Football in the 1970's

[Del Boy]

Muddy pitches, dirty tackles, big crowds on packed terraces, and of course some stunning Football that saw English clubs become the best in Europe in the latter stages of the decade. 

Completely different to today's game, Football in the seventies was the first decade to be recorded in colour

The decade starts in great style as my team Arsenal kick off the decade by doing the Double in the 1970/ 1971 season.

Any 70's footy fans out there ? Who is your team and what's your favourite players.

[Ronnie Kray]

You forgot about all the violence on the terraces,it was very dodgy going to some grounds.This got worse in the 1980's for a while,ah the good old days

[Ronnie Kray]

My team was and still is Leeds United,think I started getting into them because of not only being a great team but very hard.You had Bremner,Hunter and Giles kicking lumps out of the other team and Clarke,Lorimer and Jones banging the goals in.Thing is though they were very skilful as well and played as a very tight unit under the watchful eye of Don Revie.

[Superclassic]

Notts County FC.Never been a big major club,but Notts are my team and that is that.It's the way it is when you take to a team,isn't it?The side in the 70s was actually extremely successful,rising from Division 4 through to Division 2.We were eventually promoted to Division 1 in the 1981 season.During the 70s we didn't have many household names playing for Notts,but Don Masson was the man,really.Don left Notts to sign for QPR around 1975,he was at Notts from 1968.A very classy midfielder,he went on to represent Scotland in the 1978 World Cup Finals.He quite rightly was voted Notts' greatest ever footballer a few years back.I've been lucky enough to meet Don on a couple of occasions.The squad Notts had through the 70s was a very good one,some excellent players in there.Dave Needham went on to win a European Cup with Forest.As the decade drew to a close we had the superb Iain McCulloch,Rachid Harkouk-who represented Algeria at the 1982 world cup (I think),John Chedozie-a tricky winger who later signed for Spurs.

[Stan]

Agree with the comment about Don Masson - glided around the pitch (saw him at several London grounds).
Underrated - but not by people in the game.
Needham was universally known as Dave - but a certain B Clough insisted on calling him David!

Incidentally, top 70s footy series narrated by Dennis Waterman - season by season, overlaid with music from the era.
When Cloughie was under threat at Leeds the accompanying music was 'When Will I See You Again' by the Three Degrees.

Cheers,

Stan

[Superclassic]

Nice one Stan. I caught the very end of Don's career,he finished up back at Notts for his final season or two. He certainly wasn't under-rated by his fellow Notts County players, although he was well known for being extremely grumpy, known as 'miserable Masson'. They realised he was a quality footballer, so did Jimmy Sirrell, who fondly called him 'The Wee Man' or 'The Jewel In The Crown'. Everything went through Don here at Notts back in the 70s when he graced Meadow Lane.

I felt very,very honoured to meet the great man a couple of years back. He is no longer the miserable bloke he was during his playing days, he is very affable, looks as fit as during his playing days (very good tennis player by all accounts), and although people may read this and think "Don who?", he is the finest player ever to wear the black and white of Notts County, a real top player in his day, blessed with vision, skill, guile. Incidentally, he names Stan Bowles as the most skilful player he ever saw.

[Stan]

Well, I was at Chelsea 2 Notts Co 0 on 15 Nov 1975.
This was a 2nd division match, shown on MOTD that night.

Chelsea team included Chopper Harris, Peter Bonetti, Ray Wilkins.
County side had Les Bradd, Dave Needham, Pedro Richards (Masson by now had transferred to QPR)

From the days when many players made 400+ appearances for the same team.

[Superclassic]

Very true,Stan.Off the top of my head,Brian Stubbs and David Needham both made 400+ games for Notts.Les Bradd is still our all time top scorer,lots of matches played for Notts-he played from the late 60s till 1977 I think,so there must be 300 games there.Pedro Richards played 300+ matches,as did Tristan Benjamin.Don also played loads of games (perhaps 400+),although that was over 2 spells with the club.

That kind of loyalty to a football club is mostly a thing of the past now,although an exception is a player like Frank Lampard,who played shedloads of games for Chelsea before departing for the USA,and Man City along the way.Roy Keane must have clocked more than 350 games,and Ryan Giggs and Paul Scholes spent their whole careers at Man Utd,which is admirable.

We are talking here though about a side in the lower leagues,where footballers were loyal to the club,and would stay their whole careers (or for the most part)and be happy to do that.Brian Stubbs never appeared for another club aside from Notts.Nowadays that doesn't happen.

[Steve Austin]

Ha'way!!!

[Del Boy]

Ha'way Sunderland 73. The legend that was Bob Stokoe.
Will we ever see the likes of a second division team winning the cup again ?
Personally I can't see it. There were a few good cup runs in the 90's by lower division teams.
None really this millennium.

In all going back as far as 1890 there have been 8 winners outside the top division including 1 Non-League side (Tottenham 1901)
The 70's is the decade that saw the most of these upsets with 2.

West Ham's win in the 79-80 competition was the last time this happened.