From the tangible evidence as opposed to personal recollection (from memory it was another convivial yuletide of my youth), times were pretty tough in the U.K as 1975 drew to a close.
With Great Britain still reeling from the worldwide oil crisis of 1973/74 and continuing to be plagued by industrial unrest the economy remained in a parlous state, the Labour government of Harold Wilson (in power since March 1974), were seemingly helpless to curb inflation, that now as the Christmas decorations came out for another year, was running at over 20 per cent.
If economic stagnation was prevalent through the autumn of 1975 it contrasted somewhat with the boom-bust machinations recently experienced by the England football team. After making an encouraging start to the reign of manager Don Revie (appointed in July 1974), they had gone from the brink of qualification for the 1976 European Championships to also-rans – failure to overcome either Czechoslovakia or Portugal in recent qualifying fixtures halting their notions of progress, with many now questioning (including his employers at The FA) Revie’s suitability as an international manager.
The domestic game meanwhile shrugged off the set-back befalling the national side with resigned nonchalance. From week to week any number of games were exciting, attendance figures stayed high, several sides in the wake of the 1974 World Cup (another tournament at which England had not been present in failing to qualify), now adding a touch of continental control to their method while still playing with the dash and dynamism traditional to English football.
Indeed, Ipswich Town, West Ham United, Stoke City, the newly-promoted trio of Manchester United, Aston Villa and Norwich City, but in particular Queens Park Rangers had adapted their tactics to incorporate an expansive, attacking approach – QPR, arguably the first team since 1970 league champions Everton, to approach the title race as a challenge of ambition rather than battle of attrition.
Now in the charge of former Chelsea boss Dave Sexton, the Loftus Road outfit entered the festive period in fourth, only two points separating a top six of leaders Liverpool and pursuing pack of Manchester United, Derby County, QPR, Leeds United and West Ham.
The top flight return of Manchester United after a one season second division sojourn cast light on the emphasis-to-entertain manager Tommy Docherty had instilled into his predominantly young team. While the Old Trafford side prior to kick-off lined up in an established 4-4-2 formation, within minutes of the first whistle it often became 2-3-5 or 2-2-6 such was their propensity to push forward.
Curiously for a Boxing Day programme of this era, Manchester United did not play on December 26, the same fate befalling Billy Bingham’s Everton, the two sides meeting at Goodison Park on the Tuesday night three days earlier. Your genial host here at SAMTIMONIOUS.com has been unable to establish why the fixture took place when it did with even Paul McGee, my font of knowledge in regard to all things Evertonia, unable to shed any light – the phrase chosen judiciously as the match was subject to 14-minute hold-up due to floodlight failure.
Whether the delay was down to a mass turn-on of Christmas tree lights across Merseyside is unclear, but there appears no such power surge attached to the game itself. The visitors, on taking a 26th minute lead through Scottish international attacker Lou Macari, were pegged back for a share of the points when ninth-placed Everton responded shortly before half-time through centre-forward Bob Latchford – who on scoring for the sixth game running (six becoming seven when he netted in a draw at Middlesbrough on December 27), notched his 11th goal of the season.
Despite a sizeable Goodison gate of 41,732 one suspects it would have been higher still had the match taken place on Boxing Day.
Of those heading out to football grounds on December 26, some would have had lines from the 1975 Christmas number one ‘Bohemian Rhapsody‘ by Queen going through their minds in relation to the team they supported – ‘Is this the real life/Is this just fantasy‘ in regard to sides near the top, ‘Caught in a landslide/No escape from reality‘ attached to those struggling at the bottom.
Yet given the paucity of goals on offer through the Division One Boxing Day football programme of 1975, the games reflected more the dire financial state of the country than the daring record made by Freddie Mercury and co…………
The Division One Boxing Day Fixtures of 1975-76 – Friday 26 December 1975:
MANCHESTER CITY 0 LEEDS UNITED 1 (48,077):
Pride of place in this Christmas compendium goes to Leeds, who for the third time in six ’70s seasons found themselves in top spot when the final whistle sounded across the Boxing Day contests.
Rolling along nicely through the first full season with Jimmy Armfield at the helm, Leeds, beaten finalists in last European Cup Final, arrived at Maine Road with a record of five wins and a draw in their last seven outings. The goal taking them into pole position was created and converted by two players with a couple of league championship medals apiece from the Don Revie era – Scottish winger Eddie Gray delivering a pinpoint 70th minute centre that was headed home by England international Paul Madeley.
While they would flex their festive muscles again the following day with a 4-0 Elland Road demolition of Leicester, their league form would falter in the new year, Armfield’s side slipping from the summit to finish fifth – his team of international all-stars also suffering the indignity of making a fourth round FA Cup exit at the hands of third division visitors Crystal Palace.
As for City, the Boxing Day reversal (which was followed by defeat at Anfield 24 hours later) was a first loss in 18 league and League Cup matches – the latter competition returning their first silverware in six seasons when they scored a 2-1 Wembley triumph over Newcastle nine weeks later. Ultimately manager Tony Book guided his side to an eighth placed finish, one berth lower than where they were on Boxing Day.
ASTON VILLA 4 WEST HAM UNITED 1 (51,250):
The biggest crowd of the day were treated to the most amount of goals – the mid-table home side scoring twice in each half to inflict a heavy defeat on the high-flying Hammers.
If not a result on the cards (Xmas or otherwise), the outcome was rarely in doubt once John Deehan netted twice inside the opening 20 minutes. Billy Jennings reduced the deficit with the half-time whistle looming, but Scottish striker Andy Gray, an autumn signing from Dundee United, restored the two goal advantage ten minutes after the restart.
The Holte End were then sent into further festive rapture when Ian ‘Chico’ Hamilton completed the scoring (the final goal the long-serving midfielder would score in a Villa shirt) with 90 seconds left.
Under wily, no-nonsense operator Ron Saunders Villa continued acquitting themselves well on their Division One return, but for West Ham this was the point their domestic season would crash and burn.
Eight days later their defence of the FA Cup began and ended at the first hurdle with a third round Upton Park defeat at the hands of Liverpool, their league form from Boxing Day onward atrocious to say the least. The 20 Division One fixtures that followed yielded just one win, West Ham, in a season when they would reach the European Cup Winners’ Cup Final (going down valiantly against Belgian top-notchers Anderlecht in the process), staving off relegation only by virtue of points amassed in the first five months of the campaign.
SPURS 1 BIRMINGHAM CITY 3 (21,651):
Behind Aston Villa as the second highest Boxing Day scorers were their second city neighbours Birmingham, who struck three times in momentarily easing their relegation worries – while adding to the December depression that had settled on N17.
These were lamentable days at the Lane. Spurs creaking badly on the back of three straight defeats, were destined for a fourth on the spin long before former England striker Martin Chivers netted a late consolation from the penalty spot. By that stage, however, Blues, were home and dry in terms of this contest, duly recording their third win from the last four games.
This being a period when the only club from England to have won the European Cup (Manchester United) had done so seven and half years ago, the two forwards on target for Birmingham were destined to one night score the winning goal when English clubs again lifted the trophy – a brace from Trevor Francis (Nottingham Forest, 1979) and one by Peter Withe (Aston Villa, 1982), doing the damage as the Boxing Day points comfortably went the way of St. Andrews.
Yet this being Birmingham City in the mid-70s, keeping right on to the end of the road meant calamity waiting just around around the next corner. 1976 was only a few days old when City crashed out of the FA Cup to second division Portsmouth, relegation ultimately avoided by skin of their teeth proportion.
Spurs for their part finally won again on January 10 (although by now were also out of the FA Cup), a marked second half of the season improvement eventually taking them to a ninth, a climb of seven places from where they languished on Boxing Day.
But for a club who began the decade with an impressive trophy-a-season haul between 1970-73, it was scant consolation for the faithful still converging on Tottenham High Road – some of whom would not have missed the irony of BBC 1 closing their Christmas Day schedule with ‘The Good Old Days.’
WOLVES 0 COVENTRY CITY 1 (21,224):
Talking of television listings for Christmas 1975, this Midlands derby clashed with an ITV showing of the 1970 British comedy film ‘Doctor in Trouble‘. This tenuous inference is made due to Molineux boss Bill McGarry being a manager in trouble as Wolves remained deep in relegation trouble following a fifth defeat in six games – their only point in the previous five matches coming in the form of a goalless draw.
With their 1974 League Cup Final triumph becoming a fast-fading memory, a wildly erratic 1974-75 season manifested into a dreadful start to the current campaign. Wolves, despite putting five past fellow basement dwellers Burnley and Sheffield United through the autumn, now having only scored once in the past five weeks.
These deficiencies in front of goal were in evidence again when the Sky Blues (themselves hardly pulling up any trees, Xmas or any other variety), enjoyed a merry little Molineux Christmas. Only their fourth win in the last 13 games, it came courtesy of a first half goal from defender John Craven that sent news round second bottom Wolves were as woeful as their recent form suggested.
If it was hard to fathom how a side containing such experienced campaigners as John Richards, Kenny Hibbitt, Willie Carr and Mike Bailey were anchored near the foot of the table, this contradictory season down Wolverhampton way was reflected in progress to the FA Cup sixth round – but an inability to climb out of the drop zone would result in McGarry losing his job.
QUEENS PARK RANGERS 2 NORWICH CITY 0 (21,774):
For the purist keen to take their festive football with a helping of culture then W12 was the obvious stopping off point – Rangers and their East Anglian visitors both embracing a European passing game philosophy which in the case of QPR saw them move, metaphorically speaking, closer to Amsterdam than ‘Ammersmith.
Since the opening day of the season, when they had subjected title-favourites Liverpool to a tactical undressing in the Shepherd’s Bush sunshine the Anfield side had not received on these shores for many a long year, QPR had looked a team apart, if not entirely in score-lines then certainly in style. The purveyor of this piece, on witnessing them win handsomely a League Cup tie at Shrewsbury in September 1975, left Gay Meadow that evening with a much better grasp of what the term ‘Total Football‘ actually meant.
But on the Saturday prior to Christmas Liverpool had gained revenge for the White City chasing they copped back in August with a 2-0 triumph on Merseyside, inflicting upon Rangers their first league defeat in nine.
Two key protagonists in carrying out the innovative intentions Loftus Road supremo Sexton was committed to, midfield man Don Masson and mercurial maverick Stan Bowles scored respectively in each half to down the Canaries. Despite the loss it appeared the Division One learning curve of tenth-placed Norwich still had an upward trajectory, always-quotable boss John Bond masterminding victories over Liverpool and West Ham in successive fixtures as November gave way to December.
The two sides would meet again on sunny Easter Saturday afternoon later in the season with QPR bearing down on the league title – the outcome of that fixture having a major effect on English football through the next few seasons.
BURNLEY 0 NEWCASTLE 1 (22,458):
Even by the elasticated standards of SAMTIMONIOUS.com the following football/festive television analogy contained in this match appraisal is stretching things to the limit, but as its Christmas please bear with.
It has often been said in relation to a football season the teams most in need of a stroke of luck rarely receive it. Thus seems the case in regard to this Turf Moor contest, Burnley, by all accounts, belying their third-bottom status in mounting long spells of pressure, a rub of the green here or there and things may have turned out differently.
Yet as things transpire, 13th placed Newcastle (they would finish two lower), survive any number of close calls to breakaway late on – the points taken back to Tyneside by virtue of an 88th minute penalty converted by Scottish midfielder Tommy Craig after Magpies winger, substitute Micky Burns, had adjudged to have been fouled.
Had Burnley and England U-23 striker Paul Fletcher not been absent from the home line-up through injury it might have been a different tale. But the best conceived story to be found anywhere through the festive period of 1975 involved his namesake Norman Stanley, the inaugural Christmas special of BBC sitcom ‘Porridge‘ (aired for the first time that year) being entitled ‘No Way Out‘ – which was how things were beginning to look for Burnley in their (ultimately unsuccessful) quest to avoid relegation.
As broad analogies go that could be the most abstract yet to appear on this blog – which is saying something.
SHEFFIELD UNITED 1 MIDDLESBOROUGH 1 (28,358):
Exactly a year before to the day these two sides had contested a Teesside fixture, the home side prevailing with an early David Armstrong goal which lifted them up to second while keeping The Blades among the congested field chasing a UEFA Cup place.
In the final shake up both would miss out (just) on European qualification, but as the old adage goes 12 months is a long time in football and while ‘Boro could take a degree of comfort from their mid-table mooring, Sheffield United had already become racing if not mathematical certainties for the drop – the bottom of the table Bramall Lane side without a win in 13 games when Jack Charlton’s team came calling.
For beleaguered United it looked a case of ‘same old, same old‘ when winger Alan Foggon gave the visitors a fourth minute lead, Middlesborough looking good for a third straight win after being without one in the six matches prior to that.
Searching out the last time Sheffield United tasted victory involved turning calendar back to mid-September, but they did muster sufficient second half fortitude to take a point when full-back Paul Garner was on target with a 65th minute equaliser.
In other circumstances 4 draws (including one at Anfield) and two defeats in the next six games might have been acceptable, but only two wins before the end of the season underlined the extent of a relegation-destined decline that would not have appeared feasible when the previous season ended.
While the game already looked up for The Blades, at Ayresome Park the season effectively ended in January. Middlesborough suffered a shock FA Cup third round exit at third division Bury before departing the League Cup on losing to eventual winners Manchester City at the semi-final stage over two-legs – their final league ranking of 13th a drop of six places on 1974-75.
LEICESTER CITY 2 DERBY COUNTY 1 (26,870):
Continuing the ‘Look where we were this time last year‘ theme, on Boxing Day 1974 tenth-placed Derby were nobody’s idea of perspective league champions while the second-bottom Foxes already looked to have a couple of paws in Division Two.
But the spring of 1975 was to bring remarkable things to the East Midlands, The Rams finding a consistency none of the sides above them could match, coming through the field to become champions for the second time in three seasons. Leicester meanwhile, defied the odds in avoiding demotion with something to spare.
Boxing Day 1975 brought them together when life for both was presentable if not perfect. Third-placed Derby were making a reasonable rather than resounding defence of the title while having made a bizarre second round departure from the European Cup (losing 5-1 in the Bernabeu after defeating Real Madrid 4-1 in the Baseball Ground first-leg), Leicester for their part comfortably ensconced among the middle-table merchants.
The seasonal spoils in this Filbert Street encounter went the way of the hosts due to first half goals from Bob Lee (5) and maverick main-man Frank Worthington (38). Despite Derby responding on the hour through Welsh international Leighton James, inconsistency would be their new year habit, Dave Mackay’s side drawing or losing over half of the 18 league games that lay ahead in coming home fifth – their concurrent FA Cup ambitions ending in a Hillsborough semi-final loss against Manchester United.
Leicester had good reason to feel satisfied when the season came to an end, boss Jimmy Bloomfield steering his side into 7th, their highest placing since making a return to Division One in 1971.
IPSWICH TOWN 2 ARSENAL 0 (28,476):
While elsewhere it was the season to be jolly, in the environs of N5 it was another bleak mid-winter – the glorious double-days of 1970-71 disappearing into the mists of time as the mid-70s fog to have descended on Highbury showed no signs of lifting.
Quite how an Arsenal team, that on this East Anglia outing contained five double winners (Pat Rice, Eddie Kelly, Peter Storey, George Armstrong and John Radford), a World Cup winner (Alan Ball) and European Cup winner (Brian Kidd), had come to be so listless is not easy to legislate for.
Indeed, the drive absent in The Gunners for the past year (at least), Ipswich had no trouble finding and with only one defeat in their last 12 games overcame the hapless visitors with a minimum of fuss.
Portman Road boss Bobby Robson only had to wait six minutes in seeing his charges forge ahead, winger Clive Woods on hand to give the hosts an early lead.
Despite having to wait until the last quarter before sealing the points, Northern Ireland centre-back Allan Hunter doing the honours with a firm header, Ipswich were good value for the win – the travelling support again left feeling short-changed by a group of players from whom far more was expected.
But if they were poor at Portman Road worse was to follow with a moribund third round FA Cup showing at Molineux the following week, Wolves three goal haul (without reply) more in one afternoon than the sum total they had managed in the previous seven games.
The accomplishment of a six match unbeaten run through February and March offered a hint of what Arsenal were actually capable of, but in truth it was salvation rather than new found solidity, a suitably indifferent end to the season seeing them lumber to an 18th placed finish, their lowest since the pre-Herbert Chapman days of the early 1920s.
At conclusion of a thoroughly disconcerting campaign Bertie Mee decided to jump before he was pushed in announcing his retirement, the season an inglorious end for a manager who had guided The Gunners to five finals, collecting three trophies, (including the league and cup double), along the way.
For future England coach Robson there would still be a wait before he took a major prize to Portman Road, but with Ipswich on course for another top six finish there would remain no shortage of plaudits.
STOKE CITY 1 LIVERPOOL 1 (32,092):
Last, but in a manner of speaking foremost in this dissection of the Boxing Day denouements, is the visit of Liverpool, league leaders when they set off from Anfield that morning, to Victoria Ground where a talented home team lay in wait.
With only defeat in 15 league games since mid-September (while also motoring along happily in UEFA Cup), Liverpool, in the second season with Bob Paisley at the tiller, were showing the mode of consistency that in 1974-75 would have won the title at a canter – and if continued weekly excellence was the Anfield new year resolution for 1976, it could not have been fulfilled with more efficiency.
The portents in the Potteries suggested the points would be heading back up the M6 when Welsh international striker John Toshack gave the visitors an 8th minute lead. But in front of the biggest home gate of season (a footnote of no little significance), eighth-placed Stoke, with only three losses in their last 13, found some seasonal sparkle of their own, a 53rd minute leveler from midfield man Geoff Salmons being the least they deserved.
In securing a point long-serving manager Tony Waddington witnessed his side withstand some late pressure. But while the team stood firm the stadium was not so resolute a month later, intense windy weather inflicting damage to such an extent the roof of the Butler Street stand collapsed. The repairs became so costly that a number of high-profile performers were sold to finance restoration work, Stoke drifting away to finish in mid-table when 1975-76 came to an end.
By the time Santa next came calling the Potters were involved in a relegation battle (that in April 1977 they would lose), by which time Mike Pejic (Everton), Jimmy Greenhoff (Manchester United) and Alan Hudson (Arsenal) had long since moved to pastures new – the Yuletide of 1976 being one of ‘When a Child is Born‘ (Johnny Mathis) and when youths swore on national television (the Sex Pistols).
But that is another Christmas story for another time…………
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NEIL SAMBROOK is also the author of MONTY’S DOUBLE – an acclaimed thriller now available in paperback and as an Amazon Kindle book: