Announcement

Collapse
No announcement yet.

European Cup Trivia

Collapse
X
 
  • Filter
  • Time
  • Show
Clear All
new posts

    Originally posted by Alex Anderson View Post
    Oh that's inspiring a meltdown alright, Sam. The mind-blowingly exciting type, along the lines of my "I'd never realised the red, white and blue collar was worn by the champions of France". One of those things that's been right in front of me all my life but I've been looking at it so closely I never looked either side of it and clicked. Others would call it not being able to see the woods for the trees (or the land border for the Rio de la Plata) - I prefer to think of it as the moment in The Matrix when Keanu Reeves realises what's actually going on ... although, in my low rent case, of just being plain thick, it's actually more like the moment in Ghost where Patrick Swayze realises he's, ye know, a ghost.

    Yeah I grew up reading all the stories of the boatloads of Argentina fans coming across the River Plate for the 1930 Final - being searched for weapons by Uruguayan police as they disembarked, etc. Bloody loved it. The fact no-one in any of those stories came by car or foot never really sank in.

    Sank.

    Anyway, military bases and embassies ...
    Well it's not the Rio de la Plata so much as the Rio Uruguay that does it. Forms the entire border, all the way down. Uruguay's full name is 'República Oriental del Uruguay', or 'the republic east of the [River] Uruguay', not so much the name of a country as a set of directions (which just makes me love the place all the more). Where the Uruguay and the Paraná flow into the estuary of the Rio de la Plata, there are deltas and islands, and two of those islands - one belonging to Argentina and the other, really only a sandbar, belonging to Uruguay - silted together at some point in the mid-1980s, and thus was born the land border between Argentina and Uruguay, just a couple of kilometres long.

    Comment


      Legendary teams whose peak was a defeat? How about the most romantic, exotic, gloriously inglorious, unbeatably beaten, iconic mould breaking,era-defining team of them all.... Hungary 1954. But that's another thread altogether. This one's pretty good though.

      Comment


        Originally posted by Sam View Post
        Well it's not the Rio de la Plata so much as the Rio Uruguay that does it. Forms the entire border, all the way down. Uruguay's full name is 'República Oriental del Uruguay', or 'the republic east of the [River] Uruguay', not so much the name of a country as a set of directions (which just makes me love the place all the more). Where the Uruguay and the Paraná flow into the estuary of the Rio de la Plata, there are deltas and islands, and two of those islands - one belonging to Argentina and the other, really only a sandbar, belonging to Uruguay - silted together at some point in the mid-1980s, and thus was born the land border between Argentina and Uruguay, just a couple of kilometres long.
        This is just fucking brilliant, Sam. Absolutely fascinating. I've already decided the mate on who I will first unleash this piece of very un-trivial trivia about a tiny stretch of land in a lot of water that means so much.

        And "not so much a country as a set of directions" is now up there with "some countries have history - Uruguay has football".

        Yup - for all I should be bitter after what they did to Scotland at Mexico 86, I just can't help seeing Uruguay as epitomising everything my national team should be. "Not so much the size of the man in the fight, etc." They are right up there with the All Blacks and the China national XI in my never-ending rant about population size having nothing to do with it. (Iceland have sneaked into this argument now, of course - I'm maybe citing them fifth these days, after I bring up Croatia in the "and neither of these countries have ever beaten Scotland" part of the monologue).

        The 1950 "final" is always where this rant of mine is going. A goal down in the second half to a team which has scored six and seven in the previous games, and who only need a draw to become World Champions, and the biggest crowd ever to attend a football match is going nuts all around you like the biggest ever scale model representation of just how tiny your country is compared to your opponents' ... and Obdulio Varela picks an argument with the ref, slows the whole thing down - and wins. Coz he knows it's 11 v 11.

        That's another name I read about when I was a kid and will never forget. Think I'll start anonymously sending pictures of him to Stewart Regan ...

        Comment


          Originally posted by seand View Post
          Legendary teams whose peak was a defeat? How about the most romantic, exotic, gloriously inglorious, unbeatably beaten, iconic mould breaking,era-defining team of them all.... Hungary 1954. But that's another thread altogether. This one's pretty good though.
          Yup. Netherlands 74 a close second. And both countries having another one or two World Cup silver medal finishes to their names, just to keep the legend at the point it burned brightest.

          As Uncle Monty says when the sky begins to bruise, there can be no true beauty without decay ...

          Netherlands winning their only major honour at Munich's Olympic Stadium is like St Etienne winning the Europa League at Hampden ... after beating Bayern in the semis.

          Comment


            Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
            For rampant homoeroticism, Italy's goal celebrations in the 1982 semi and final. Almost literally balls out.

            Not sure if any Scottish teams ever got that point of sexual intensity. Ally MacLeod could get emotional but I don't recall him kissing Don Masson.
            Scottish players are givers - more interested in pleasing their adoring crowds. Kenny Dal with that gorgeous smile and come-to-me outstretched arms when he scored winners past Clemence in 76 ... and then again in 77 ...

            I certainly shot my load when Griffiths' second free kick went sailing past Hart in June.

            Well, if I'm being honest, I kinda went off when he lined it up. Sorry, love ... been under a lot of strain at work ... and you're just so beautiful ...
            Last edited by Alex Anderson; 01-12-2017, 10:59. Reason: Don Masson and Bruce Rioch - ooooh. Men's men.

            Comment


              Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
              Alex, OL missed out on the entire tricolour collar and cuffs era.

              They only one their first title in 2001-02, then going on to win seven in a row.

              What they did generally wear during those years was a special version of the LFP sleeve patch roughly analogous to the one worn by Premier League Champions ...
              Great pics ursus and thanks for confirming that. It leaves me feeling a bit sad - as I suspect it does you - so that's some hard core researching. Very big on tradition me - especially one as beautiful as the tricolour collar. I was looking at those Lyon strips of their seven-in-a-row years, hoping the occasional flash of blue and red round the white collar was something more than just their club colours.

              I'm kinda taken by the fact everyone on the planet uses the stars above the crest in different ways. In Scotland, for example we even have Rangers using five stars, as in one per ten league titles (the Italian model) but Celtic (who have won forty-odd titles) using just one for their single European Cup, while Aberdeen (four league titles) have two stars - one for the 1983 Cup-winners' Cup and the other, surely, the only star worn on a strip anywhere in Europe for the subsequent Super Cup. And those leagues who do regulate the use of stars within their nation, do so differently to other nations. The German system is different to the Italian is different to the Turkish.

              We then have Denmark with a single star for a Euros and England with one for a World Cup and ... ANYWAY ... I DIGRESS! The point is I like the random application of such jersey medals, cloth trophies - sartorial honorifics - whatever you want to call them (even the Barbarians wearing their club socks or the NFL Pro Bowlers wearing their franchise helmets. LOVELY!). And I LOVE that some countries have a season-long jersey detail for reigning domestic champions. My favourite is still the Coppa Italia coccarda . But I hate when that tradition, once established and no matter how out of line with the rest of the world, is then itself messed with.

              We can see the grubby hands of marketing men all over those later Ligue 1 patches. As with the uber-modern trophy. Heart-breaking. When someone wants to "streamline" or "re-imagine" a competition they always go for the trophy first - usually wiping out tradition rather than harnessing it. This is at least where UEFA got it right with the Champions League. But Wiki tells me that's not really the case with Ligue 1's Hexagonal - itself replacing something which was also pretty temporary.



              So is that what's happened then? Did France traditionally have no actual trophy for the league title - just like Italy? It seems like the collar and cuffs went out of fashion just around the time Wiki is first talking about a Ligue 1 trophy.

              Serie A have brought in a tacky trophy too but they've continued with lo scudetto. No need, France. No need. You can have both.

              The Coupe de France, which laverte showed us being paraded by the St Etienne WAGS, may have been enough for the stylish, philosophical French: "Cups are just that - for cup competitions". But fans and sponsors now think every honour needs a trophy lift. It was, of course, Michel Platini who took UEFA's podiums back off the pitch and up into the grandstand again. A move I celebrated when announced. I'd long complained about the death of the "walk up the stairs to the dignitaries' box". First traditional trophy presentation of Michel's new broom? Fucking Zenit St Petersburg at Manchester. Whaddayaknow, I was there in person to see it with my own two eyes - although I couldn't really for the tears.

              I was also all for what I thought was UEFA getting with the tradition programme when I first saw the European Cup arm patches with multiple winners having the number of titles inscribed inside the badge - until I realised it was only Adidas-sponsored former champions who had this ... I'm getting into denishurley territory here but, man, I just wish Lyon had worn the collar and cuffs when I saw them.

              But I now know why, despite them never competing in the big competition, I've been particularly loving Stoke Cité of late ...



              Okay, they've got it upside down but - hey - maybe that's how a union jack tricolour would look ...
              Last edited by Alex Anderson; 01-12-2017, 12:22. Reason: And, really, aren't Stoke that most British of clubs ...

              Comment


                There was no trophy before 2003, at which point this was introduced



                While the Trophée de Ligue 1 was widely decried as appearing to be a serial killer's work in progress, it did at least preserve a hint of the tradition, as the coloured bands represented the colours of the winning club. As OL were the only club to have ever won it in its four seasons of existence, we never got to see what it would look like with a different set of colours.

                The trophy whose photo you posted above came into being for the 2006-07 season and is called Hexagol, thus intending to evoke the country's hexagonal shape and the now common reference to France as l'Hexagone.

                Comment


                  Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                  The trophy whose photo you posted above came into being for the 2006-07 season and is called Hexagol, thus intending to evoke the country's hexagonal shape and the now common reference to France as l'Hexagone.
                  yep,

                  Comment


                    Originally posted by Alex Anderson View Post

                    Was telling someone just last week that the first time I ever heard my dad using the "language not from his pocket" (I've put that expression in various search engines, laverte and found myself on websites run by guys who dress like Gilbert Gress in that photo - that second photo - in a pathetic effort to acquire some of his heroism)
                    It’s langue as in "tongue" here = "to talk a lot, to say what one thinks, to always have a retort (even if it’s tactless or embarrassing)", from https://www.lawlessfrench.com/expres...dans-sa-poche/.

                    Basically means someone’s who is talkative, who’ll speak to anybody, but also s.o who has a tendency to butt in, to stick his/her oar in even if it is none of his/her beeswax.

                    Comment


                      Originally posted by Alex Anderson View Post
                      Parents and football; Sainté and OM; romance, sex, love! Just like that goddam Coupe des Clubs Champions Européens, we all know who invented it. Those libidinous Frenchies! Settin up their shamefully glamorous competitions, with sun-tanned, snake-hipped Latin types and hirsute, laconic Gauls in shockingly billow-free shorts, all doing sensual things with a leather orb - all under seedy night lights ... then comin' over 'ere with their tight-fitting, silky shirts and racy collars ...

                      etc.

                      (sorry, I had to shorten your text Alex in the Quote function as this message popped up: "The text that you have entered is too long (12468 characters). Please shorten it to 10000 characters long".
                      Powerful words Alex, I really enjoy reading you too. And thanks for starting this thread healthily suffused with (the right sort of) nostalgia.

                      Football can be so emotionally potent when it’s woven into the warp and weft of our beings, into our lives, into our childhood memories, especially when the whole package of feelings and experiences is passed on from one generation to the next as it were. This is our true DNA, it’s who we really are, it’s what defines us. You’re not French/Francophone or from Saint-Étienne at all Alex, that culture is/was probably alien to you etc. nonetheless you've developed this strong, intimate bond with Les Verts from an early age. It’s strange, yet so normal.

                      Easter 2013. I was then regularly writing on English football for French website Les Cahiers du Football and to mark the 40th anniversary of Sunderland’s 1973 FA Cup épopée, I interviewed former SAFC defender Cecil Irwin (351 games for the Black Cats from 1958 to 1971, whom I met via the SAFC Former Players Association) as well as a S’land supporter, John, in his 70s.

                      About John. After an encounter & interview full of emotions and reminiscences, I showed him old photos of Roker Park, vintage match programmes and footage of the stadium, of the Roker Roar etc. He soon shed a few tears*.

                      The weird thing is that I did too, I started to well up as well. Yet, I’ve never known Roker Park and its fabled Roar, I’ve never experienced the 1973 FA Cup, I never lived through these Red and White halcyon days and never knew of them really until relatively recently. So all this should in theory have been very distant to me but I could visualise the same as John did, I could see the same images right there in front of me and I felt the same as he did at that precise moment. His memories and emotions became mine, they had found their way inside me in a matter of minutes. His SAFC became my ASSE. His Roker Park was my Geoffroy-Guichard; his Monty’s acrobatic saves were my Curkovic’s near-invincibility; his Bobby Kerr’s pieces of artistry were my Rocheteau’s fulgurances (flashes of brilliance).

                      It was all very weird and uncanny. That day, football’s universality made the transversality of emotions powerfully tangible.

                      [*(excerpt of my article):
                      John n’en dira pas plus et je préfère me faire silencieux. Machinalement, j’étale devant lui quelques photos de Roker Park ainsi que des vieux programmes de match et lui montre ce clip** émouvant. Trop émouvant. Je sens les larmes lui monter. L’émotion me gagne également et, la voix serrée, je balbutie quelques mots. Je n’ai jamais connu Roker Park et il doit trouver mon émoi bien étrange. Je détourne le regard, fixe les photos et me plonge dans des souvenirs imaginaires, des moments que je n’ai jamais vécus.

                      Je quitte John l’esprit perdu dans mes pensées sur ce stade que j’aurais tellement aimé connaître, sentir, toucher




                      **
                      Last edited by Pérou Flaquettes; 01-12-2017, 14:01.

                      Comment


                        Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
                        It that wasn't the largest and most fervent celebration of a losing team in the history of the sport, it was certainly the largest and most fervent hosted 500 km away from their home city.

                        L'épopée des Verts was unique.
                        Absolument.

                        Many great teams've had a great reception back home - and provided the greatest memories for a generation or two of their fans - despite losing a final. I know the the Germany side of 1966 was feted, as were the Dutch in 2010. Some don't even have to reach the final; Wales last summer, again the Germans in 2006 seemed happy with their lot as third-placed hosts and England's fourth-placed side of Italia 90 are as legendary as their Euro 96 semi-finalists.

                        But sometimes this is because you're used to winning nowt or have enough glory under the belt to let you see modern nearly men in a kinder light. And any national team, of course, just has to put together a small run or manage one great result to "unify the country" in a way which might be reciprocated at the airport on your arrival home. Christ, even Scotland getting knocked out in the first round in 1974 was heroic stuff for us - coz we did it without losing a game and it had been a whole 16 years since we'd last made a finals (imagine!).

                        At international level Netherlands 1974 and Hungary 54, as mentioned above, have to be the greatest non-winners because their appeal was so global. Brazil 82 were pretty universally beloved too (or maybe they were just pretty).

                        But for club football it's more difficult to judge - so ursus's picture nails it: If the greatest international "failures" are the ones loved on a global scale, then the best club football equivalents have to be those feted by the entire country (within reason, natch - but there's even a whole lot of Germans who thought Bayern's 1999 final loss was one too many). That's the Champs-Élysées - that's a state celebration. And people from all over the world (Barnsley to Glasgow), have been gushing over Sainté on these pages. Some of us never even watched them in that final.

                        [Hungary 54, Netherlands 74, St Etienne 76. The Germans never get any love, do they.]

                        On a personal note (and is there any other kind on here), my club's outstanding trophy win is its only European trophy - the 1972 Cup-Winners Cup. And if the rest of the world were forced to glance through the history of Scottish football and Rangers, they would instantly pick that out as our go-to greatest achievement.

                        Yet I once co-wrote a book in which we discussed just how difficult it has been to position that triumph at the top of Rangers' achievements. It's certainly taken a while for it to find its way in the top end of Rangers fans' affections. Having a wee riot or two before and after the final whistle in the Nou Camp, to celebrate, and being banned from defending it did not help. Our deadliest rivals having won the European Cup five years earlier also made it seem like a minimum requirement had been fulfilled rather than the well of glory drunk dry.

                        And while I loved us reaching the UEFA Cup final in Manchester (again, a wee riot or two made that difficult to review affectionately. At first.), my favourite painful moment in Rangers' history is still the square ball across the box which, had it been passed better, Ally McCoist or Stuart McCall would have swept it past Barthez to put us in the Champions League final. My favourite agonising moment came in the Velodrome. Those bloody French again.

                        My favourite achievement was that entire European run, which ended with us second in a quarter-final group. The fact we won the domestic treble that same season cannot be separated from that European run, in just the same way our loss in Manchester 2007-08 is dampened by the fact we lost that season's domestic treble on the last night of league fixtures.

                        So when I run through the list of clubs who've reached the final of the European Cup/Champions League but never won it, I can't lazily assume it's been the greatest moment in their history. Especially if those clubs have won another European trophy - or maybe even reached another European final which was more unexpected and produced better football as, say, Club Brugge did in the UEFA Cup final two years before they met Liverpool again in one of The Big One's poorer finals.

                        Anyway, before I get too scientific about it - someone just stood on top of their desk and began shouting "captain, my captain!" - the point is St Etienne blow all this doubt away. Millions outside France know for a fact this was their greatest moment. The contemporaneous context counts even more: They were only the second French side to reach the final - the first since the black and white TV days of the Stade de Reims they had just surpassed as the greatest domestic French side ever - and no French side had yet won the biggest club trophy that country invented.

                        And, as laverte said earlier, Sainté came so close they could nail their failure in the final down to Rocheteau being brought on too late or that fucking square Hampden woodwork.


                        Reached the final but never won it:

                        Stade de Reims**
                        Fiorentina
                        Eintracht Frankfurt
                        Partizan Belgrade***
                        Panathinaikos***
                        Atletico de Madrid
                        Leeds United
                        St Etienne***
                        Borussia Moenchengladbach
                        Club Brugge*
                        Malmo FF***
                        AS Roma
                        Sampdoria
                        Valencia
                        Bayer Leverkusen
                        AS Monaco*
                        Arsenal

                        *Never won any European trophy
                        **Never reached the final of another European competition
                        ***Their only European final was their one and only European Cup/Champions League final

                        Atletico Madrid have certainly been through the most pain (losing more finals than anyone who's never won it, all of them involving final-death agony and two of them being to the very club who've tortured you domestically for your entire existence - imagine a derby rival who won't even let you lose a European Cup final on your own). And the 1970's was definitely the decade of the one-time losing finalist. But there's one club team who's European Cup final pain was turned into more iconography than any other's. Why else would they want to buy and keep those goalposts.

                        Comment


                          Hexagonal trophies, square posts and me misunderstanding what's called what - but it looks like we've pinpointed when and why the championship-winning collar and cuffs disappeared. And, much less importantly, why I like football so much. One of my favourite aspects is the mystery - of what ifs and foreign languages I have only enough of an idea of to get myself into trouble. Uncovering these details about St Etienne and France has been bloody intoxicating.

                          Talking of which, that'll be Friday night then ... in Glasgow. I'm nothing if not my father's son. Anyone fancies a pint, I'll meet you at the taxi rank outside Central Station. You'll know it's me by my collar and cuffs ...

                          Comment


                            Originally posted by Kev7 View Post
                            ... "to talk a lot, to say what one thinks, to always have a retort (even if it’s tactless or embarrassing ...
                            Basically means someone’s who is talkative, who’ll speak to anybody, but also s.o who has a tendency to butt in, to stick his/her oar in even if it is none of his/her beeswax.
                            Oui. C'est moi. As evidenced by ...

                            Originally posted by Kev7 View Post

                            (sorry, I had to shorten your text Alex in the Quote function as this message popped up: "The text that you have entered is too long (12468 characters). Please shorten it to 10000 characters long".
                            So I was going to disappear for a bit - maybe even a whole half hour - give everyone else a chance to have their thread back. But there's no way I'm going without saying how much I enjoyed that post of yours, Kev sir.

                            The BBC are trying their best with Howards End this last few Sundays (bless em) and last week we had Margaret doing the "Only connect" bit. And that's what you've nailed there. That's what it's all about. I can slag other teams and fans when it needs doing but I've never enjoyed it. For me it's always been about the connection. First with your own fans but, really, with football fans in general. And I've always, since about age 12, seen football fans split across rather than down the way - across the panoply of borders and clubs - into two: Those who get it and those who don't.

                            That's my personal disgusting terrace-bred bigotry. Fandom is obviously far more complex and subtle than my warped little vision of it. But I can't help dividing football fans into those who feel the love and those who just want bragging rights. St Etienne to Sunderland, Cappielow to le Chaudron - there's always at least one punter in there feeling stuff none of us need translating.

                            But you can be damn sure I'm memorising "fulgurances", "epopee", "Putain de poteaux carrés !”, "Ils auraient dû faire rentrer l'ange plus tôt" ....
                            Last edited by Alex Anderson; 02-12-2017, 09:21. Reason: "The Green Angel". I never knew. But Rangers have their Wee Blue Devil. So I kinda did know.

                            Comment


                              I think a losing team is more remembered if it changed how the game is played, as Netherlands did with Total Football. England in Italia 90 played their most cultured football since 1970. Had they fluked it, I'd like to think the love would be less.

                              I'm not sure how Italy were received after the 1994 final defeat but the dire nature of the final cannot have helped.

                              Best losers in a European Cup final, relative to the era; maybe Benfica in 1968 or Roma in 1984, or whomever had lost in 1985 had it been a genuine game. Celtic in 1970?

                              Comment


                                Benfica 65 - losing at the San Siro to Inter (in the days before any real away support would have been present) with nine fit players by the end of the game (in the days before subs were allowed) - would probably be the most "glorious" one-off losers in any European Cup final. But as with the likes of England and Italy in the World Cup, had won the tournament previously. You could make a great case for Milan in 1958 and 2005 as having lost great finals in exciting style. The football Milan played in the first half of the 2005 final is only bettered for me by what they did in the whole of the 1994 final.

                                But if you confine it just to "hard luck", well, it's applicable to anyone who lost it on penalties really - Benfica again, in 1988, and Valencia in 2001 were particularly "not disgraced" by losing in pretty momentous shoot-outs.

                                But we started off talking more in terms of a club or a country, rather than a one-off team representing that shirt, loved for not winning the tournament in question. The implication is that their greatest effort is heightened in piquancy by that same club or country having never won it.

                                Hungary and Holland lost other World Cup finals but 54 and 74 were their peaks of non-winning. And, going through that list I knocked up above, I think the only real rivals for St Etienne 76 as a club are Stade de Reims 1956 - losing a seven-goal classic to Real, in Paris.

                                Fiorentina losing to Real in the Bernabeu the following year, had other successes in Europe. As did Roma who, in 1984, fucked up on their home ground. Monaco were so comprehensively outplayed in 2004 that they can't be held up as a great among those who've never won it. Everyone else to have lost a European Cup/UCL final is somewhere within these criteria. I see Atletico Madrid as the most tragic. But St Etienne are just so thoroughly embodied by 1976 that I can't see past them as the best loser ever.

                                Comment


                                  Maybe Dinamo Kyiv then, in 1998-99, narrowly beaten by Bayern in a very strong SF having previously won two CWC in sparkling style. Valencia played more attractive football than Atletico, I think, so would be my Spanish selection.

                                  Leeds, probably a better team than Bayern in 1975, although the Yorath foul makes that defeat somewhat less heroic.

                                  A criticism of the old format is that teams often appeared in it a year after they had peaked. You could make a case that, under the current format, Leeds and maybe Kyiv would have won it at some point, just on the law of averages, although it's probably better for the purity of football that they never beat Ajax. Liverpool might have won it earlier. Rangers...a couple of QFs maybe?

                                  Comment


                                    Keegan's 1977 and 1980 Final appearances were his last ever appearances for the respective clubs. Can any player match that: two 'farewell' finals?

                                    Comment


                                      Originally posted by Alex Anderson View Post
                                      But there's one club team who's European Cup final pain was turned into more iconography than any other's. Why else would they want to buy and keep those goalposts.
                                      Saint-Étienne bought both Hampden Park’s wooden uprights but only kept one set (now in the club museum) as the other was very rotten in places (photo below – with Dominique Rocheteau and ?, Pierre Repellini? Not sure, his face rings a bell but I'm not sure he was a player or in the coaching staff at all).

                                      In May 2014, six months after shelling out €20,000 for them, they cut up the rotten one in 38 pieces (2014 minus 1976) which they sold on ebay. The money raised went to 2 charities.







                                      Last edited by Pérou Flaquettes; 03-12-2017, 10:56.

                                      Comment


                                        Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
                                        Keegan's 1977 and 1980 Final appearances were his last ever appearances for the respective clubs. Can any player match that: two 'farewell' finals?
                                        Now that's a question and a half, and it's driving me mad.

                                        Comment


                                          Originally posted by Satchmo Distel View Post
                                          Keegan's 1977 and 1980 Final appearances were his last ever appearances for the respective clubs. Can any player match that: two 'farewell' finals?
                                          I know at least one manager can ...

                                          Comment


                                            Originally posted by Alex Anderson View Post
                                            Kev7 might love the light luggage lifestyle - me, I have stuff.
                                            Nah, not anymore I’m afraid. I used to, in my 20s and early 30s, I liked the thrill of it, the adventure etc. (and TBH, often I didn’t have much choice either!) but now that I am 52 and embourgeoisé (I blame my wife) I have football stuff too, which I cherish, ~400 books on British football, 100s of mags, DVDs etc.

                                            However, I refuse to turn into a hoarder so I’ve given away/offered as little prezzies quite a lot of it in the last two decades (mostly magazines, match programmes etc.) to friends/football & memorabilia enthusiasts, various places etc. things that I didn't mind parting with too much. But not the books (and should anything happen to me, my wife has a list of people to give them to, that and all the rest of my football things, I'd hate for all that stuff to end up in a skip, some of these books for instance, whilst being of no £ value, are relatively rare or hard to get now, even on Amazon. Match programmes are a different beast I think, you can get old match programmes much more easily than football books these days, there are a few UK-based sellers on the Net who specialise in match programmes and places like The Back Page in Newcastle will get you pretty much any match programme, they have 250,000 match progs in their shop and have access to more - admittedly, there aren't many places like The Back Page, it really is unique if I'm not mistaken, there was Sportspages in London, off Charing Cross Rd, and I think there was one in Manchester too but they both closed a while ago, at least a decade ago. Apparently, there's one similar place in Melbourne but that's it, and it's much smaller).
                                            Last edited by Pérou Flaquettes; 03-12-2017, 12:09.

                                            Comment


                                              Originally posted by Kev7 View Post
                                              Saint-Étienne bought both Hampden Park’s wooden uprights but only kept one set (now in the club museum) as the other was very rotten in places ... they cut up the rotten one in 38 pieces (2014 minus 1976) which they sold on ebay. The money raised went to 2 charities ...
                                              Kev7 - that's flippin amazing. I had no idea about this til laverte mentioned the "fuck those square posts" cri de cœur. After realising it wasn't a critique on the entertainment factor of my contributions to this thread, it's pretty touching to know the old square woodwork we loved so much in Scotland - seeing at as a classic representation of our stolid presbyterian wrestles with our celtic nature (okay, maybe that was just me) - has taken on even greater symbolic significance in one of football's most downright glamorous corners.

                                              And in line with Les Verts working class heart, they've chopped those goal-stopping bastards up ... but in line with their truer selves, they did it with style and for a good reason.

                                              This might be even better inside knowledge than Sam's revelation about the Argentina-Uruguay land border. Now I have to work on my delivery, for future attempts to pass off this knowledge as my own.

                                              Especially poignant treatment of the home stadium posts of world's most famous cross-bar breaking fans (When my folks took me and my sis on English seaside resort holidays there'd always be the comedian asking, "any Scots in tonight?", the punchline being "Can we 'ave our goalposts back?"). Beautiful. Wish I'd bought a chunk.

                                              Last edited by Alex Anderson; 04-12-2017, 09:12. Reason: What's that you say? The old Hampden posts? Well, I know EXACTLY what happened to them ...

                                              Comment


                                                Originally posted by Kev7 View Post
                                                (photo below – with Dominique Rocheteau and ?, Pierre Repellini? Not sure, his face rings a bell but I'm not sure he was a player or in the coaching staff at all).
                                                Fuck, of course, silly me, it's the great George Bereta!

                                                https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Bereta

                                                Comment


                                                  Re the “Saint-Étienne best loser ever” debate quietly raging on here for a week or so.

                                                  Quite a few people in France (the younger ones mainly, and non-football peeps) just don’t understand how a team who lost a final reasonably fair and square (let’s not forget Gerd Müller’s probably unjustly chalked-off goal, for offside) was celebrated with such unbridled passion by the whole country after the Hampden Park defeat (the Champs-Élysées crowd even chanted “On a gagné, on a gagné”…) and long after, and how this team of nearly men is still remembered with far more fondness than the all-conquering Marseille side of the Bernard Tapie years, the greatest team ever assembled in French football (in the European top 3 several seasons running and European champions in 1993).

                                                  This “cult of the underdog” is deemed somewhat pathetic, and very French (Poulidor, rather than Anquetil…), by many. And they have a point others say, while stopping short of completely agreeing with these naysayers.



                                                  Except of course, they haven’t (got a fucking point) as the context is paramount here, as often, to fully understand how these “beautiful losers” came to be so popular. The huge rise of the nostalgia business undoubtedly plays a part in this enduring collective worship – something that Marseille doesn’t (yet) benefit from – but there are plenty of Sainté-specific reasons to explain it.

                                                  Since the Stade de Reims years, in the second half of the 1950s, and the Sweden 1958 WC, French football had been in a trough, both at club and national level. The triumphant days of the “Golden Generation” of the 1950s (Fontaine, Kopa, Vincent, Piantoni etc.) were a distant memory. Clubs had done nothing in Europe since the feats of “le Grand Reims” and Les Bleus had been poor in international competitions, qualifiers or actual finals, eg failed to qualify WC 1962, 1970 and 1974 and easily knocked out of the first round in 1966. Some heavy defeats in that era had left scars on the memories too, eg a 5-0 thrashing in 1969 at the hands of the old enemy, England. Ditto in the European Nations’ Cups/(from 1968) European Championships.
                                                  And of course few people owned a television set… This would make a huge difference later for Saint-Étienne, compared to Reims.

                                                  In summary, since the 1950s, France had lacked both inspirational national coaches and standout, iconic players. The French football public had been seriously starved of decent non-domestic football and by the mid-70s said public was very hungry for any kind of excitement, any crumb of hope or God forbid, success, on the international stage. French football was on its knees and it showed. Well, that was if you could watch the games on TV as very few were broadcast.

                                                  So when Saint-Étienne’s thrilling, and televised, 1975-76 European cup run burst onto French screens (not in a completely ex-nihilo fashion it has to be said, the 74-75 campaign had whetted appetites – semi-finals, with a legendary 5-1 win vs Hajduk Split in extra time, after losing the first leg 4-1), with its fair share of drama, epic battles, near miracles and edge-of-your-seat prolongations, it was like being reconnected to the power grid after having lived in the dark for a long time. Intense feelings of love and pride soon followed (very much like England after Italy 1990, eg 300,000 fans at Luton to welcome the “heroes” who not only had hugely entertained England for a month – eg the Gazzamania gripping the nation – but done the country proud and restored faith in its football. Italy 1990 unofficially marked the end of two dire decades for English football, despite outrageous European success at club level, with international failure as a default setting and the domestic game at its nadir – hooliganism, rampant racism, stadium tragedies, low attendances, piss poor TV ratings in the rare occasions football was on telly, reputation of the English game and fans in tatters).

                                                  The public was in awe of the charismatic chairman (Roger Rocher) and his famous pipe, people loved the mystique and cold efficiency of the young manager (Robert Herbin, aka "The Sphinx"), but first and foremost, people strongly identified with the players (most of them were products of the revamped Saint-Étienne youth system), French girls & women otherwise uninterested in football found the players sexy etc. and before long, the Allez les Verts song was Number 1 in the charts and every football fan wanted a Manufrance shirt (which was the League shirt, not the European one as shirt sponsoring was then banned by UEFA - how times have changed...).



                                                  (Saint-Étienne pioneered shirt and kit marketing in France in the early 1970s, much earlier for instance than anything done in England in that department. Chairman-owner Rocher, a former miner turned businessman, set about modernising and structured the club when he took over in 1961 and turned ASSE into a successful sports business at all levels, ASSE indeed became a lucrative winning machine under his leadership from 1961 to 1982– 9 French league titles and 6 Coupes de France; 1982 being the end of the road for Rocher, for the reasons I briefly mentioned here a few weeks ago , basically addiction to success and greed had spun a host of dodgy practices, most infamously the set-up of a "caisse noire" (slush fund) that had grown massive by the time Rocher got in a pickle. Said caisse noire had been created 15 years before Rocher arrived it has to be said, it was the brainchild of the Guichard family, well-known in France for creating the Casino supermarket chain from one corner shop in Saint-Étienne. Most top-flight clubs probably had a slush fund but Rocher took it to an unprecedented level, commensurate with his big ambitions for the club. He ended up doing time over it).

                                                  Last but not least: these times (1970s) were non partisan, non tribalistic, every single French football fan loved Saint-Étienne, at least as much as their own team, and followed their various European épopées (the 1976-77 wasn’t bad either, famous game at Anfield) with fervour. However, by the time Marseille was crowned European champion in 1993, it was a different matter, whilst most French people (including Northerners, but excl. PSG supporters) and football supporters were at least pleased for them/French football (Papin, Waddle, Boli, Goethals etc. were universally liked, Bernard Tapie much less so), the various rivalries in the intervening years had changed the fandom landscape, there was joy but no national euphoria. And of course the Olympique Marseille/VA bribery scandal of 1993 seriously tarnished l’OM’s image while diminishing its European achievements.

                                                  In this respect, Reims was unlucky as few households had a television of course and few games were broadcast. Saint-Étienne’s cup run arrived at exactly the right moment, colour TV sets were starting to be affordable and more games were being broadcast.

                                                  Comment


                                                    Bravo!

                                                    Comment

                                                    Working...
                                                    X