On the 1st of November, 40 years ago, I was one of over 38,000 packed into a very excited City Ground to witness Forest's first real taste of European football in Nottingham for over ten years. Having had the terribly bad luck of drawing European Cup holders, Liverpool, in the first round, it looked like our European campaign might be over before it had started, but despite a lackluster start to the season, Forest found some form, and a new star in the shape of Gary Birtles, just in the nick of time and managed to beat the mighty Merseysiders 2-0 in Nottingham and hold on for a 0-0 draw at Anfield to go through.
Now in the second round, Forest had already broken the back of the tie with a 2-1 win in Athens but few of us expected the thrashing that we were going to dish out to the Greek side led by the famous Ferenc Puskas.
Before joining the throng at the City Ground, I'll catch up with two weeks worth of excellent league form. As we went into the AEK home tie, Forest found themselves on top of the current (last three home/away) games table.
I've managed to find 30 minutes of the action from the night and some great reporting.
Afterwards, I'll summarise the history of the seven countries whose champions exited at the second round to continue my survey of European League "openness" that I started in the last post.
Previous Post: AEK Athens Away
Match 280 : Nottingham Forest 1 Ipswich Town 0
Here are the highlights...
Aston Villa won the "2nd City" derby with a 1-0 win at St Andrews.
And here's Liverpool beating Chelsea 2-0
So this was the league table that night.
Top scorers...
This was Forest's 39th successive home game without defeat in all competitions.
On the Tuesday after, Larry Lloyd withdrew his transfer request. Clearly, under Cloughie it was his way, or the highway.
Also in midweek, England drew in Ireland in the European Championship Qualifier... It seems amazing to us Forest fans but there was no Peter Shilton in goal and only Tony Woodcock made a brief appearance when he came on as substitute with ten minutes to go.
These were the results in England's group at that stage.
In the Southampton side in those days was our old hero, Terry Curran.
So, Forest now closed the gap behind Liverpool. We were just four points behind and we were the team on form.
Top scorers...
This was Forest's 38th successive league game without defeat. Again, of course, a new record. It was good to think Liverpool were back to square one on that score.
So, after a very dull start to the season, Forest were now top of the current form (last 3 home/away) league.
And in the 1977-79 (combined) table, Forest now stretched their lead over Liverpool to three points.
Match 281 : Nottingham Forest 5 AEK Athens 1
The press finally seemed to be coming round to acknowledge the achievements.
Real had won their 18th La Liga title very easily the season before.
The Spanish league has always been dominated by Real. In 1978 they'd won more than 3/8ths of the titles, more than Barcelona and Atletico Madrid put together.
So, the Spanish league is certainly not one of the most open in Europe.
Lokomotiv had pipped their more successful rivals, CSKA, to the title by just one point the season before.
It had been only their fourth title in a league dominated by teams from the capital.
In 1978 43 out of 52 title wins had been shared by five teams from the capital. That's a high rate even though about one in nine Bulgarians live in Sofia.
Lillestrom had coasted to their third championship the season before, winning by a massive eight point margin.
In 1978 the Norwegian league had not yet become dominated by Rosenberg and it was quite an open league at the time. The most successful club, Fredrikstad, hadn't won the title for 17 years and cluster of clubs were catching up.
Bohemians had secured their 7th League of Ireland title the season before, pipping plucky Finn Harps by two points.
15 clubs had won the first 57 League of Ireland titles, with Shamrock Rovers securing the biggest slice of the pie, but it was certainly one of the more open leagues in Europe at the time.
It was Brno's first ever title win when they pipped Dukla Prague the season before.
The Czechoslovak league was dominated by four or five clubs and mostly clubs that would form the Czech republic, not Slovakia. Of the 52 titles, only 13 were won by Slovak teams.
Dynamo Kyiv had sealed their eight Soviet "Top League" title the season before. Unusually no Russian team finished in the top two that year.
Four of the five dominant clubs in the USSR league were from Moscow. And of the 40 titles won, all but 11 went to Russian clubs. Ukraine had the lion's share of the rest with nine. Georgia's Dinamo Tblisi won it once and the Armenian club, Ararat Yerevan, won the other.
So that completes the second round exits. Collating the seven new clubs into the table I'd constructed from the first round, we see that England no longer top the league of "Open European Leagues." They've been pushed down into second place by Norway. None of the new seven come close to challenging Portugal's closed spot at the bottom, although Spain does have a pretty closed league.
It was the same in Bulgaria, 76% won by two clubs. CSKA continued to dominate but were joined by Levski.
Holland, one of the most open leagues before 1978, became even more massively dominated by the few. Two teams won 81% of titles and only four won it in total.
Czechoslovakia ceased to exist during this period (I plan cover the two new countries records and bring the whole thing up to date) next season. However, in the 15 years before the Czechs and the Slovaks amicably agreed their divorce, the league was massively dominated by Sparta Prague. All but one title was won by Czech clubs.
The most dramatic break up, of course, was that of the Soviet Union. Perhaps symptomatic of what was to come, Moscow's dominance faded considerably in this phase. Only four out of 14 titles were won by two Moscow teams. Even including Zenit Leningrad's single title win that makes just five Russian victories, compared to seven Ukrainian, one Belorus and one Georgian.
I still can't quite believe that happened. In 1978 I was still largely oblivious to Lithuania. Despite the persistent efforts of my proud father to take an interest in his homeland I, rather cruelly, was always dismissive. "Look Dad, I'm sorry, I'm just not interested" are the sort of words I could have said.
I became a "born-again" Lithuanian only in 1983 and only then became heavily involved in the community. Throughout those last eight or so years, though, I could never imagine that Lithuania would be playing football themselves as a Lithuanian nation. I even invented my own fantasy super-hero to fill the void...
Amazingly, Lithuanian independence arrived before I'd have the final episode (fittingly, the eleventh) published.
So here's the openness table as the century closed...
The USSR became one of the most open and Holland become one of the most closed. Seen in this perspective, the domination of the English league by Liverpool and Manchester United seems to be quite normal.
I still think it's sad, though.
Now in the second round, Forest had already broken the back of the tie with a 2-1 win in Athens but few of us expected the thrashing that we were going to dish out to the Greek side led by the famous Ferenc Puskas.
Before joining the throng at the City Ground, I'll catch up with two weeks worth of excellent league form. As we went into the AEK home tie, Forest found themselves on top of the current (last three home/away) games table.
I've managed to find 30 minutes of the action from the night and some great reporting.
Afterwards, I'll summarise the history of the seven countries whose champions exited at the second round to continue my survey of European League "openness" that I started in the last post.
Previous Post: AEK Athens Away
Match 280 : Nottingham Forest 1 Ipswich Town 0
(144th at the City Ground, 202nd Forest match, 4th Ipswich Town)
University life was settling down and my second Forest home game that I went to from Sherwood Hall was Ipswich Town at home. It was a totally unmemorable match to me I am afraid. But there was a typical Clough-inspired storm in a teacup going on, again resulting from a clash of personalities. Larry Lloyd had gone to the airport in Athens not wearing his club blazer and was fined for it. He got in a huff and refused to pay it, so Clough doubled the fine. Lloyd went mad and put in a transfer request which Cloughie accepted. He was dropped from the game.
Research tells me that a 19 year old Terry Butcher's made only his 4th (of 271) league appearance for Ipswich Town that day.
Also playing was Arnold Muhren...
Nottingham Forest
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Viv Anderson, 3 Frank Clark, 4 John McGovern, 5 David Needham, 6 Kenny Burns, 7 Martin O'Neill, 8 Ian Bowyer, 9 Gary Birtles, 10 Tony Woodcock, 11 John Robertson.
Goals: Martin O'Neill 1.
Ipswich Town
1 Paul Cooper, 2 George Burley, 3 Leslie Tibbott, 4 Brian Talbot, 5 Terry Butcher, 6 Russell Osman, 7 Mick Mills, 8 John Wark, 9 Alan Brazil, 10 Arnold Muhren, 11 Clive Woods.
Substitutions: Trevor Whymark(12) came on for Mick Mills (7).
Attendance: 28,911
Elsewhere, Liverpool (yawn) won yet again but the big surprise was Bristol City's 3-1 at Old Trafford.
Here are the highlights...
Aston Villa won the "2nd City" derby with a 1-0 win at St Andrews.
And here's Liverpool beating Chelsea 2-0
So this was the league table that night.
Top scorers...
This was Forest's 39th successive home game without defeat in all competitions.
On the Tuesday after, Larry Lloyd withdrew his transfer request. Clearly, under Cloughie it was his way, or the highway.
Also in midweek, England drew in Ireland in the European Championship Qualifier... It seems amazing to us Forest fans but there was no Peter Shilton in goal and only Tony Woodcock made a brief appearance when he came on as substitute with ten minutes to go.
The 1-1 draw kept England on track to qualify.
These were the results in England's group at that stage.
Southampton 0 Nottingham Forest 0
So, the week after Forest had the long trip to Southampton. I skipped that one. I'd already been to The Dell three years ago, in fact it was my 16th ground visited, so I wasn't desperate to go.
Alan Ball was in the thick of it for the Saints at the time as Southampton had just got promotion to the first division for their second spell. Their first (from 1966 to 1974) had lasted eight seasons. This one would last 27 years, Southampton's greatest period, all started by Laurie McMenemy..
Alan Ball was in the thick of it for the Saints at the time as Southampton had just got promotion to the first division for their second spell. Their first (from 1966 to 1974) had lasted eight seasons. This one would last 27 years, Southampton's greatest period, all started by Laurie McMenemy..
In the Southampton side in those days was our old hero, Terry Curran.
Southampton
1 Terrance Gennoe, 2 Ivan Golac, 3 David Peach, 4 Steve Williams, 5 Chris Nicholl, 6 Malcom Waldron, 7 Alan Ball, 8 Phil Boyer, 9 Tony Funnell, 10 Nick Holmes, 11 Terry Curran.
Substitutions: Tony Sealy (12) came on for Terry Curran(11).
Nottingham Forest
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Viv Anderson, 3 Ian Bowyer, 4 John McGovern, 5 Larry Lloyd, 6 Kenny Burns, 7 Archie Gemmill, 8 John O'Hare, 9 Gary Birtles, 10 John O'Hare, 11 John Robertson.
Substitutions: David Needham(12) came on for John McGovern (4).
Attendance: 22,530
In other results, Middlesbrough had a great win at Villa Park. The game was played on the Friday night to avoid the motor show traffic.
The big news, of course, was that Liverpool were finally beaten in a league game. They lost 1-0 at Merseyside rivals, Everton.
In other results, Middlesbrough had a great win at Villa Park. The game was played on the Friday night to avoid the motor show traffic.
The big news, of course, was that Liverpool were finally beaten in a league game. They lost 1-0 at Merseyside rivals, Everton.
So, Forest now closed the gap behind Liverpool. We were just four points behind and we were the team on form.
Some highlights of the day: Manchester United scored 4 at Molineaux to beat Wolves.
And here's some video of Liverpool's defeat followed by the report in the Guardian.
Top scorers...
This was Forest's 38th successive league game without defeat. Again, of course, a new record. It was good to think Liverpool were back to square one on that score.
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| 38 First division games without defeat - a new record (again) |
So, after a very dull start to the season, Forest were now top of the current form (last 3 home/away) league.
 |
| We are top of the (current form) league, I said we are top of the (current form) league! |
And in the 1977-79 (combined) table, Forest now stretched their lead over Liverpool to three points.
 |
| Three Point Lead |
One team in Europe, there's only One Team in Europe!
The rivalry with Liverpool dominated Forest fan's thinking in those days and it sparked a song that we all loved to sing...
"One Team in Europe, there's only one team in Europe!"
to the tune of "Guantanamera".
With Liverpool gone, there was only Forest representing England.
One Ferenc Puskas, there's only one Ferenc Puskas
So, our thoughts started focusing on the European Cup tie with AEK Athens.
Their manager at the time was the legendary Ferenc Puskas who had the most amazing playing stats. 514 goals in 530 appearances for just two clubs, Honved and Real Madrid.
He more than met his match in Brian Clough and Peter Taylor that night though.
The Programme
Forest changed the face of the programme to a colorful arrangements of the 33 flags to spell out UEFA.
Match 281 : Nottingham Forest 5 AEK Athens 1
(145th at the City Ground, 203rd Forest match, 1st AEK Athens)
It was a magical night, as many were in those days. I stood over in the Main Stand lower tier so I got a great view of the thrashing that was to follow.
Wonderful to hear Motty describe this emphatic performance with some lovely play by Birtles, Woodcock, Robbo and a storming goal from Viv Anderson.
Wonderful to hear Motty describe this emphatic performance with some lovely play by Birtles, Woodcock, Robbo and a storming goal from Viv Anderson.
The press finally seemed to be coming round to acknowledge the achievements.
Other Results
The other seven second leg ties were all played that night too.
I'll go through each one in turn, mainly looking at the team that got knocked out. Obviously I intend to cover the winners of these ties later, when they get knocked out themselves.
Seven More Exits
La Liga (Spanish) Champions - Real Madrid
Perhaps the biggest surprise of the round was Grasshopper Zurich's 2-0 win over Real Madrid. They'd lost the first leg 3-1 so went through on away goals.
Here is some footage of the first leg in Madrid which put the Spanish champions firmly in the driving seat..
Real had won their 18th La Liga title very easily the season before.
The Spanish league has always been dominated by Real. In 1978 they'd won more than 3/8ths of the titles, more than Barcelona and Atletico Madrid put together.
So, the Spanish league is certainly not one of the most open in Europe.
Bulgarian Champions - Lokomotiv Sofia
Not so surprising was the exit of Bulgarian champions Lokomotiv Sofia at the hands of the German champions Cologne, or FC Koln. Already 1-0 down from the home leg, they got hammered 4-0 in the Mungersdorfer stadium.
Lokomotiv had pipped their more successful rivals, CSKA, to the title by just one point the season before.
It had been only their fourth title in a league dominated by teams from the capital.
In 1978 43 out of 52 title wins had been shared by five teams from the capital. That's a high rate even though about one in nine Bulgarians live in Sofia.
 |
| Not open |
Eredivisie (Dutch) Champions - PSV Eindhoven
Another big surprise, especially as seen from today's eyes, was Glasgow Rangers' impressive 3-2 win in Eindhoven. The first leg had ended 0-0 and the Dutch champions must have felt that they were on their way to the quarter finals when they scored in the opening minute.
Three goals in eight second half minutes switched the game in the Gers' favour though.
Here are the highlights of Rangers's great win.
The famous Phillips sponsored Dutch club had won the Eredivisie for the seventh time, four points ahead of the biggest club, Ajax.
Contrary to the impression one has of Ajax's dominance of Dutch football, it's actually been a very open league, historically. No less than 23 clubs have won the Dutch title in 83 years.
 |
| Complex Dutch Pie |
Norwegian Champions - Lillestrom
Another tie that was probably a foregone conclusion was Austria Vienna's elimination of Norwegian champions Lillestrom. They just found a 4-1 deficit from the first leg too much to turn around.
Lillestrom had coasted to their third championship the season before, winning by a massive eight point margin.
In 1978 the Norwegian league had not yet become dominated by Rosenberg and it was quite an open league at the time. The most successful club, Fredrikstad, hadn't won the title for 17 years and cluster of clubs were catching up.
 |
| Open Norwegians |
Irish Champions - Bohemians
The Irish champions Bohemians, having held Dynamo Dresden to a goalless draw in Dublin in the first leg, were destroyed 6-0 in East Germany in the second.
Bohemians had secured their 7th League of Ireland title the season before, pipping plucky Finn Harps by two points.
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| Lots of big slices in the Irish Pie |
Czechoslovak First League Champions - Zbrojovka Brno
Another team to go out was the champions of Czechoslovakia, Zbrojovka Brno. This was a very close thing with Polish champions edging through on away goals, having drawn 2-2 in Brno.
The Czechoslovak league was dominated by four or five clubs and mostly clubs that would form the Czech republic, not Slovakia. Of the 52 titles, only 13 were won by Slovak teams.
 |
| Czech dominated pie |
Soviet Champions - Dinamo Kyiv
Finally (I covered AEK last time) there was the elimination of Soviet champions Dynamo Kyiv.
They had been drawn against the dour Swedish champions, Malmo, and failed to break them down in Ukraine. The Swedes rose to the challenge and won through 2-0.
Here are the highlights of their win.
Dynamo Kyiv had sealed their eight Soviet "Top League" title the season before. Unusually no Russian team finished in the top two that year.
 |
| Dinamo Kyiv Top of the Top League |
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| In ze Soviet Union ve haf big pie slices |
So that completes the second round exits. Collating the seven new clubs into the table I'd constructed from the first round, we see that England no longer top the league of "Open European Leagues." They've been pushed down into second place by Norway. None of the new seven come close to challenging Portugal's closed spot at the bottom, although Spain does have a pretty closed league.
What Happened Next?
So, to end off, here's a quick look at the seven exiting countries record in the years from 1978 until the end of the last century.
Unsurprisingly, the broad trend everywhere is for the league to become more closed and more dominated by fewer clubs.
In Spain, 76% of titles in the period were won by two clubs. You don't need me to tell you which ones.
Unsurprisingly, the broad trend everywhere is for the league to become more closed and more dominated by fewer clubs.
In Spain, 76% of titles in the period were won by two clubs. You don't need me to tell you which ones.
It was the same in Bulgaria, 76% won by two clubs. CSKA continued to dominate but were joined by Levski.
Holland, one of the most open leagues before 1978, became even more massively dominated by the few. Two teams won 81% of titles and only four won it in total.
Another big change happened in Norway. The most open league in Europe before 1978 now became dominated by one club, Rosenborg, who won half of the titles. Their dominance was set to go for a long while yet. Their 13 consecutive titles remains the longest stretch in Europe at the time of writing.
Ireland remained fairly open with no less than eight clubs winning the 21 championships. Shamrock Rovers continued to dominate but less so than before.
Czechoslovakia ceased to exist during this period (I plan cover the two new countries records and bring the whole thing up to date) next season. However, in the 15 years before the Czechs and the Slovaks amicably agreed their divorce, the league was massively dominated by Sparta Prague. All but one title was won by Czech clubs.
The most dramatic break up, of course, was that of the Soviet Union. Perhaps symptomatic of what was to come, Moscow's dominance faded considerably in this phase. Only four out of 14 titles were won by two Moscow teams. Even including Zenit Leningrad's single title win that makes just five Russian victories, compared to seven Ukrainian, one Belorus and one Georgian.
I still can't quite believe that happened. In 1978 I was still largely oblivious to Lithuania. Despite the persistent efforts of my proud father to take an interest in his homeland I, rather cruelly, was always dismissive. "Look Dad, I'm sorry, I'm just not interested" are the sort of words I could have said.
I became a "born-again" Lithuanian only in 1983 and only then became heavily involved in the community. Throughout those last eight or so years, though, I could never imagine that Lithuania would be playing football themselves as a Lithuanian nation. I even invented my own fantasy super-hero to fill the void...
Amazingly, Lithuanian independence arrived before I'd have the final episode (fittingly, the eleventh) published.
 |
| Bye Bye USSR! |
The USSR became one of the most open and Holland become one of the most closed. Seen in this perspective, the domination of the English league by Liverpool and Manchester United seems to be quite normal.
I still think it's sad, though.
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