff before Cork emerged victorious.

We hadn't won the league since 1978, we wouldn't win it again until 2001.

[beak]

People always cite 4th March 1996 as the day Newcastle fucked up the title, when Manchester United came to St. James' and we battered them 0-1. This is a faulty recollection, much like the old canard of that team's defensive frailty. The game that we really blew the title was a month later, when we went to Blackburn and managed to lose 2-1, both their goals famously being scored by childhood NUFC fan Graham Fenton. That's when we fucked it.

[EIM]

https://youtu.be/8VbQmvWpXBw

[Patrick Thistle]

Shrewsbury losing to Lincoln at Wembley in 2018. And then losing to Rotherham at Wembley in 2018.

[Arturo]

I could include various cup semi-finals, quarter-finals, and title challenges where our bottle went, but the 6-0 drubbing at Craven Cottage in May 2005 was a particularly sorry affair.

Sitting in seventeenth in the Premier League going into that final game against an average Fulham side with nothing to play for, all we had to do was win to stay up. Over 5000 fans were there for the big party, creating a carnival atmosphere and celebrating like we were already safe. What followed was an absolute stinker and shocker of a performance that was everything Norwich hadn't been in the four years that Nigel Worthington was in charge. It was like the team he'd built from scratch and taken to the play-off final, the title, and then the top flight, had been erased of their drive and ability from the moment they stepped on the field. Had other results gone our way, we would have still stayed up, but in the end WBA won their match and we slipped to second from the bottom. The fans gave the team a standing ovation, presumably based on the previous 37 games than this total shit show.

Had we stayed up, the team might have strengthened and kicked on, building the side around Dean Ashton and Damien Francis, with Rob Green in goal. Instead it took years for the team to recover. Within a season, Ashton, Green and Francis had gone and were replaced by dross such as Andy Hughes, Jason Jarrett and Peter Thorne. Worthington was the subject of fans protests and left the following year. After some dreadful seasons under Peter Grant, Glenn Roeder and Bryan Gunn which culminated in relegation to the third tier, it wasn't until 2011 that the club got back to the top flight. We've been up and down since, but never capitulated in quite the manner of this game.

[Various Artist]

Well said Arturo. I was going to nominate the '92 FA Cup semi-final against Sunderland (as discussed in threads passim), but I can't contest your argument there.

I was 9 when I started following Norwich and we were a top-flight side until I was 15, nearly 16. We then scuffed around in the second tier, occasionally flattering to deceive (and in 2001-02 making the playoff final, the only time I ever wanted golden goals to count in a football match) but generally not looking like making it back to the big time until 2004 – by when I was nearly 25, so which from my point of view was a lifetime later. Then having looked more than a bit out of our depth back in the Premier, only 3 wins all season up to early April, we beat Manchester United at Carrow Road and kickstarted what looked like a burst to safety with a 4-1-1 run in the last month. Then it came down to having our fate in our hands for that last game at already-safe Fulham, yet out of nowhere we just capitulated in the most abject fashion imaginable. The rest is history.

[jdsx]

https://youtu.be/8VbQmvWpXBw

Thanks EIM, really enjoyed that... ;-)

[Nesta]

but the 6-0 drubbing at Craven Cottage in May 2005

That afternoon Palace blew it as well, conceding a late set piece equaliser at Charlton and allowing that mince West Brom team to escape after Portsmouth lay down for them

For Charlton, of course, this was like winning the Premier League, Champions League, World Cup, Ryder Cup and Superbowl all in one, and their club has never really recovered from the dizzying high.

[Nesta]

Also on the subject of Palace blowing it:

<Pardew-wembley-celebration-dance.gif>

[That Night In Barcelona]

https://youtu.be/8VbQmvWpXBw

Really enjoyed that, some lovely goals in that game.

[Arturo]

Well said Arturo. I was going to nominate the '92 FA Cup semi-final against Sunderland (as discussed in threads passim), but I can't contest your argument there.

I was 9 when I started following Norwich and we were a top-flight side until I was 15, nearly 16. We then scuffed around in the second tier, occasionally flattering to deceive (and in 2001-02 making the playoff final, the only time I ever wanted golden goals to count in a football match) but generally not looking like making it back to the big time until 2004 – by when I was nearly 25, so which from my point of view was a lifetime later. Then having looked more than a bit out of our depth back in the Premier, only 3 wins all season up to early April, we beat Manchester United at Carrow Road and kickstarted what looked like a burst to safety with a 4-1-1 run in the last month. Then it came down to having our fate in our hands for that last game at already-safe Fulham, yet out of nowhere we just capitulated in the most abject fashion imaginable. The rest is history.

The Sunderland match was next on my list, but it did lead to an overhaul in the summer with Mike Walker coming in, and we all know the rest. So we blew it, but the consequences led to a better side.

From that 2004-5 season, I also remember the penultimate league game at home to Birmingham. We were absolutely shocking and somehow scraped a 1-0 win but it was daylight robbery. With hindsight, the team already looked shot to bits, but I also remember the Carrow Road crowd celebrating at the end as if we were already safe. A friend of mine and I were looking fearfully at each other as if to say, "we might regret this next week".

[Amor de Cosmos]

This is easy:

[Gangster Octopus]

FA Cup 3rd round replay January 2004: Rotherham United 1 Northampton Town 2 (after extra time). The winners got to host Manchester United in the next round. It ushered in shit for the best part of the next decade...

Forgot to point out that we were in the second tier at the time, and Northampton in the fourth...

[Gangster Octopus]

Amor de Cosmos a Norwich supporting friend of mine was there. He always said that it was the best match the he'd ever been to, and felt bad that it stuffed the QPR championship challenge.

[Arturo]

People always cite 4th March 1996 as the day Newcastle fucked up the title, when Manchester United came to St. James' and we battered them 0-1. This is a faulty recollection, much like the old canard of that team's defensive frailty. The game that we really blew the title was a month later, when we went to Blackburn and managed to lose 2-1, both their goals famously being scored by childhood NUFC fan Graham Fenton. That's when we fucked it.

Glad someone else notices this. I'm always surprised how much that game gets overlooked.

It's the same with the "I would love it" rant, which often wrongly gets cited as when Newcastle began to slide when in fact it came in the final moments of the season.

[Foot of Astaire's]

I was at that Bury Wimbledon game Giggler . My dad used to take me there occasionally when they had a game on that he fancied. I still dont know what it was he fancied about a 1st round cup tie against Workington in the 70s for my first visit but I digress.

Bury always kicked off home games at 3.15pm in those days, I've no idea why but at half time, we heard Wanderers were 1 up at Charlton and about to save themselves from relegation and that City Luton was goalless.

I well recall Iley celebrating from the bench and all the handy lads in the Boys Stand, a misnomer if there was one, getting more raucous despite you losing.

My dad always left early to beat the traffic and we were on the way home as the full time scores came in, presuming that City and Bolton were safe and the Shakers were going up. I can still hear his shout of "Bloody hell!" as if it were yesterday.

[JM Footzee]

2 May 2015: Watford 1-1 Sheffield Wednesday

The final game of the season. Watford had secured promotion to the Premier League in their previous game at Brighton, winning 2-0 and then seeing Boro and Norwich drop points later in the day. We led the table by one point from Bournemouth who had a superior goal difference. All we needed to do to win the title was beat Sheffield Wednesday, who started the match in 14th and with nothing to play for, or match Bournemouth's result.

Bournemouth took the lead at Charlton almost straight away - they would ultimately win 3-0. We scored midway through the first-half, but were nervy and off our game. Nonetheless, from about 80 minutes fans started filtering down to the pitchside, in anticipation of the upcoming invasion. We were only 1-0 up and to me, and no doubt many others, this seemed premature, even if Wednesday had created nothing.

Roughly at the end of normal time Wednesday won a free-kick towards their left corner flag (my recollection is that it was a corner, but apparently not). As the players gather in the box, a home fan wanders onto the pitch to congratulate the players. Goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes had to usher him off the grass. The kick is taken and Atdhe Nuhiu manages to stab home an equaliser - Wednesday's single on-target chance of the entire game. In the mad dash for a winner, Daniel Tozser has to get Watford fans to back-off from where they've gathered on the fringes of the pitch in order that he can take a corner.

We couldn't get that winner, Bournemouth were champions and we still have never won the second tier title. What was supposed to be a happy day had been tarnished. The pitch invasion still happened and I'm sure a lot of people enjoyed themselves, but it seemed like a hollow act to me. Now that everything is recorded and analysed there seems to be within fan culture a greater significance given to being seen to have done something, regardless of context, rather than simply enjoying anything spontaneously. This was a pitch invasion at its most commodified, a performative act that might have actually contributed to us failing to win the title. The players celebrated with a second-place trophy but Troy Deeney, and I think others, have said that it was an act too, that they were similarly downcast.

Six members of the matchday squad never played for Watford again, two more would get a single League Cup run-out the follow August, while Matej Vydra, scorer of 16 goals that season, would manage three more appearances before leaving permanently in the summer of 2016. I don't know whether the guy that stepped onto the field prior to that free-kick was the cause of Watford letting in that goal, or if the club ever found out who he was. But I still bear him a lot of ill will, whoever he was.

[ale]

People always cite 4th March 1996 as the day Newcastle fucked up the title, when Manchester United came to St. James' and we battered them 0-1. This is a faulty recollection, much like the old canard of that team's defensive frailty. The game that we really blew the title was a month later, when we went to Blackburn and managed to lose 2-1, both their goals famously being scored by childhood NUFC fan Graham Fenton. That's when we fucked it.

Have a lot of sympathy for that view and the Blackburn game certainly trumps the Liverpool one in significance if not reputation. Took the lead at Ewood against very average Blackburn side with 10 minutes to go.Just had to show the professionalism that Man Utd had been displaying over recent months. And two NUFC fans playing up front for Blackburn. One of whom scored twice but not Alan Shearer. Though the latter did celebrate as if he had.
But ultimately winning the SJP game against Man Utd would have made all subsequent results irrelevant.

Also think Sir Bobby team losing the Champions League qualifier to Partizan after winning the away leg set in train a sequence of events from which the club have never recaptured.

[Various Artist]

This is easy:

The most traumatic bit of that video now, though, is seeing some wasteful twat throw a toilet roll onto the pitch after the second Norwich goal...

[Guy Profumo]

Talk about leaning on an open door…

[longeared]

Counter point to that Watford game; the game kicked off again and we were bearing down on Watford's goal, 3 on 2, and the ref blew for full time because there were too many home fans on the pitch.

Anyway, for us, the Championship play off semi final of 2017. We went to Huddersfield (who we'd beaten twice in the regular season and finished with a negative goal difference) and Carvalhal made no attempt to win the game, he just stuck everyone behind the ball and played for a goalless draw. Which is what he got. So little happened that the club could only eke out eight minutes of action for the highlights edit, and a minute and three quarters of that was just general play following kick off.

So it was back to Hillsborough for the second leg, we scored just after half time and the place went mental, they equalised from an own goal and I think some other stuff happened but I've managed to wipe the rest of the game from my mind apart from the mobile phone light show and rather nice sunset. It went to penalties, Hutch missed, Westy saved their last one, then Forestieri missed and they'd won. Have never watched the highlights of that back and nor have I read anything about that game ever since.

Huddersfield went to Wembley and beat Reading on penalties after a goalless draw which meant the only time they'd scored in the play offs was from an own goal. I firmly believe we'd have won the final if we'd got there, Reading kept winning games that season for no obvious reason that anyone could understand (we'll quietly ignore the fact they beat us twice). The chairman bet the shop on us getting to the Premier League and all the associated monetary rewards, it had been the targetted promotion season from two years earlier and the fact that we didn't go up has left a colossal hole in the finances which still exist now and the consequences of which are still to fully play out.