Central League: or what Liverpool used to dominate.

[Sporting]

Between 1969 and 1975 they won 14 out of 17 of these leagues.

Why? How come?

Obviously they had good players but so much better? Were the other teams using the league to bring back injured players or to gently put to sleep oldish unwanted ones?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ce...1%E2%80%932016

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

When Bill Shankly was asked who the best two sides in the country were in 1972? 1973? and he replied "Liverpool, and Liverpool reserves" it wasn't a silly boast. It was an honest assessment.

[Vicarious Thrillseeker]

I thought the quote was that the two best teams on Merseyside were Liverpool and the reserves.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

You're probably right. It was just a bit before my time. If I do recall correctly, Roy Evans was Liverpool's Central League manager for a lot of those.

[Bored Of Education]

We were having a discussion the other day about the issue at our level as there is no reserve league. We have the Development squad on U23s who play for the University that they study at but have precious few matches against the development squads at other clubs as there is also no U23 league at this level. There is a huge difference in quality and fitness between college/university football and senior football at this level. Similarly, if a player is injured or at the fringes of a squad, he doesn't get much opportunity to get match fit unless he goes out on loan. The other opportunity is appearances in local cups but, of course, you don't want supporters staying away (even moreso than they do now) due to these cup games being nothing more than reserve gaes. With a reserve league at this level, you could field U23 players and fringe players in fairly competitive games. With term dates not coinciding with the season and budgets at this level; smaller squad sizes and budgetary restrictions at this level, it is a conundrum that is difficult to address successfully.

[Etienne]

Standards of pedantry are slipping on here if no-one is going to comment on how winning 14 titles between 1969 and 1975 is staggeringly dominant.

[EIM]

When Bill Shankly was asked who the best two sides in the country were in 1972? 1973? and he replied "Liverpool, and Liverpool reserves" it wasn't a silly boast. It was an honest assessment.

Nah. It was a boast.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Of course it was a boast. He just got to boast about it when it was true.

Try cracking that shite these days.

[Sporting]

Standards of pedantry are slipping on here if no-one is going to comment on how winning 14 titles between 1969 and 1975 is staggeringly dominant.

Deliberate mistake and ten points for spotting it!

[seand]

It is an interesting one though.... Liverpool were obviously very strong during the period 1969-85, but it's not like they were completely dominating the league ala Juventus, Celtic etc these days. The financial disparity wasn't there back in the day to allow Liverpool to hoover up any decent prospects and let them rot in the reserves, so why did Liverpool's second team dominate so much more than their first team? Did Liverpool have a replicatable system that gave them a big advantage? Did they take it more seriously than the others?

The Central League only covered half the country, but plenty of big clubs in opposition.

[Sporting]

I imagine they took it more seriously than others and had greater strength of depth. In any case I found this on the web which I will link to. Howard Gayle:

https://www.theanfieldwrap.com/2016/...rs-in-history/

Some of the things he says are extremely damning.