Milk Cup memories - TV watching thread

[Janik]

Norwich vs Sunderland always conjures up the 1985 Milk Cup final for me. Mick Channon up front for Norwich, and the winner going in off a defenders chest. 2nd-half highlights of that game (when almost all the key incidents happened) here:-

https://[video=youtube_share;KJnoBSr...?v=KJnoBSrfWzA[/video]

If I remember right both sides got relegated from Division 1 at the end of that season...

Today's game is arguably the biggest meeting of the clubs since then, give or take an FA Cup Semi-Final. It certainly feels like the most important single game this weekend. A Norwich win relegates Villa and leaves Sunderland and Newcastle almost certain to join them. Anything else and it's still in the balance.

[The-Reverend]

Milk Cup memories - TV watching thread

That match always makes me think of this picture.

[Borracho]

Milk Cup memories - TV watching thread

http://www.wsc.co.uk/forum-index/27-football/1193971-friends-or-villans-weekend-epl-telly-thread

[Janik]

Milk Cup memories - TV watching thread

Oops. I did look, but it had slipped too far down the page obviously. Oh well, take your pick, they focus on exactly the same elements.

[Sean of the Shed]

Milk Cup memories - TV watching thread

Shame to have a 'Milk Cup memories' thread and not use it, at least with regard to the first part of the title.
The one that probably sticks in my mind more is Oxford 3-0 QPR the year after, with Oxford winning their only major honour. QPR had the toughest run to the final, and had managed to knock Liverpool out over two legs in the semi, but Oxford beat them fairly easily in the final.
Only one sub back then, and of the 24 players picked, 17 were English, two Welsh and five Irish, though of those five, only one was actually born in Ireland. Bonus points to whoever can name him without looking it up.

[jwdd27]

Milk Cup memories - TV watching thread

Damn, I knew the five without looking them up, but guessed the true Irishman incorrectly. So I won't name him.

Oxford are often overlooked as unlucky non-European qualifiers post-Heysel.

[Outside Agent]

Milk Cup memories - TV watching thread

Dave Langan was the Irish-born player who featured that day.

John Aldridge & Ray Houghton were only 'Irish' about a month, having made their debuts in Jack Charlton's first game in charge against Wales in March.

I'm certain John Byrne played for QPR that day. But struggling to think of the fifth Irishman.

[jwdd27]

Milk Cup memories - TV watching thread

John Byrne (my incorrect guess) was partnered up front by Michael Robinson, who was a slightly longer standing Anglo-Irishman. He's Spanish now.

[Outside Agent]

Milk Cup memories - TV watching thread

Christ, I forgot Michael Robinson played for QPR.

[Kevin S]

Milk Cup memories - TV watching thread

Janik wrote: Norwich vs Sunderland always conjures up the 1985 Milk Cup final for me. Mick Channon up front for Norwich, and the winner going in off a defenders chest. 2nd-half highlights of that game (when almost all the key incidents happened) here:-

https://[video=youtube_share;KJnoBSr...?v=KJnoBSrfWzA[/video]

If I remember right both sides got relegated from Division 1 at the end of that season...

Today's game is arguably the biggest meeting of the clubs since then, give or take an FA Cup Semi-Final. It certainly feels like the most important single game this weekend. A Norwich win relegates Villa and leaves Sunderland and Newcastle almost certain to join them. Anything else and it's still in the balance.

I'll come back to this now the telly thread has moved on. For me as a Norwich fan that FA Cup semi final is not just the biggest meeting with Sunderland since 1985, but perhaps the biggest game of my time following the team. Remember, we've never won a major honour. I suppose the UEFA Cup games are huge, in that they are unique for us; and the two playoff finals as well.

But 1992 still sits ill with me as a missed opportunity. I spent years believing Byrne was offside, that we were robbed. And mainly because I think we'd have had a good chance against Liverpool in the final. We'd done this to them only a few months previously.

https://[video=youtube_share;5QbKxXX...?v=5QbKxXXcrYg[/video]

Nine year old me was at that one. I think it might have set unrealistic expectations of what Norwich should be achieving. The next couple of seasons only added fuel to that fire.

We'll go up and down between EPL and Championship however many times - it seems to be our lot at the moment - so one more relegation scrap doesn't mean all that much to me to be honest.

The early 90's were different. We were probably never really going to win that Premier League title. But we should have been FA Cup kings. John bloody Byrne.

[Hot Orange]

Milk Cup memories - TV watching thread

Kevchenko wrote: The early 90's were different. We were probably never really going to win that Premier League title. But we should have been FA Cup kings. John bloody Byrne.

I remember it well. The day before, Ipswich had won at Roots Hall with a 90th-minute goal in The Best Away Trip Ever to boost our promotion hopes, then Norwich fecked up their Cup semi-final. It was a great weekend.

[Various Artist]

Milk Cup memories - TV watching thread

I'd agree with Kev's judgement on the significance/potential of that game. I'm still haunted particularly by DJ Taylor's description of the Sunderland goal in that 1992 Cup semi-final – for how it evoked the way the Norwich defence seemed frozen and powerless to stop John Byrne in that one critical moment – in his brilliant piece on Norwich's 1992-3 season in My Favourite Year, which was along the lines of "Byrne seemed suspended for ever in acres of silent, billowing space".

I'd started following Norwich in the 1988-9 season, which also ended in an FA Cup semi-final versus Everton (naturally overlooked due to the events in the other semi that day), and with the club setting successive records for best ever league finish in 1986-7 (5th), 1988-9 (4th) and 1992-3 (3rd) these cup runs seemed perfectly commensurate at the time. Since then of course we've tended to struggle to get past the third round in 24 years let along trouble the latter stages, let alone entertain thoughts of a final, so it looks more and more like 1992's semi v Sunderland really was 'the one that got away'.

[Kevin S]

Milk Cup memories - TV watching thread

Norwich's FA Cup record since 1991-92 (round reached):

SF,3,4,5,3,4,3,3,3,3,3,5,4,3,3,5,3,3,2,3,5,4,3,3

John bloody Byrne. It's not like Sunderland were any good, either - they were lower table in Division 2. But we were so good in that era, I had no idea I'd still be ruing it 24 years later. Not even a sodding QF to speak of.

(edit - just watched the goals and presentation from the '92 final. That was the one with "Yes! You fucking beauty!... Er, Sorry ma'am..." from Mark Wright as he lifted the Cup in front of the Duchess of Kent.)

[N est à?]

Milk Cup memories - TV watching thread

We were only a penalty shoot-out away from an all second-division FA cup final that year as well, in the year the Premier league began.