First viewed : 16 April 1988
This was a weekend football festival held at Wembley to celebrate 100 years of the Football League. The League decided to invite 16 teams to participate in a knockout tournament based on form over the last few months including one from each of the lower divisions. This had the unhappy accident of excluding the four biggest London clubs with a consequent effect on attendance. One notable absentee was Nottingham Forest manager Brian Clough who didn't turn up to see his side in action on the Saturday.
The undoubted stars were Fourth Division Tranmere Rovers whose qualifying run of form had begun with a 6-1 thrashing of Rochdale on a miserable Friday evening. Perhaps helped by the 40 minute format, they put out Wimbledon and Newcastle on their run to the semi-final where Forest beat them on penalties. A majority of games actually went to penalties in the opening round.
With only four teams involved on the Sunday, the attendance shrunk to a miserable 17,000. It boiled down to a 60 minute Final between Forest and Sheffield Wednesday. With the atmosphere akin to a morgue, the two teams played the most boring sterile match since the Germany v Austria stitch-up in 1982. It finished 0-0 and Forest won on penalties.
The whole thing was something of an embarrassment to the Football League and it's tempting to see it as a significant milestone on the road to the formation of the Premier League just four years later
Man United made the semis, though you'll struggle to find any records of our games in any official publication. I always get mixed up between this and the equally farcical "Football League Centenary Trophy" the following year.
ReplyDeleteThe late 80s really was the era of the "Waste of Time" tournament - see also the Screen Sports Super Cup and the Full Members' Trophy. You may be onto something by wondering if the big clubs began to question the judgement of the FL.
I suspect the attendances would have been even more dismal had United not qualified or made the semi's.
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