Steven Scragg - A tournament frozen in time : the wonderful randomness of the European Cup Winners Cup

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2019

Pitch Publishing

A2 Yeoman Gate

Yeoman Way

Durrington

BN13 3QZ

www.pitchpublishing.co.uk

Steven Scragg, 2019

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A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library

Print ISBN 978-1-78531-538-1

eBook ISBN 978-1-78531-610-4

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Dedication

For my lovely mum, whom we lost on 5 October 2018. Had it not been for you allowing me to misspend so much of my youth on football, Id never have become the unashamed football hipster I am today. Also, for my dad, who gifted me my team of choice, for Alison and David who had to put up with the constantly obstructive Subbuteo pitch throughout childhood, and for Bev, Sam, Elsie and Florence who are my world.

THIS BOOK was born from a podcast. Around a year ago, for These Football Times, we put together a series of podcasts on the glory days of the European Cup, the UEFA Cup and the European Cup Winners Cup.

The Cup Winners Cup podcast particularly hit the spot for listeners and as a throwaway remark my These Football Times comrade, Will Sharp, implored me to put a Cup Winners Cup book on my to-do list. Well Will, here it is. You really do have a lot to answer for.

These Football Times has been an unmitigated joy to be a part of. A collection of like-minded souls who embrace the history of the game, finding untold stories or offering a different angle on well-known topics. This book wouldnt have been possible without me being a part of this wonderful environment, provided to us by its creator, the brilliant Omar Saleem.

Being encouraged and cheered on by the likes of Stuart Horsfield, Gary Thacker, Dan Williamson, Chris Weir, Jon Townsend, Andrew Flint and Matt Evans has been invaluable in seeing me get this book over the finish line. Another motivation was to fulfil a prophesy of one of our collective that we sadly lost in 2018: the legendary Jim Hart. Jim believed in his team of writers and offered nothing but positivity. All he ever wanted to do was absorb your passion for football. He remains much missed.

In putting this book together, I have been overwhelmed by the support and help of Hyder Jawd. Those endless evenings of talking the football of the past has stirred the mind and the soul, while nobody has shouted the concept of this book as long and loudly as the fantastic Graham Denton and Jeff Goulding.

I have also been supported in every single word Ive ever written by Hayley Coleman, my most spectacular of friends, plus Andy and Carrie Knott. Each of these are people I am a better person for knowing.

Mostly, however, I must thank my wife, Bev, for insisting I start writing again in late 2013, after what was an almost decade-long hiatus, and our children, Sam, Elsie and Florence for accepting they couldnt play on the laptop, because I was on a roll with Dinamo Tbilisi.

I could not have done this without the presence of each one of you. Many thanks.

FOR ANYBODY aged above 40 (although it could as easily be a sensory experience that belongs to me alone, I suppose), the European Cup Winners Cup cant fail to evoke, from the misty ether of your mind, the theme tune to Sportsnight the BBCs long-running, but generation-since defunct, midweek sports televisual digest.

If that has struck a nerve, then I dare imagine that very theme tune will be circulating in your head right now?

Glorious, isnt it?

Even ITVs rival version of Sportsnight, Midweek Sports Special, could boast an infectious opening musical salvo. Along with its BBC counterpart, it retrospectively speaks of a plate of cheese on toast in front of the TV as well as the bonus of being allowed to stay up late on a school night to watch Ray Clemence fumble a speculative effort from the Barcelona defender Antonio Olmo into his own goal when on duty for Tottenham Hotspur in the first leg of the 1982 semi-final. Of course, the Cup Winners Cup wasnt always as glamorous as Spurs vs Barcelona and, even when it was that glamorous, it was often tinged with a dark edge. That game at White Hart Lane in April 1982 was one which most neutrals had expected to be infused with skill and beauty. However, it turned out to be one enveloped in spite, violence and rancour, as Barcelona opted to kick their opponents almost as much as the football, panicked as they were by the prospect of not reaching a final that was to be hosted at the Camp Nou five weeks later.

No, the Cup Winners Cup was at its very best when it was being oblique. A beautiful randomness that meant Castilla, the Real Madrid reserve side, qualified for the 1980/81 contesting of the tournament having reached and lost the 1980 Copa del Rey Final, in which they had faced the recently crowned La Liga champions, Real Madrid.

The 1980/81 Cup Winners Cup offered peak randomness. Upon the front cover of this book is a photo from the 1981 final. The photo shows everything you could possibly want, visually. A huge electronic scoreboard, which was magnificently of its era, set with the scoreline at 1-0 a mere four minutes beyond Carl Zeiss Jena having opened the scoring. The game stands at 1-1, however, and Vladimir Gutsaev is wheeling away, arms raised in celebration at having plundered the equalising goal for Dinamo Tbilisi. Two of his team-mates are angling their bodies towards the direction of Gutsaevs running trajectory, intending to ambush their hero of the moment.

Add into this evocative landscape the resting ball itself, an iconic Adidas Tango, two beautifully simplistic kits, the players in those Carl Zeiss Jena colours with hands on hips in resignation at the unfolding events. And then there is the fact that it is all being played out in a sparsely populated stadium, in West Germany, where only a reputed 4,750 spectators have assembled, making it one of the smallest attendances ever for a major European final.

It all speaks to me of a beautifully desolate utopia, a million miles away from the obscene amounts of money being paid for television rights, of brand recognition, of players who are detached from the mundanities of everyday life as they disembark from a space-age coach while cocooned from the outside world by their oversized headphones that arent even plugged in to anything. The photo on the front of this book is a million miles away from Zadok the Priest and being implored to favour Continental over all other tyre manufacturers.

The 1980/81 tournament encompasses the first chapter of this book. There is no better or more eccentric season to start with. Yet it isnt alone in its random nature and eccentricities: just as, by the traditional way in, there is no rhyme or reason behind a domestic cup success, sometimes neither was there anything particularly consistent about the Cup Winners Cup. There were no usual suspects thanks to that random-generator system of qualification.