European Cup Trivia

[Alex Anderson]

Great work Alex. Istanbulspor appeared in the Intertoto in 1997/8 and the UEFA Cup in 1998/9 and have finally got back to the second tier of Turkish football. Looking at the list of 13 how many of those sides were worse?

Yeah. Good shout, AE. We must only be looking at Queen's Park as contenders for Istanbulspor's place as lowliest ever hosts of a European Cup/Champions League final.

The Spiders at least have that great history from the Victorian period - winning those Scottish Cups - but they've never competed in Europe, never been Scottish league champions and dropped out the top division, for good, a season or two before Hampden hosted the first of its three ECCC/UCL finals.

It's neck-and-neck ...

[Alex Anderson]

Yeah, they're very nearby. When I went with my best mate in 2008 we watched TeBe one evening (my birthday, funnily enough; the away side had a man sent off early on and went on to win 5-0 anyway), and then Hertha in the Olympiastadion the next day. They're basically across the train tracks from one another, I think we got off one stop earlier for TeBe.

Yeah see I just hate you now, Sam. I know I was saying Union were the only team worth seeing in that city but - come on - we all know a stadium's only really been visited if there's a game on and, well - doing the two of them!? One day after the other!? You know I wanted to do that ...

[ursus arctos]

As to your penultimate post, the large majority of the grounds mentioned never met UEFA's "five star" criteria (in effect through 2006), primarily for reasons of capacity and media infrastructure. Of the ones you mentioned, only the Volksparkstadion and do Dragão ever had five stars.

Since the demise of the 5 Star requirement, UEFA has consistently required a seated capacity of 60,000 in order to qualify for a Final, which eliminates all of the grounds you mention except the recently-rebuilt Stade Velodrome (67,371) and the Westfalenstadion (65,829).

The modern Torino stadia have always been quite small by UEFA standards. Juventus Stadium has a capacity of 41,507 and the rebuilt Communale (currently the Stadio Olimpico Grande Torino) holds only 27,958. The Delle Alpi was larger (with standing, it had a capacity over 65,000, but suffered from numerous other issues that made it unlikely to ever be used for a Final.

[Alex Anderson]

Not as close together as the Parc des Princes and Stade Jean Bouin

At some point during that first hellish plummet into the black hole of Parisian venues [No, Alex! Think "Racing Club de Paris" ... aah, that's better] I should have checked no-one ever played European Cup/UCL football at the Stade Jean Bouin (even though PSG's Rugby League side probably played some sort of ... no - stop - we'll stick to the one sport for now, thanks). Not that it matters even if they did because no-one would have played there in a semi-final of the European Cup/UCL and because ...

... while I've actually watched Champions League football at the Tehelne Pole, on one of the rare nights it didn't feature Slovan Bratislava, and I know that Slovan have played Champions League qualifiers at their Pasienky ...



[old photo. Tehelne Pole, in the foreground, is now a ruin but jameswba of this parish tells me it may be on its way back. However, more important right now, you can see an end of Pasienky top left]

... I also know that, despite the famous European sojourns of MTK Budapest (on the left) they never made the semis of the big competition and their neighbours BKV Elore (on the right) probably never qualified for Europe at all:



[Again, old pic - MTK have completely redeveloped their ground recently and I don't even know if BKV Elore are still situated so close]

... and while we know Celtic used Hampden for their 1970 semi-final v Leeds United, and Queen's Park have never played in Europe far less let anyone do so at Lesser Hampden (top left) and Third Lanark (top right) never qualified for Europe either ...



[Bottom left? Now the main stand car park. It would be really embarrassing if a European Cup trivia addict, who lives in Glasgow and has spent half of his life travelling to Hampden, didn't know who played there ... even if it was Junior side ... or the Queen's Park Victoria XI ... ]


... so, unless Partizan or Red Star had one of their semis on a training pitch of the other, ...





... I claim there can be only one candidate for the two closest grounds both to have hosted semi-finals of the European Cup/Champions League - and for two different host clubs too:

[Alex Anderson]

Great explanation on the final venues, ursus. Had absolutely no idea the Five Star thing had been dropped. Was on Champions League duty at Do Dragao back in 2005 and it's honestly one of the most beautiful stadiums I've ever experienced.

[ursus arctos]

I should have checked no-one ever played European Cup/UCL football at the Stade Jean Bouin

No worries, I did that.

The closest one gets to that are the three ties that Stade Francais played in the Fairs Cup in the 64-65 and 65-66 seasons against Real Betis, Juventus and Porto.

Stade Francais' Top 14 rugby union side have played a lot of European matches at Jean Bouin.

[Alex Anderson]

Brilliant, ursus. Got away with it this time but I should always be under adult supervision when I start playing with fireworks. (mind you, VA's got his fire extinguisher handy)

But, in the spirit of the game, I'm just going to have bona fide guesses at Satchmo's posers:

Of the stadia that have hosted the final, has any waited longer than the 35 years that Old Trafford did after their resident team had first won it?

So we go back to 1982 to start finding contenders and then work back from Villa, who've never hosted it ...

From Inter and Real Madrid having to wait only a year - and Feyenoord and Milan just having the two years between first lifting and first hosting - your serious contender seems, initially, to be Ajax: They first won it in 1971 but didn't host it til 98 which seems, at 27 years, like the second-longest.

But, really, of course, Ajax had a different home ground when they first won it and De Meer never hosted the final. I think the ArenA was opened in 1996 - the year after Ajax last won it - so, depending on how you want to adjudicate (and I'm definitely leaving criteria up to the question-setter ... for the rest of this week ... lunch-time Friday), the Amsterdam ArenA only had to wait a year at the best and 27 years at worst.

However, Old Trafford's primacy here depends on the Estadio da Luz refurb for Euro 2004. Is it on a different site altogether or was it built on top of the old one? I genuinely don't know. I always look it up when I watch it on the telly and I always forget the answer the next day. With Benfica winning their first European Cup in 1961 and their ground not hosting the final til 2014, it will easily win this category if it's technically the same stadium.

If not, according to Ursus' post above, the Volksparkstadion could nick it the season after this if it gets some capacity-expansion under way sharpish. I think the 2019 final venue is still up for grabs - and HSV won it in 83 - that would beat Old Trafford by a year.

Not gonnae happen. So let's just wait til 2033 before it goes to the Westfalen.


The shortest wait the other way, however, was the Nou Camp; hosting Milan 4 - 0 Steaua in 1989, three years before Barca won it at Wembley.

Which winners had the smallest home capacity at the time? Was Chelsea's lower than Nottingham Forest's?

I'm assuming De Meer, Ajax, was lower than both of those, even in 1971-73 - and absolutely in 1995. But, like I say, guessing here lest anyone else wants a shot.

I have only visited a dozen or so grounds that have been in their domestic top flight but five of those belong to finalists Leeds, Liverpool, Forest, Barcelona and Ajax.

Leeds, a beaten finalist in the Parc des Princes (Racing Club de Paris. Aaaaah.), as were Stade de Reims in the first final. Their official home ground in Reims must have had a wee capacity too. Malmo, losing to Forest in 1979, had a fairly modest capacity then in their Ullevi-impersonating previous ground. Mmm? These are contenders for smallest ever capacity home ground of a European Cup/UCL finalist.

Still can't see past De Meer though ...

AS MONACO!!! Jeezus! As if them being in the semis again a few months ago wasn't enough of a reminder... Stade Luis II must be in the teens, capacity-wise, eh?

Anyone beat that?

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

PSG's Rugby League side played at the Stade Sebastien Charlety, but I have no idea now whether this is a positive or negative contribution to the flow of things.

[ursus arctos]

Stade Louis II (named after Rainier's father) has a capacity of 18,523

I'm quite confident that Monaco also hold the record for the lowest average attendance of any Finalist, with an average of 10,394 for the 2003-04 season (actually rather high for Monaco and an increase of more than 25% over the prior season).

Stade de Reims' Stade Auguste-Delaune held more than 25,000 during the club's golden age, but has since been completely rebuilt. The old Auguste-Delaney also had a quality cycling track, which did not survive the rebuild.

[EIM]

I think the local finish time was worse in Moscow whenever that was. It must have been getting on for 2am local time when John Terry hilariously blasted the ball over the bar

Going back a bit I know, but I feel it's important to point out that Terry hilariously blasted the ball wide of the post. After falling over. I wouldn't want the second greatest moment in football history to get misrepresented.

[Kevin S]

Into the post, wasn't it?

[EIM]

Yup. Post and wide. It won OTF's post of the day.

[EIM]

Actually, did that go wide or come away from goal again? Hard to tell, but if I've got this wrong my whole life has been a lie since 2008. Mad to think that game was almost a decade ago now. Where does it go, folks? Where? WHERE? WHERE!

[Alex Anderson]

I've spent most of it here, EIM. On this thread.

PSG's Rugby League side played at the Stade Sebastien Charlety, but I have no idea now whether this is a positive or negative contribution to the flow of things.

All contributions are positive, Walt. Well, all except mine on Rogin's CWC trivia thread - which seems to have killed it stone dead. Feeling a tad guilty.

Ah - see - I just put deux and deux together and got funf there. Remember a piece in WSC mag, a year or two back, on clubs trying other sports. I blindly assumed the PSG rugger chaps would have been the ones directly over the road from the Parc des Princes. Wrong.

[Sam]

Yeah see I just hate you now, Sam. I know I was saying Union were the only team worth seeing in that city but - come on - we all know a stadium's only really been visited if there's a game on and, well - doing the two of them!? One day after the other!? You know I wanted to do that ...

See, I don't necessarily agree there. There's a lot to be said for the melancholy of an empty stadium, especially an historic one (which is why I trudged through the snow on our last day in Europe in 2013 to go and see the Yves-du-Manoir in Colombes). But it is nice to get to a game if at all possible.

We did also see ten minutes of a Union women's cup match on that same trip, mind. The only major Berlin club we didn't get to was Dynamo, who don't even let you within spitting distance of the stadium when there isn't a game on, the cunts.

[Alex Anderson]

You were doing alright there, Sam - until you mentioned you had snow at the Yves du Manoir. Hating you again.

In Paris I did the three historic venues, not a game on at one of them (I've still never seen fitba in France) - and the morning I got up at 6 to head out to Colombes was a darn site more exciting than the ten hour tour of the Stade de France, and every bit as magical as getting huckled into the Parc des Princes in the afternoon by a German hopper who refused to let the grumpy Gendarme at the gates intimidate him.

I had early morning mist just lifting when I walked into Colombes (from the stadium; not my mind's eye - that particular fog never lifts). Those little metal grill fascias along the tribune roofs ... you've seen them in the background of so many pics - of the 1938 World Cup final, of Chariots of Fire - and then they're right there in front of you and you're on the same pitch as Giuseppe Meazza, Just Fontaine and so many other baggy-shorted, slick-haired greats. Lumbering about what remains of the old terraces at each end was lovely too ...

The only thing that could have made it more romantic was snow.

If I'm honest, New Stadium Off The List perfection for me is the exitstentialy buzz of a partially empty ground, when a low key game is on. But, if the ground itself is as iconic as any resident team, I absolutely agree with what you're saying. I did the same with Hohe Warte in Vienna; saw the big floodlight and the observatory up on the hill as soon as I came out the U-bahn station, walked up the streets, went through someone's back garden and there it was - all mine (and the groundsman's) - the huge bowl that once held 75,000 for Austria v Italy: That was one of the best.

But I did get into the Friedrich Ludwig Jahn when I was in Berlin. It was like a Monday morning or something. No game on. Pishing down. Very Bowie and Iggy surrounds too. I know Dynamo don't play all their games there but, please - give me that ...

Plus, maybe you can confirm for me if that wee memory I mentioned yesterday, on the Paris posts, was invented. I have it in my mind that when I flew out of Paris (which I absolutely did while PSG were hosting St Etienne on a Saturday evening - talk about bad planning - saw them all going to the game above me as our taxi hit the Peripherique), I could see, from my window seat, the Stade du Manoir below me, with Racing playing rugby union.

Now, I don't know off the top of my head if I flew from Charles de Gaulle - or where the airports even are in relation to Colombes - but, with Simon Inglis' book mentioning the Racing rugby matches played there and Yves du manoir being killed as a pilot during the war, I have to wonder if I've dreamed this over the years since I first read The Football Grounds of Europe. You sound like the kinda guy who would notice a stadium below him at take-off, Sam. Did ya?

Merde! Maybe I didn't actually visit the ground either. Since when have I got up at 6am? Ah ... twas all a dream.

[Alex Anderson]

What's the deepest any team has got into the European Cup/CL without losing a game (apart from on away goals or pens) and still not won the trophy? Rangers won or drew 10 matches in 1992-93 and still didn't make the final, finishing second in the semi final group. Have any of the beaten finalists (on pens) or other semi finalists similarly been unbeaten up to that point and gone out undefeated?

Balls-deep, Rogin. Fuckin balls-deep, mate. That's how deep Rangers got in that 92-93 campaign.

Although I've never really understood why that phrase is applied in this instance. Because if one is only up to one's balls in the snow, water, mud, long grass or whatever it refers to - a field of golden wheat, perhaps? - then this connotes mere waist-height.

Up to your waist isn't very deep at all, really - is it, fellow Rangers fans? So why continue using this particular idiom in respect of us being one Stade Velodrome goal away from the final,when scrotum-depth - depending on droopage - surely implies quarter-finals at best?

For me, chin-deep would always be more apt for a side which went ten games unbeaten in a single season of the European Cup/UEFA Champions League, yet failed to win the thing. So, what we are looking for now is eyebrow-deep. Has any club gone deeper than the chin yet not all the way under the lovely warm water of European Cup glory?

How to research this? Far as I'm concerned you're absolutely right - we just go straight to those beaten on pens in the final and work backwards through their campaigns those seasons.

And we do this for all but the two very unique seasons in which a side could go ten games unbeaten yet not even make the final:

See, 1992-93 was the second of only two seasons in which there were no semis. The two winners of the four-team "quarter-final groups" went straight into the final. The group tables provide an instant, at-a-glance confirmation no-one else got beyond chin depth that way: In 1991-92 both finalists, Sampdoria and Barcelona, had lost a match in their group (and lost away legs en route to the group too). The runners-up in each group, Red Star Belgrade and Sparta Prague, lost five between them and IFK, runners-up to Milan in 92-93's group B, lost three games.

Marseille, Milan and Rangers lost no quarter-final group games in those two seasons but Rangers are the only ones not to make the final. Chin-deep.

With one-leg semis added to this format in 93-94, we're really looking at losing finalists only. And Barca were pumped so hard in that final - harder than anyone other than, perhaps, Eintracht Frankfurt were ever pumped in the final (again, why do we use a colloquialism which refers to someone getting water out of a well? Why do we describe things in such bucolic terms!) - that we can discount their chances of going eyebrow deep.

Of course you had the later four seasons of two group stages so, technically, it was possible for even heavily seeded sides to go 12 games undefeated without winning the trophy. But those seasons included quarters and semis so you're unable to be undefeated and not make the final, so you won't beat Rangers' tally of ten undefeated PLUS such proximity to the final.

Anyway. We'll focus first on teams who might not have lost over 90 minutes - even 120 - in that season's competition yet lost the final. Let's have a look at how unbeaten they were en route to that final:


AS Roma, 1984: Lost legs to IFK, Dynamo Berlin and Dundee United. Ankle deep.

Barcelona, 1986: Lost legs in Gotheburg and Porto and at home to Sparta Prague. Big Toe.

Benfica, 1988: Lost away to Anderlecht in the semis, only scored one goal in two games with Aarhus and got a walkover in second leg v Partizani Tirana: Shin-deep.

Olympique Marseille, 1991: Lost in Poznan, drew in Tirana: Shins again.

(NOW WE'RE IN THE CHAMPIONS LEAGUE ERA, WHERE YOU'RE REQUIRED TO PLAY MORE - sometimes SUBSTANTIALLY MORE GAMES THAN THE EIGHTish IT USED TO TAKE TO REACH THE FINAL)

Ajax, 1996: Won eight, drew one, lost home leg of semi to Panathinaikos: Nipple deep.

Valencia, 2001: EIGHTEEN games to get to the final (third qualifying round, two group stages, 1/4s, etc.); drew six, lost at Arsenal and Olympiacos: Neck-deep.


Juventus, 2003: Sixteen games - incredibly, managed to lose five of them. It's only the fact two were to Man U and one at Real Madrid which keeps them ... Ankle-deep.

(SECOND GROUP STAGE DROPPED, LAST SIXTEEN [re]INTRODUCED)

Chelsea, 2008: Twelve games - drew five (six over 90 mins) and lost one, away to Fenerbahce: Nipple deep.

Bayern Munich, 2012: Fourteen games - drew one, lost at Man City, Basel and Real Madrid: Nipples again I'd say, especially when they then go on to lose the final on their own ground, against a side undermined by injuries and suspensions.

Atletico Madrid, 2016: Twelve games - drew three, lost at home to Benfica and away to Barca and Bayern: High-waisters belt strap-deep.


So, no with no other undefeated records of undefeated-over-120min finalists, it must be Rangers 1992-93. Isn't it? Especially as they'll have played more games than any finalist of the straight knockout days. Rangers beat Leeds and Lyngby home and away then, in the group, drew home and away with Marseille, beat CSKA Moscow away (well, in Bochum) and drew with them at home while drawing in Brugge, but beating the Belgians at home. And we beat Brugge with ten men so - surely- that's the best any team has ever done without winning the European Cup? I mean, the only other angle is if some team who lost the final - not on pens, but narrowly, by a single goal - had had a pretty good record up until the final:

Milan. Same season. Other Group.

Milan 1992-93 won all six group games - home and away - against IFK, Porto and PSV. Prior to that, they beat Olimpija Ljubljana 4-0 at home and 3-0 away, and Slovan Bratislava 1-0 away and 4-0 at home. They scored TWENTY THREE goals in their TEN STRAIGHT VICTORIES up to the final. The only goal they conceded during that run - one goal conceded! - was at 2-0 up with barely half an hour to go in Eindhoven. To Romario. And they'd sort him out the following season.

Boli's was the second and last goal Milan conceded in that entire tournament. And that night in Munich was the first time they failed to score. This has to be right up there with the Magical Magyars' only losing game in six years being the 1954 World Cup final.

Rogin, hope this makes up for me killing your Cup-Winners' Cup final thread stone dead with my yabbering. Allow me to present you with what is, for me mate, the best ever performance in one season by a team that didn't win the European Cup/UEFA Champions League; Milan 1992-93: Eyebrow-deep.

And thanks for making me do the work to realise my team aren't "the best ever non-winners". Rangers 1992-93 are the best ever undefeated non-winners ... because we're the only undefeated non-winners. I'll take that. But Fucking hell: I couldn't see Milan were the hardest hard luck story of them all, despite the proof being right next to me for decades, in my favourite ever season. If nothing else, this proves my love of The Teds is more blinding than my love of the European Cup trivia. And my love for European Cup trivia could almost be expressed in terms so passionate it might accidentally slip into the sexual.

And that would just be disgusting.

[Alex Anderson]

But, Atletico Madrid have to be the historic, overall masters of, not-winning-it-but-coming-closest.

Only club to have lost three finals but never won it, they were winning the first one (in 1974, versus Bayern) in extra time until a 120th minute 30-yarder from a centre-half; they were winning the second from the 36th minute til the third minute of injury time - another centre-half getting the equaliser; and the one time Atletico are the ones scoring the equaliser - in the second half in 2016 - they lose their third ECCC/UCL final on penalties.

While things collapsed in on them a bit, understandably, in extra time in 2014 (they'd just won their first league title in a generation, on the last day of La Liga, with a win at the Nou Camp the previous weekend) and in the 1974 replay (to a younger side after a mere 2-day turnaround), the mattress-makers must have gone through every possible gutting scenario for just missing out.

Only thing that could make it worse is if two of those losses were to your cross-town rivals and the other was to a German team wearing your cross-town rivals' hated all-white strip.

Oh, and in 1958-59 Atletico drew 2-2 on agg with Real Madrid in the semis. Had the away goals rule applied Atletico would have gone through to the final. Instead they lost a play-off in Zaragoza by a whopping 2-1. For them, that was a straightforward doing.

[Walt Flanagans Dog]

I've spent most of it here, EIM. On this thread.



All contributions are positive, Walt. Well, all except mine on Rogin's CWC trivia thread - which seems to have killed it stone dead. Feeling a tad guilty.

Ah - see - I just put deux and deux together and got funf there. Remember a piece in WSC mag, a year or two back, on clubs trying other sports. I blindly assumed the PSG rugger chaps would have been the ones directly over the road from the Parc des Princes. Wrong.

There's a tangent to be had here - ECCC/CL final venues at which Rugby League has been played. Old Trafford and Wembley are mainstays in the RL calendar. The Millennium Stadium hosted the original Magic Weekends, the Challenge Cup final when Wembley was being rebuilt, and a double header in the RLWC in 2013. Parc des Princes hosted RLWC games in 1954, including the final. What these have in common is that RL was played at each of them before they first hosted the ECCC/CL final.

I believe (though it's hard to tell with anything related to RL in Russia) that Russia hosted a game at the Luzhniki Stadium, and if so it also pre-dated the UEFA bandwagon rolling into town.

After that I'm struggling - I don't think our lot have ever troubled the Olympic Stadium in Rome, but Red Star Belgrade run (or ran?) an RL team and its not inconceivable that they've allowed a domestic final, or Serbia international, to be played in the main stadium.

Near misses of sorts - the Challenge Cup and Magic Weekend have each been to Murrayfield, but never Hampden; and Catalan Dragons once played Warrington in the Olympic Stadium in Barcelona, and while the crowd was respectable it would have been somewhat lost if they'd played across town.

RU can claim a few more than those (at least four that I can think of), but that's their job not mine.

[Alex Anderson]

Stade Louis II (named after Rainier's father) has a capacity of 18,523

I'm quite confident that Monaco also hold the record for the lowest average attendance of any Finalist, with an average of 10,394 for the 2003-04 season (actually rather high for Monaco and an increase of more than 25% over the prior season).

Stade de Reims' Stade Auguste-Delaune held more than 25,000 during the club's golden age, but has since been completely rebuilt. The old Auguste-Delaney also had a quality cycling track, which did not survive the rebuild.

Gracie Kelley would have my guts for garters for spelling her father in law's name wrong. Outstanding again, ursus. I had to whop out the Romeo Ionescu reference books to get a better idea on Satchmo's question about winners but if you haven't nailed AS Monaco as the European Cup/UCL finalist with the smallest home capacity then I don't know who has.

I had a quick look at the Simon Inglis section on Sweden, as well as Malmo's crowds during their run to the 79 final. The old Malmo Stadium didn't ever hold more than 32,000 or much less than 29,000. Despite a paltry 5,500 in the second round - against ... AS MONACO! - it did get 25,000 in the semi.

Furthermore, a few of the games Reims didn't move from the Auguste Delaune during their runs to the two finals in the 1950s attracted crowds well above 30k. So it's Monaco, easy.




Now, De Meer never got above 29,500 capacity at any time when it was Ajax's home ground, as it was for all four of their tournament wins. So that makes Ajax the European Cup/UCL winner with the smallest home capacity stadium.





However, I've yet to track down a European game they played there, especially a European Cup/UCL game (De Meer didn't get floodlights til 1974, year after the third of their four triumphs) so it seems that Nottingham Forest are the European Cup/UCL winner with the smallest capacity of the stadium at which they play their matches during the season/s they win the trophy.

Another line which slips easily into conversation of a match day.

I can tell Satchmo that Stamford Bridge held over 41,000 - though only got a crowd above the 40k mark for a group match v Valencia (41,109) - during Chelsea's winning 2011-12 season. This presents a bit of a problem for us because Forest handily completed their "Executive Stand" during their second European Cup-winning season. The biggest home crowd of their 78-79 run was against Cologne in the semi. At 40,804 and without being sure of the City Ground's total capacity that season, that pushes 2011-12 Stamford Bridge very close.




By watching some old Youtube videos of Forest's home games in both European Cup-winning seasons you can see terracing disappearing along that side of the ground from one campaign to the other as a result of this big new stand (which I sat in during Euro 96 on my only ever game inside the City Ground - Portugal v Turkey). The "new" stand is big (it still is) and the terracing which sat in its place the previous season is fairly shallow, being the enclosure of the old, removed East Stand. So this makes it hard to judge if the capacity for 78-79 was much reduced in 79-80.

The entire, three-sides-terracing City Ground was fit to burst for the Cologne semi in the first season so we'd normally assume the capacity must have dropped well below the 40k mark the following season when seats are brought in to replace a standing area. But the seats here weren't slapped straight onto a re-profiled terrace - they were in a structure which dwarfed anything that had been there before. You get the idea.

It's this (v Liverpool in 78-79) ...



... versus this (same side of stadium, v Dynamo Berlin, 79-80):




I just want someone to confirm the City Ground's capacity didn't go beyond 41,000 during either of their two winning seasons.

Unbelievably annoyingly for someone trying to establish contemporary capacities, their biggest crowd for the 1979-80 campaign still left room for more (how much more, I do not know!), as confirmed by Barry Davies at the 21min 30secs mark of this clip of that game: the semi-final first leg against Ajax, watched by 31,244.

It's this second season which not only nails them the record of smallest ground capacity for any winning club but, surely, makes Nottingham Forest 1979-80 the worst attended home run of any European Cup/UCL-winning side.


Quarter-final, v Dynamo Berlin: 27, 946
Second Round, v Arges Pitesti: 24,828
First Round, v Oster Vaxjo: 21, 974

This makes Forest's aggregate home attendance for that entire campaign just shy of 106,000. Real Madrid, Benfica, Barcelona, Celtic and probably some other clubs who haven't won it who I can't quite bring to mind, have all registered bigger home crowds for a single ECCC/UCL match.

And one future champion once registered more than 106,000 for a pre-European Football European football match ...

[ursus arctos]

One would be unlikely to see Colombes from a plane, as it is in the northwest of the city (not terribly far from the Stade de France and Stade Bauer), while CDG is further out of town to the northeast.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Did Colombes stage the Olympics? If so I've been to 9 of them. Two inadvertently. I only went to Colombes because it was where they filmed Escape to Victory.

[ursus arctos]

Yes, it was the main stadium in 1924

[Alex Anderson]

One would be unlikely to see Colombes from a plane, as it is in the northwest of the city (not terribly far from the Stade de France and Stade Bauer), while CDG is further out of town to the northeast.

This is very scary news.

[Alex Anderson]

There's a tangent to be had here - ECCC/CL final venues at which Rugby League has been played. Old Trafford and Wembley are mainstays in the RL calendar. The Millennium Stadium hosted the original Magic Weekends, the Challenge Cup final when Wembley was being rebuilt, and a double header in the RLWC in 2013. Parc des Princes hosted RLWC games in 1954, including the final. What these have in common is that RL was played at each of them before they first hosted the ECCC/CL final.

I believe (though it's hard to tell with anything related to RL in Russia) that Russia hosted a game at the Luzhniki Stadium, and if so it also pre-dated the UEFA bandwagon rolling into town.

After that I'm struggling - I don't think our lot have ever troubled the Olympic Stadium in Rome, but Red Star Belgrade run (or ran?) an RL team and its not inconceivable that they've allowed a domestic final, or Serbia international, to be played in the main stadium.

Near misses of sorts - the Challenge Cup and Magic Weekend have each been to Murrayfield, but never Hampden; and Catalan Dragons once played Warrington in the Olympic Stadium in Barcelona, and while the crowd was respectable it would have been somewhat lost if they'd played across town.

RU can claim a few more than those (at least four that I can think of), but that's their job not mine.

I saw Ferencvaros and Schalke 04 both at Murrayfield.That was in the UEFA Cup and at the home of Scottish Rugby Union so, really, I'm failing on two fronts straight away. But Hearts, who are playing there tomorrow and for a few more weeks while Tyney gets its Archibald Leitch-murdering new main stand, did play Champions League qualifier football there and when I was coming back from a game at Falkirk once the Glasgow train, which stops at Haymarket after Waverley, was full of families from the northwest of England in what were to me, fascinatingly strange replica sports shirts to be seen on that train ... that would be your Magic Weekend ... or did they have the Challenge Cup final at Murrayfield once? - and when Rangers (European Cup/UCL semi-finalists) won the league at Easter Road (Scene of first ever ECCC game in Britain) on 22 May 2005 it was the same day as STADE FRANCAIS lost the Heineken Cup final at Murrayfield and when I went to Ibrox for the team returning, over in the Copland Road stand someone was waving the very-Rangers Stade Francaise flag flag which, Rangers fans being Rangers fans, I hope they'd "swapped" with a passing Gallic visitor to our capital.

And I think I know South Africa played Uruguay at Hampden during one of the IRB World Cups. Union, again, I know but Hampden is a three-time final venue and I really am out my depth with the oval ball stuff.

Only other thing I can think of is watching some sort of Heineken Cup game on the telly for ten minutes because the crowd was stunningly mental for some Catalan rugger union team and packing out the Barcelona Olympic stadium up in Montjuic, which was still home to Espanyol at the time. Espanyol who I saw in the 2007 UEFA Cup final at Hampden ...

yeah, I'm letting you down on the Rugby League, Walt. Who'd have thought I'd be more of a Union man. See my post a bit back about Argentina, in their Racing Club de Paris (aaahhhhh) kit, sealing World Cup bronze against France at the Parc des Princes.

Also, I suppose Rangers were named after a rugby union side so ...