Meciul european opt: McGovern conduce împotriva campionilor patriei mele, România

40 years ago, October 1979, Forest continued their great start to the season, challenging at the top of the first division, not getting knocked out of the League Cup, beating Swedish Champions, Osters Vaxjo and making a good start against the Romanian Champions, Argeș Pitești. In this blog I'll focus a little on Romania in 1979, under the iron fist of Nicolae Ceașescu and the ridiclous and brazen story of surely the most blatant football corruption ever. In today's traumatic world, it might be good to remember than 40 years ago things were much worse: Soviet tanks rumbling through the streets of Berlin, Famous Czech playwrights getting locked up for campaigning for basic human rights and Robert Mugabe shaping up to take power in Zimbabwe, for example.

Forest's progress in Europe was particularly satisfying, as Liverpool were surprisingly knocked out in the First Round against the Champions of the USSR, from the Georgian part of the Soviet's Evil Empire, Dinamo Tblisi. There's a bit of light relief in the form of Queen, ABBA and Susie Quatro.

Also this month, it was the 30th birthday of a relatively unsung Forest legend. So here's an excuse to pay a small tribute to John McGovern. There were several crazy trips involving Chesterfield (the football club, and the university pal) and another memorable trip to White Hart Lane to see Forest lose at Spurs.  I'll finish off by adding to the EurOpen league (my attempt to chronicle the overall demise of competitiveness all around Europe) four more clubs/countries that were eliminated in the first round.

Meciul European opt: McGovern conduce împotriva campionilor patriei mele, România. (European match eight: McGovern leads against the champions of my motherland.)

Previously: September 1979 (Baggies, Blackburn, Boro, Birtles, Osters Vaxjo)

Back at University, October 1979

I returned to Sherwood Hall, Nottingham University, to start my second year of the Zoology/Pharmacology course I was doing (after a single, depressing, failed term trying to do University-Level mathematics). These should have been amongst the happiest days of my life.  I was at the peak of my football fanaticism at a time when Forest were doing so amazingly well. I was completely independent and had no responsibilities other than trying to get a university degree in a subject I was enjoying and I had the additional luxury of having no academic pressure as I had no exams scheduled to sit in that second year.

I should have been happy, but I wasn't. Actually these were pretty dark times for me. I was still emotionally screwed up inside, like a twisted teenager. If only the "me" from the now could have gone back in time and visit "myself then" and taken "me" to one side and had a quiet word. The "me" from today would have said: "Algi, don't worry, lad. There's plenty time for girls. You'll be all right. In 15 years or so, you'll be very happily married to the best wife in the world with four kids."

Looking back, I was pretty depressed, really. These days, university tutors and staff quite rightly pay proper attention (but still probably not enough) to the mental health of students. But in those days you were pretty much left to stew in your own juice. I do admit though, that in many ways, students today have it much worse than we did. At least we didn't have to work to earn money like many do these days, because we were funded so well by state grants. All my course fees, accommodation and books were paid for by the state. They even threw in some beer money too. 

Anyway, to shake me out of my misery, at least I had my football and my equally football-mad mates.

Clough makes trouble at Forest

It was always exciting with Brian Clough as Forest manager. You could never take him for granted. Despite all he'd achieved in such a short space of time, he seemed to take pleasure in reminding the club how lucky they were to have him and at the start of the month, the press headlines were suddenly full of stories about a big Derby-like fall out with the club's directors.

"If they want to shake hands and part company, they can do so with pleasure. I would walk out of Forest if they pay me every penny they owe me on my contract. We have a fantastic chairman, but he is outnumbered at the club and in football in general. Directors are trying to beat me at everything. I have a constant running battle with them. We haven't changed. We were arrogant at the bottom and we are arrogant at the top."

I mean, what on earth do you make of that sort of thing? What a palava to be going on on the eve of the second leg of a big European Cup tie. Anyway, it all died down soon enough, and a couple of weeks later Cloughie issued an apology to the club for causing so much angst.

Forest go to Sweden, Liverpool to Georgia

I don't think anyone will think me any less of a fan when I say that I didn't go away to Sweden for the second leg of the European Cup 1st Round tie to the Swedish champions, Osters Vaxjo. Obviously, I couldn't afford it and even my generous dad wouldn't have been so silly to pay for me if I'd had the nerve to ask him. It was obviously one to skip.

But now, 40 years later, thanks to the amazing world of the internet and Professor Google, I can go to the town of Vaxjo, at least virtually. It would have been an eight hour or so flight from East Midlands airport to Vajxo.

Having arrived at the airport, it would have been a short taxi or bus ride to the old ground, called Värendsvallen...

From the air, it might have looked a bit like this...

Perhaps I would have bought a programme on the way into the stadium...

And then taken my place at the end of the ground with a small band of Forest fans where we'd have got a really crappy view of the game...

Still slipping under the radar at the time was John Robertson, who would make his 160th consecutive appearance for Forest that evening. I still can't believe that his run wasn't being noticed at the time - by me, or anyone else that I can tell. As you'll see later on, in the Wolves match-day programme, there was an announcement that he had been awarded a testimonial. He's lauded as "our longest serving player" and praised for being with the club for eleven years but still no mention of his ever growing, amazing, run of consecutive appearances.

Osters had a slightly different line up than the one that were beaten 2-0 in the first leg in Nottingham.

Osters Vaxjoe
1 Goran Hadberg, 2 Bengt Gustavsson, 3 Harry Bild, 4 Bjorn Bergqvist, 5 Jon Hallan, 6 Mats Nordgren, 7 Peter Nilssen, 8 Tommy Svensson, 9 Karl-Gunnar Bjorklund, 10 Teitur Thordarson, 11 Tommy Evesson.
Goals: Mats Nordgren 1.
Substitutions: B Shroder (12) came on for Harry Bild (3) and B Johansson (13) came on for Mats Nordgren(6)

Nottingham Forest
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Viv Anderson, 3 Frank Gray, 4 John McGovern, 5 Larry Lloyd, 6 Kenny Burns, 7 Martin O'Neill, 8 Gary Mills, 9 Garry Birtles, 10 Tony Woodcock, 11 John Robertson.
Goals : Tony Woodcock 1.
Substitutions: Ian Bowyer(12) came on for Martin O'Neill (7).

Attendance: 14,772

Here are some brief match highlights...

And here's a match report from the Guardian.

Dinamo Tblisi beat Liverpool 3-0

Amazingly, that same night Liverpool were smashed by the champions of the USSR, at the time, the admirable team from Georgia, Dinamo Tblisi. Bizarrely, although I have never been anywhere near Vaxjo, I did visit Tblisi last year (2018) just before the World Cup in Russia. They were the second of ten former Soviet Social Republics that I visited (the first being Azerbaijan). I did a blog on that trip. Here's the relevant post for that trip but below is a few photos I took at the time.

Back to 1979, here are the match highlights of Tblisi's famous victory...

Here are the other results that night...

And a few highlights...

Bevern (Belgium) 1 Servette Geneva (Switzerland) 1...

Dukla Prague (Czechoslovakia) 2 Ujpesti Dosza (Hungary) 0 ...

Strasbourg (France) 4 Start Kristiansand (Norway) 0...

Glasgow Celtic (Scotland) 4 Partizani Triana (Albania) 1 ...

AC Milan (Italy) 0 Porto (Portugal) 1 ...

Real Madrid (Spain) 2 Levski Spartak Sofia (Bulgaria) 0 ...

SV Hamburg (West Germany) 2 Valur Reykjavik (Iceland) 1 ...

Austria Vienna 1 Vejle BK (Denmark) 1 ..

Tranzonspor (Turkey) 0 Hajduk Split (Jugoslavia) 1 ...

Match 355: Saturday, 6th October 1979. Division One
Nottingham Forest 3 Wolverhampton Wanderers 2  (City Ground 177,  Nottingham Forest 251, Wolves 7) Attendance 27,800.

The first game of the month for me was Wolves at home and it included Trevor Francis' first game for Forest since scoring the crucial only goal against Malmo in the European Cup final five months earlier. Francis had finally recovered from an his injury he sustained while playing in the USA in the close season and he must have been relieved to be back. I wonder if he was also relieved to no longer be the most expensive footballer in England. The weight of that responsibility (or pride, perhaps) now fell to Andy Gray, Wolves' new signing from Aston Villa. Gray was making just his 5th appearance for the club and he'd started on great form with four goals in four games. 

Also newly installed in the Wolves team was the Liverpool legend, Emlyn Hughes, who had signed in the summer for £90,000 after making 474 league appearances for the Merseysiders.

Hughes - 8th of 58 league appearances for Wolves

Nottingham Forest

1 Peter Shilton, 2 Viv Anderson, 3 Frank Gray, 4 John McGovern, 5 Larry Lloyd, 6 Kenny Burns, 7 Trevor Francis, 8 John O'Hare, 9 Garry Birtles, 10 Tony Woodcock, 11 John Robertson.

Goals: Trevor Francis 1, Garry Birtles 1, John Robertson 1 (pen.).

Wolverhampton Wanderers

1 Paul Bradshaw, 2 Geoff Palmer, 3 Derek Parkin, 4 Peter Daniel, 5 Emlyn Hughes, 6 George Berry, 7 Kenny Hibbitt, 8 Willie Carr, 9 Andy Gray, 10 Melvyn Eves, 10 John Richards.

Goals : Peter Daniel 1 (pen.), John Richards 1.

Elsewhere, Liverpool showed a hint of what was to come later in the season but walloping Bristol City 4-0 at Anfield. Manchester United beat Brighton 2-0 to jump back to the top of the table.

Just one clip from that day....

Spurs and Palace draw at Selhurst Park. Commentator, Barry Davies...

The win kept Forest joint top of the First Division as their great start to the season continued. Ipswich Town's poor start continued and they propped up the table.

Forest also remained top of the composite 1977-80 table.

The World in October 1979

The political world seems to be going through a traumatic time at the moment. After the unbelievable (and let's not forget, very marginal) choices of voters in the US and the UK in 2016 to vote for Trump, and Brexit, respectively, many people warned of dramatic events ahead. Not a day has passed by, since that summer, without some bizarre twist in the news taking us to new "uncharted waters" as the media often put it.

In times like this, it might be good to look back historically for comparisons. Maybe there's some solace there, somewhere. And why not choose forty years ago?  A glimpse of the front page of the British press early in October 1979 reveals anything but a stable, peaceful world. The crisis in Zimbabwe Rhodesia (as Zimbabwe had recently been renamed) was reaching a climax as local nationalists were closing in on regaining control of their country from descendants of the British that had held power there since the late 1889s when the eponymous Cecil Rhodes claimed the territory as part of the empire.

Talking of empires, it is a chilling thought to recall images of Soviet military might being paraded in front of Leonid Brezhnev in Berlin, then, of course, capital of communist East Germany. At least Donald Trump's slavish determination to do Vladimir Putin's bidding hasn't led, yet, to a return to anything like that. Perhaps things aren't quite so bad today, after all.

Match 356: Tuesday, 9th October 1979. Division Two
Notts County 5 Shrewsbury Town 2  (Meadow Lane 18,  Shrewsbury Town 1) Attendance 7,200.

In midweek, I wandered down to Meadow Lane to watch Shrewsbury Town, a team I'd never seen before. They were playing the second tier of English football for the first time in their history.

Newcastle had started the season well after their relegation...

I was closing in on seeing all 92 teams by this stage and Shrewsbury were the 85th of 92 current league sides I'd seen.

Match 357: Wednesday, 10th October 1979. Division One
Stoke City 1 Nottingham Forest 1  (Victoria Ground 1,  Stoke City 3, Nottingham Forest 252) Attendance 28,514.

The very next night, I managed to make my way to another new ground, Stoke City's Victoria Ground, to see the newly promoted team, who we all thought (incorrectly, apparently) were the 3rd oldest league club at the time (behind Notts County and Wrexham.) As I investigated earlier in the season, football historians are much more skeptical about that these days and, as both Notts County and Wrexham are no longer members of the football league, it makes Nottingham Forest the oldest club in the league, currently.

This was, then, my 58th ground.

Stoke City
1 Roger Jones, 2 Ray Evans, 3 Geoff Scott, 4 Sammy Irvine, 5 Dennis Smith, 6 Alan Dodd, 7 Paul A Johnson, 8 Adrian Heath, 9 Brendon O'Callaghan, 10 Garth Crooks, 11 Paul Richardson.
Goals: Brendon O'Callaghan 1.

Nottingham Forest
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Viv Anderson, 3 Frank Gray, 4 John McGovern, 5 Larry Lloyd, 6 Kenny Burns, 7 Trevor Francis, 8 Gary Mills, 9 Garry Birtles, 10 Tony Woodcock, 11 John Robertson.
Goals : Garry Birtles 1.

Again, I have no memory of the game at all, but here's the match report from the Guardian...

Elsewhere, Manchester United lost at the Hawthorns, so Forest actually went to the top of the league on their own right again. Southampton rose to third place after beating another team that had started well, Crystal Palace.

So it had been a great start for Forest after ten games...

With Liverpool only drawing at Bolton Wanderers, it meant Forest stayed four points clear of the 1977-80 composite table too. These really were heady days.

Match 358: Saturday, 13th October 1979. Division Three
Grimsby Town 1 Chesterfield 1 (Blundell Park 1,  Chesterfield 7)
Attendance 6,599.

The following Saturday, I gave Forest's away game at Manchester City a miss and, instead, was driven to the exotic destination of Cleethorpes on the North Sea coast to visit Grimsby Town's, Blundell Park for the first time. The reason for this crazy visit? One of our football mad friends from University in those days was the most improbable Chesterfield fan you could imagine, coming from Twickenham. Steve (or "Chesterfield" as we predictably called him) had the broadest West London accent but apparently his mum (or was it his auntie?) had come from Chesterfield and so Steve had  spent quite a bit of time there as a lad. As any football fan knows, you don't need much more than that to form a bond for life with a club. So this was another of many bizarre football grounds we were driven to in Chesterfield's little white mini.

Blundell Park had the original flooflights from Molineaux

Apart from a very nice portion of properly authentic fish and chips from the English town that was probably most famous for them, I have little memory of the day, except a vague recollection that Chesterfield (the fan) was ecstatic that Ernie Moss scored the equaliser for Chesterfield (the team) quite late in the game to earn them a point.

Ernie Moss - Chesterfield legend
Another footballer suffering from early forms of dementia

Bizarrely for his mates, who always thought of him as just a strange, fanatical, Chesterfield fan, Steve went on to become a well respected pillar of society. A couple of years later, he became Sherwood Hall President (I never saw that coming!)

JCR Presidents

And later in life, after a long and distinguished career in the police force he was awarded a police medal by the queen!

It was Ernie Moss who scored the equaliser, Ma'am, honest.

Forest lost at Maine Road and, as their rivals United won, Forest were deposed from the top of the table.

Manchester City
1 Joe Corrigan, 2 Ray Ranson, 3 Nicky Reid, 4 Gary Bennett, 5 Tom Caton, 6 Paul Futcher, 7 Steve MacKenzie, 8 Colin Viljoen, 9 Mick Robinson, 10 Paul Power, 11 Kazimiercz Deyna.
Goals: Kazimiercz Deyna 1.

Nottingham Forest
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Viv Anderson, 3 Frank Gray, 4 John McGovern, 5 Larry Lloyd, 6 Kenny Burns, 7 Trevor Francis, 8 Gary Mills, 9 Garry Birtles, 10 Tony Woodcock, 11 John Robertson.

In other matches that day, Wolves moved up to 3rd place with a game in hand over both Manchester United and Nottingham Forest.

Manchester United go back to the top

Despite the defeat, and Liverpool's win at Portman Road, Forest stayed top of the 1977-80 cumulative table...

Muzorewa's Black & White Army 

The new prime minister of Zimbabwe, ever since the country was renamed on June 1st, was in the news again at the time, as the country went through it's final convulsions before elections in February 1980 would finally bring the ZANU PF leader, Robert Mugabe to power - a position he would incredibly hold for the next 37 years. The British would back Bishop Muzorewa as a candidate in those elections.

Northern Ireland 1 England 5

Forest's position at the pinnacle of the English game forty years ago was symbolised by the fact that the England team that played in the European Championship qualifier at Windsor Park, Belfast, that week included three star players and four of England's five goals were scored by Forest strikers (Trevor Francis 2 and Tony Woodcock 2).

Here are some better photos, printed in the Forest Review a few weeks later...

Tony Woodcock after just scoring his first goal for England

Muddy

Trevor Francis in action against Pat Rice

Trevor Francis leaves Sammy Nelson 

I knew my old mucker from University, Boro, went to Belfast once to see an England game but I'd completely forgotten that it was this match he'd been to. It must have been particularly scary as this, remember, was in the days of "the troubles" and getting bombed by the IRA was a serious possibility to take into account.

Here's his recollections of the trip...

All I remember of it was my parents saying I was mad, but in truth there were lots of other high risk games I went to where they said the same. The fact is that back then we were all (I think) willing to ignore both the threat of hooliganism and of IRA terrorism - maybe it was just part of being young, or maybe (controversy alert!) we were just a bit less mollycoddled than today's youngsters. The tanks on the street (which may have actually been armoured personnel carriers), and the big steel fences/gates on all the street corners, made a bizarre sight but not as intimidating as a line of Italian carabinieri with batons drawn!

At the game itself I think there were maybe a few dozen England fans sitting high in a stand down the side, nothing like a normal away game. An easy win for England in pouring rain if I remember correctly, Trevor Francis among the scorers. My most vivid memory is a big fat England fan who I had met in Sofia sitting right behind me and making obnoxious comments about the Irish all game - and the rest of us all pretending not to hear him rather than asking him to stop. Some things never change!

Thanks Boro!

There were still rumours going around about Clough leaving Forest, the latest tying him with Aston Villa, but much to our relief, it all seemed to be over by the following Thursday when Brian Clough apologised to the board about his recent comments "It was not befitting of a manager whether he be good, bad or indifferent".  It seems odd, with the benefit of hindsight, that at that time, Cloughie was only just over 35% of the way through his time at the club. He'd be our manager for another 13 and a half years.

So we needn't have worried after all!

Match 359: Saturday, 20th October 1979. Division One
Nottingham Forest 5 Bolton Wanderers 2  (City Ground 178, Nottingham Forest 253,  Bolton Wanderers 8) Attendance 24,546.

The "feel good factor" continued at the City Ground the following Saturday when Forest thrashed struggling Bolton Wanderers 5-2 to move back to the top of the league.

Forest's five goals were all scored by different players that day.

Nottingham Forest
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Viv Anderson, 3 Frank Gray, 4 John McGovern, 5 Larry Lloyd, 6 Kenny Burns, 7 Trevor Francis, 8 Gary Mills, 9 Garry Birtles, 10 Tony Woodcock, 11 John Robertson.
Goals: Viv Anderson 1, Larry Lloyd 1, Trevor Francis 1, Tony Woodcock 1, John Robertson 1 (pen.).
Substitutions: Ian Bowyer (12) came on for Gary Mills(8).

Bolton Wanderers
1 Jim McDonagh, 2 David Clement, 3 David Burke, 4 Sam Allardyce, 5 Paul Jones, 6 Mike Walsh, 7 Willie Morgan, 8 Neil Whatmore, 9 Alan Gowling, 10 Peter Nicholson, 10 Frank Worthington, 11 Chris Thompson.
Goals : Willie Morgan 1 (pen.), Chris Thompson 1.
Substitutions: Neil McNab(12) came on for David Clement (2).

In other matches, Liverpool were held at home in the Merseyside derby and although Manchester United won too, Forest skipped above them again on goal difference.

Forest, then, on 20th October 1979, were back on top of the First Division. Forest fans should look on that table with a sad fondness because, as far as I can tell, that was the last time it happened.

As I keep saying... Aaah, them wo't days, lad!

The results that day allowed Forest to stretch their lead in the 1977-80 composite table back to three points over Liverpool.

After a poor start to the season, Manchester City were now the in-form team. It was all looking good for Forest though, top of the league, well placed on current form compared to Liverpool at that stage and very much still in both cup competitions that they'd played in.

In an ominous sign of things to come, though, the following Tuesday, Tony Woodcock hit the headlines for the wrong reasons: He hadn't signed a new contract with the club. Could our Tony be on his way?

The same day we were off again in Chesterfield's mini, taking the short journey up the M1 to Saltergate to watch his team at home this time. It was my 6th game of the month.

Match 360: Tuesday, 23rd October 1979. Division Three
Chesterfield 0 Blackpool 0 (Saltergate 4, Chesterfield 8,  Blackpool 6)
Attendance 4,936.

Saltergate - home of Chesterfield F.C.

Needless to say, I have absolutely no memory of the game whatsoever.

Chesterfield 0 Blackpool 0 - mid table match on a Tuesday night - not at all memorable

Eastern Europe in 1979

The night after the visit to Chesterfield, it was time to resume the focus on Europe as Forest prepared for first leg of their 3rd round tie at the City Ground. Forest's opponents were Argeș Pitești, the champions of Romania.

This was the first time Forest had ever been drawn against a club from the east of Europe. In those days, of course, that meant from the other side of the "iron curtain." It was a very different world, completely unrecognisable from today.

Even relatively progressive socialist countries, such as Czechoslovakia were under the brutal hammer of Soviet-style totalitarianism. On the same day the Romanians made their way to Nottingham, Czech authorities were re-locking up five human rights activists for "subversion."

Most famous among them was the famous playwright Vaclav Havel, who would later, in better times, become the first president of the country, a position he would hold for ten years.

Above, Havel - Jailed (or gaoled?) Dissident 1979-1983
Below, President 1993-2003

Czechoslovakia had famously been home to the "Prague Spring" in 1968, offering hope that the callous Communist grip on Eastern Europe could evolve into a form of socialism "with a human face." But the rebellion was soon crushed and Czechoslovakia returned to a hard-line pro-Kremlin stance ever since. Harsh as this was, the repression enacted in Prague was nothing compared to that being carried out in Bucharest, capital of communist Romania.

Romania had the terrible misfortune to have two types of tyrannies inflicted upon them. They had the same grim, cold, repressive communism that imprisoned 400 million other people from the inner German border which nosed itself into West German territory - one of the world's most heavily fortified frontiers, defined by a continuous line of high metal fences and walls, barbed wire, alarms, anti-vehicle ditches, watchtowers, automatic booby traps, and minefields - the same that stretch all the way across half the world to the Bering Straits, where the USSR almost touched Alaska.

In addition, they also had their communism distorted with a peculiar Romanian twist, by a despotic, maniacal leader, Nicolae Ceaușescu.

Ceaușescu - not as cute as he looked

Strangely, Ceaușescu had actually given a speech condemning the Soviet crushing of the Prague Spring in 1968, three years after coming to power, and as a result had gained a degree of popularity both at home and abroad. But this honeymoon period didn't last long and Romania soon became known as one of the most repressive regimes of the whole eastern block.

My mum was born in Romania so I did have a bit of a extra interest in the team Forest were about to play. But these were they days before I really started to explore my East European roots and, frankly, I was actually a little bit embarrassed by my association with that whole part of the world at the time.

So, with the benefit of 40 years hindsight, I can pay much greater attention to the Romanian opponents today than I did then.

Care sunt Argeș Pitești? (Romanian for: "Who are Argeș Pitești?")

Well the first thing you should learn about them is how to say their name. A bit of Romanian is needed here. The letter "ș" - an 's' with a squiggle underneath it - is pronounced "sh" in Romanian, so it's "Argesh Pitesh" - with a hard "g". The final "i" isn't pronounced, for some reason.

The town of Pitești is a relatively small one (compared to the capital Bucharest, anyway) in the south of the country. Today it's the 13th biggest town in Romania with a population of around 155,000 whereas the biggest by far, Bucharest, 120 km to the east, is home to around 2 million people. 

Romania itself is a very ancient European country. It includes the site of one of the oldest finds of modern Homo sapiens in Europe, at the so-called "Cave with Bones" (Peștera cu Oase) near the Serbian border. It's actually not far away from where my mother was born.

Geographically placed to the south-east of most of Europe, Romania's territory (often referred to as "Dacia" during this time) was conquered by many regional powers, including the Greeks and Romans. It is thought that the modern Romanian language was the result of being part of the Roman empire at this key stage of its evolution, as it is a Latin language, like Italian, French, Spanish and Portuguese.

Romania's history is bewilderingly complex and suffice it to say that by around 1862 it had won its independence from the surrounding empires, Russia, The Ottoman Turks and Austria-Hungary. Nevertheless its borders would continue to change dramatically over the next century.

The aspect of Romanian history I want to focus on here, though, of course, is football. When did Romanian football begin?

In 1909 two teams from Bucharest (Olimpia and Colentina) and one from Ploesti (United) took part in the first Romanian Football championship. The competition was expanded in subsequent years  (with a three year suspension during the first world war) until 1921.

First Romanian Championship 1909-10

Bizarrely, having established a growing league system, the Romanian Football Federation switched the competition to a knock-out cup format for the next ten years until 1932-33 when the format was changed to two regional leagues, with the winners of each playing in the final. This format only lasted two years before a more orthodox national "round robin" league was reintroduced in 1934-35.

It brings a faint warm feeling to me today to think that all this happened when my mum was ten years old, and that the closest team to her village won that first 'proper' league title since 1921. The truth is, of course, mum was not the slightest bit interested in football and I very much doubt that anyone in her (largely German speaking) village cared about it one jot.

Timoșoara win the league in 1934-35

After a five year break for the second world war, it's not surprising to note that when the league resumed in 1946-47, with Romania now under the Communist yolk, all but two of the clubs had changed their names. Perhaps more surprising is that those names weren't, at first, the classic, Eastern block names, like "Dinamo" or "Lokomotiv" - although they did start to be adopted soon enough as the state controlled everything, including every football club.

So, what about Argeș Pitești? When were they formed? It seems that it was the Romanian Communist government, through an order from the Minstry of Internal Affairs (how romantic!), that decided to form a club in in the town of Pitești in 1953. It was called, unimaginatively, Dinamo Pitești. They started at in lower reaches of the Romanian football hierarchy but eventually won promotion to Divizia A in 1962.

Dinamo Pitești finally in the top tier in 1962

They were relegated straight back down but returned once more the season after that, remaining in the top tier ever since.

In 1967 the club changed its name to Argeș Pitești, (the name of the local county) and their nickname became the "violet and white eagles." Their fortunes seemed to change at the same time.

From now on... Argeș not Dinamo 

They won the Romanian league for the first time in 1972. The side was captained by Ion Barbu, who made over 200 appearances for the club, and was capped seven times for Romania.

Ion Barbu

Champions for the first time in 1971-72

This qualified them for the European Cup for the first time and in the First Round they beat the Luxembourg champions FC Aris Bonnevoie, to be rewarded with a tie against the mighty Real Madrid in the second. Amazingly, Argeș Pitești beat Los Blancos 2-1. Unsurprisingly, however, they lost the second leg, 3-1 to end their participation.

Pitești continued to challenge at the top of the table in the next few years and won the league for a second time the season before this one...

Champions again 1978-79

This was the usual team that won the league that season...

Their left-sided attacking midfielder, Nicolae Dobrin, was probably the best player in the side. He made almost 400 appearances for the club and won 48 caps for Romania.

Nicolae Dobrin

So, to summarise, here's a chart plotting their league history...

Match 361: Wednesday, 24th October 1979. European Cup 2nd Round, 1st Leg
Nottingham Forest 2 Argeș Pitești 0 (City Ground 179, Nottingham Forest 254,  Argeș Pitești 1) Attendance 24,560.

Sadly, I do not have much in the way of any memories from this game either, except a vague notion that the big new so-called Executive Stand (but these days, correctly renamed "The Peter Taylor Stand") was starting to take shape.

Here's the match day programme...

Nottingham Forest

1 Peter Shilton, 2 Viv Anderson, 3 Frank Gray, 4 John McGovern, 5 Larry Lloyd, 6 Kenny Burns, 7 Gary Mills, 8 Ian Bowyer, 9 Garry Birtles, 10 Tony Woodcock, 11 John Robertson.

Goals: Garry Birtles 1, Tony Woodcock 1.

Arges Pitesti

1 Georghe Christian, 2 Mihai Zamfir, 3  Moesescu, 4 Petre Ivan, 5 Constantin Stancu, 6 Constantin Cirstea, 7 Gheorge Chivescu, 8 Sebastian Iovanescu, 9 Doru Toma, 10 Nicolae Dobrin, 11 Doru Nicolae.

So, to the match, and another that I have zero memory of. Thankfully there are a few clips floating around on the internet.

Here's the match report from the Guardian...

In a nutshell: Two goals in 4 minutes early in the first half from Tony Woodcock and Garry Birtles was enough to give Forest a 2-0 lead at half time, but they should have had more as they hit the post twice too. The second half was frustrating for Forest as the Romanians closed the game down hoping to overcome the 2-0 deficit in the second leg.

Robbo hits the post early on

Tony Woodcock puts Forest 1-0 up after 13 minutes.

Garry Birtles makes it 2-0 after 17 minutes

Kenny Burns almost makes it 3-0 in the second half

John Robertson was the key player again, playing in his 165th CONSECUTIVE first class game for the Reds.

In other matches that night, Ajax Amsterdam put ten goals past the champions of Cyprus, Omonia Nicosia, Hamburg beat Dinamo Tblisi, the team that had eliminated Liverpool in the first round, 3-1. Portuguese Champions, Porto, took a first leg league against Real Madrid and Celtic could only beat Dundalk 3-2.

Some highlights...

Dukla Prague 1 Strasbourg 0

Here's Ajax, wiping the floor with Omonia...

Here's the big Iberian peninsula clash...

Extended highlights, with English commentary, of Hamburg versus Dinamo Tblisi...

Nicolae Ceaușescu and FC Olt Scornicești

Before moving on from Romanian football, I can't resist but recalling almost certainly the most incredible story of football corruption ever. 

At the very time that Argeș Pitești were at the peak of their success, just 60 or so kilometers down the road, another football club from a tiny village of just 6,000 or so inhabitants (at least that was the figure a few years earlier) were being transformed and would soon even eclipse the club Forest played.

Nicolae Ceasescu was born 62 km from Pitesi in Scornicesti

You shouldn't be the least bit surprised to learn that the village (called Scornicești) was the birth place of  Nicolae Ceaușescu. It seems almost unbelievable today that 40 years ago Romania was under the brutal rule of that man, one of the vilest despots in recent European history. Anyone who has visited his monstrous palace in Bucharest will have a good idea of the man's vanity (I went there in 2018 click the link to see me jogging in front of it!!) but, in a way, this story shows it even more powerfully.

Large parts of old Bucharest was demolished to make way for Ceasescu's obscene palace.

Ceaușescu decided that his place of birth should become a model of socialist rebuilding and that included, their football team.

Ceasescu's place of birth in the tiny village

The club was only founded in 1972. Obviously with special "help" from people in high places, the club "miraculously" started attracting the best players in the region, began winning an incredible number of games and rose up the Romanian football league system. As you can imagine, this involved countless dodgy refereeing decisions, opponents that were strangely off form on the day they played against them, and the very best coaches finding themselves assigned to the club. 

See this link for details of some of these incredible stories.

The very season Argeș Pitești won the league for the second time qualifying them for the European Cup, FC Scornicești were gaining promotion to the top tier of Romanian football themselves.

Within a couple of years, they had overtaken Argeș Pitești and finished fourth in the Romanian Divizia A.

Ceasescu's home village team finishes 4th - what? 

A few years later, in the 1986-87 season, the soon-to-be-famous Chelsea defender, Dan Petrescu was loaned to them and played for Scornicești 24 times.

Petrescu made 24 appearances for Scornicesti in 1986-87

This is the stuff of the most blatant cheating imaginable. I must admit that a few years ago when I used to waste hours and hours playing the computer game "Football Manager", I did occasionally succumb to the temptation to cheat. I created a team of Kuliukases - that's me, my wife and children, who were all perfect at every attribute. The all joined Nottingham Forest for free and all played for Lithuania too. Within a few years Forest and Lithuania were winning everything in sight. It wasn't much of challenge to play, but it fulfilled lots of vain fantasies. But that was just a silly computer game, right?  

Here we are talking about a real village and a real country. The evidence is still there today, in the form of a white elephant of a stadium, originally built with a capacity of 30,000. Only a third of it would have been filled even if every single person in the village went to matches!

FC Olt Scornicesti's stadium - Originally it had a cappacity of 30,000, in a village that had 6,000 inhabitants

The final nail in the FC Olt Scornicesti coffin was finally delivered, not coincidentally, the same season the Ceasescus were swept from power. I don't think a football league table has ever said anything more powerful than this one...

The End of the Ceasescu Nightmare

Match 362: Saturday, 27th October 1979, Division One;
Tottenham Hotspur 1 Nottingham Forest 0 (White Hart Lane 2, Tottenham Hotspur 6, Nottingham Forest 255) Attendance 49,500.

The next match for me was another trip down south with my Spurs-fan-mate-cum-minder-and-protector-against cockneys, Jake Holloway. This time, instead of cowering near the touch line with children, Jake managed to persuade me to come with him onto the shelf. I'd been in the Holgate End with Boro, so this seemed the logical thing to do.

It must be the fear of being beaten up but I actually do have some memory traces of this game. Glen Hoddle scored an absolute screeching volley in front of us to win the game for Spurs.

Making his debut in goal for Spurs that day was Milija Aleksic and playing in only his 12th game was a young Chris Hughton, still just twenty years old.

Chris Hughton, played in his 12th game for Spurs that day

Moving towards the other end of his career was a 29 year old Terry Yorath. I'd completely forgotten he had a spell at Tottenham.

Forest had Trevor Francis back after missing the European Cup tie but were otherwise unchanged, including captain John McGovern who was one of eight players that hadn't missed a game yet in the season.

Tottenham Hotspur
1 Milija Aleksic, 2 Chris Hughton, 3 Gordon Smith, 4 Terry Yorath, 5 Don McAllister, 6 Steve Perryman, 7 Osvaldo Ardiles, 8 Chris Jones, 9 Gerry Armstrong, 10 Glen Hoddle, 11 Ricardo Villa.
Goals: Glen Hoddle 1.
Substitutions: Colin Lee (12) came on for Gerry Armstrong(9).

Nottingham Forest
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Viv Anderson, 3 Frank Gray, 4 John McGovern, 5 Larry Lloyd, 6 Kenny Burns, 7 Gary Mills, 8 Trevor Francis, 9 Garry Birtles, 10 Tony Woodcock, 11 John Robertson.

Here're the highlights, including that fantastic goal for the Hod.

In other matches that day, Manchester United got a 0-0 draw at Goodison Park to return to the top of the table and, most ominously, Liverpool beat Manchester City 4-0 at Maine Road, to close the gap with Forest to two points with a game in hand. Struggling Ipswich managed to beat Middlesbrough but Brighton and Derby both lost to stay in the relegation zone.

In the 1977-80 cumulative table, Forest remained top, but only by a point now, and Liverpool had that game in hand.

Here are some highlights of Leeds 2-1 win at the Dell that day...

John McGovern's 30th Birthday

The day after the Spurs game, unbeknownst to me at the time, was John McGovern's 30th birthday. I think it's fair to say that he was pretty much at his peak around this time, and as he was always a Forest player that attracted more derision and abuse (F*CKIN KERMIT!) than adulation from Forest's fickle fans, I want to pay him some respect and focus on him a little here.

John McGovern lifted that trophy twice

John McGovern was born in Montrose, on the east coast of Scotland on 28th October 1949 but at the age of seven he moved to Hartlepool. (Don't ask!) Tragically, just four years later, John's father died, so John's mum had to draw upon the help of her extended family. McGovern went to a local Grammar school which only played rugby, but in the summers his mum sent him to his grandmother's in Bo'ness on the Firth of Forth just west of Edinburgh, back in Scotland. It was there where he started to enjoy playing football and began to realise he was pretty good.

At the age of 16 he made his debut for Hartlepools United (as they were called in those days). Brian Clough and Peter Taylor were already there as managers and it was Taylor who apparently spotted McGovern's talent and advocated him getting him on the books.

McGovern made his debut in Hartlepools' last home game of the 1965-66 season, against Bradford City, on 21st May. It was a 1-1 draw.

Modest Start of the League Career of John McGovern

John at 16 for Hartlepool

McGovern was a regular in the team for the next season and signed professional the following September. Under the steady guidance of Clough and Taylor, Hartlepool improved and finished the season in 8th place and the management duo were snapped up by Derby County at the end of that season. 

It's odd. I had always assumed that it was Clough & Taylor that had taken Hartlepool up to the third tier, but in fact they'd already moved on. It was their successor Angus McLean who did so. So John McGovern played a whole season away from the guidance of the managers who seemed to have had a symbiotic relationship with him for most of his career.

So, in a season of unusual success for Hartlepool, the club won promotion to the third division, finishing in 3rd place, a 17, then 18 year old John McGovern playing a key role.

Hartlepool and Crewe both promoted to the Third Division

McGovern figured in Hartlepool's first six games in the third division but was soon snapped up by Clough & Taylor for 7,500 and so played the rest of that season in the Second Division for Derby County.

John McGovern - young lad at Derby County

In his first season at the Baseball Ground, Derby won immediate promotion to the first division, winning the title.

So, on August 9th 1969, when Derby County returned to the First Division and played Burnley at the Baseball Ground in front of 29,451 fans, John McGovern (still 19 and 80 days from his twentieth birthday) became the youngest player ever to play in all four divisions.

Derby finished 4th that first season back in the top flight. After a season of mid-table consolidation, Clough and Taylor, amazingly pulled off Derby County's first ever title win.

The worst table if you're a Forest fan

Derby County League Champions (John McGovern was just 22)

It was a familiar story for Forest fans, as Derby, under Clough & Taylor, went from strength to strength.

Perhaps John McGovern's most glorious moment for the Rams, was during the European Cup run the next season. They played superbly against Benfica in front of a packed Baseball Ground on the way to the semi-finals and it was McGovern himself that scored the goal to put them 3-0 up.

But all good things come to end and Clough was destined to fall out with Sam Longson and the board at Derby and, of course, at the start of the 1974-75 season he ended up at Leeds United after Don Revie had left to take up the England job. John McGovern and John O'Hare dutifully joined him there, it has to be said, without much fanfare from the Leeds supporters.

McGovern only played four league games for Leeds United and has always said it was a miserable time, as one might expect.

McGovern for Leeds, Leeds, Leeds

He said, he'd have walked down the M1 to join Brian at Forest when he was appointed their manager on 6th January 1975 after his ignominious 44 day (or was it 54 days?) period in charge at the Yorkshire club, and sure enough, Brian had only been in the job a few weeks when he recalled his two loyal stalwarts from their Leeds nightmare.

John McGovern signs for Brian Clough for the 3rd time

John McGovern made his debut for Forest on a very cold wintry day, on February 22nd 1975, at the City Ground against Cardiff City. I was stood up on the open terrace of the Bridgeford End and I remember it being a terrible game, ending 0-0. John O'Hare joined McGovern in the starting line up for the next match, away at Oxford, and scored on his home debut against Aston Villa, in a 2-3 defeat. Little did we know what was around the corner. 

The rest of his time, as they say, and I can't resist repeating, is history - and, more to the point, covered in these pages. What I want to record here is that during his time at the club a lot of Forest fans were really quite unkind to the player, calling him various derogatory forms of "Kermit". I always used to like to remind such people that Brian Clough and Peter Taylor probably knew a little bit more than they did, and yet Clough & Taylor were always keen to have his name down first on the team sheet.

So, to complete this snapshot of John McGovern, I'll fast forward to his last game for the Forest and what happened after that. By the end of the 1981-82 season, with John still only 32, he played his last game for the club away at Ipswich Town, on the last game of the season, 15th May 1982. Forest won 3-1. His last home appearance was against Everton on 3rd April. Forest lost that one 0-1.

John scored just six league goals for the club: the last being the brace he scored earlier in this (1979-80) season against Coventry City.

After Forest, McGovern went to Bolton Wanderers, then in the second division to try his hand as player manager. McGovern made just 16 appearances for them and they were relegated to the Third Division in his first season. John's last league appearance was for Bolton at home to Bournemouth on 28th April 1984. They lost 0-1 in front of just 3,045 fans. The club finished 10th that season but by January of the next, 1984-85, McGovern was sacked after a change in club ownership.

He had a few other jobs in the game but in recent years has worked as a club ambassador for Nottingham Forest.

McGovern Forest Club Ambassador

So, it's been quite a journey and a very successful one for one of those players that most fans never truly appreciate. Never the flashy skillful "fancy-Dan" type, John did those things that need to be done in the team but often get overlooked: A lot of running and closing down and covering.  Brian Clough said of him, "He never stopped going, never stopped running, and he was a reasonably intelligent young man." and John Robertson described him thus "As far as I'm concerned John McGovern is what epitomises what every good side needs."

The John McGovern Journey

John McGovern's Playing Career

Thanks for the memories, John. Lots of us really did appreciate you!!

Music Interlude

A few picks...

ABBA

Queen...

Chic...

Susie Quatro...

Match 363: Tuesday, 30th October 1979, League Cup 4th Round. Bristol City 1 Nottingham Forest 1 (Ashton Gate 3, Bristol City 14, Nottingham Forest 256) Attendance 25,596.

Defence of the League Cup

The final Tuesday of the month, I apparently went down to Bristol to watch Forest play in a League Cup 4th Round tie. I can't believe I actually did go to this, but it's there in my "official" old record books. I have the programme - but no memory and no idea how I might have got there.

Bristol City
1 John Shaw, 2 Gerry Sweeney, 3 Clive Whitehead, 4 Kevin Mabbutt, 5 David Rogers, 6 Geoff Merrick, 7 Tony Fitzpatrick, 8 Andy Ritchie, 9 Joe Royle, 10 James Mann, 11 Trevor Tainton.
Goals: Gerry Sweeney 1.
Substitutions: Allan Hay (12) came on for David Rogers(5).

Nottingham Forest
1 Peter Shilton, 2 Viv Anderson, 3 Frank Gray, 4 John McGovern, 5 Larry Lloyd, 6 Kenny Burns, 7 John O'Hare, 8 Trevor Francis, 9 Garry Birtles, 10 Tony Woodcock, 11 John Robertson.
Goals : John O'Hare 1.

Apparently Forest were lucky to get away with a draw, despite taking the lead, as Bristol City hit the woodwork twice before equalising late on.

This was Forest's 18th successive League Cup game without defeat.

In the other League Cup games that night, Grimsby Town beat Everton, Liverpool eliminated Exeter City at Anfield and Swindon Town won at Wimbledon. All the other games were drawn and would have to be replayed.

EurOpen League Update

Finally, I'll end this post with an update to my EurOpen league table by adding the analysis of four more countries to the three I covered last month. The goal here, you may remember, is to examine the entire history of each European league in terms of how open it is. I want to confirm my suspicion that the trend towards fewer clubs dominating leagues more and more is a universal phenomenon and not just a feature of the English Greediership.

Last month, I looked at Northern Ireland (as Linfield were eliminated by Dundalk in the preliminary round), Finland (HJK Helsinki knocked out by Ajax Amsterdam) and Greece (AEK Athens beaten by Argeș Pitești.) 

Four more teams, eliminated in the first round, in alphabetical order of their country - are Partizan Tirana, Austria Wein, Beveren, and Levski Spartak.

Albania Partizani

The first country this month is Albania, after the elimination of their champions, Partizani Tirana by Celtic. The Albanian league was established in 1930 and has always been dominated by clubs from the capital.

The 1978-79 champions were Partizani Tirana, who won the league finishing one point ahead of 17th Nentori, another club from the capital.

From 1930 until 1978, the Albanian league was won by just five clubs...

In the two decades or so that followed this, more clubs won the league but it did become more dominated by one club (FK Tirana, formerly 17th Nentori)

So, what about the last twenty years? Well, it would appear that, in Albania, at least, the trend towards ever more dominant clubs has not been followed. In 19 seasons, the Kategoria Superiore title has been won by seven teams, including one (FK Kukësi) that had never won it before.

Current members of the Albanian "Superliga"

Austria - Austria Wein

Next up, Austria which I had always considered a very old European league. 

It turns out, it's not that old, really. 11th out of 33. It started in 1912 and there have been 105 Austrian championships altogether. The latest was won by Austria Vienna (again.)

This was Austria Vienna's third title win in four years but they still were a long way behind Rapid Vienna in the list of Austrian Champions...

In the twenty or so years from here to the year 2000, Austria Vienna continued to dominate over Rapid Vienna, but were still behind them overall.

So, what about in the last twenty or so years? Well the "new kids on the block", Red Bull Salzburg, who only won their first title in 1993, have pretty much taken over, winning 10 of the 19 titles. At least they are not based in the capital. Continuing the more provincial theme, the two Graz clubs both won the league recently too, making it a little more interesting than some leagues.

Teams in the Austrian League in 2019

Incidentally, whilst checking how old the Austrian league actually was, I came across a very surprising fact (at least it was to me) - that the longest running league in Europe is actually the Dutch league. Like the English Football League, the Dutch league started in 1888-89 but, unlike England, football never stopped - for the neither first or second World Wars. I suppose that's one benefit of neutrality.

Football League Seasons
9 more Dutch league seasons than England or Scotland!

Belgium Beveren

An even older league is the Belgian league and this is the next country to look at, after their champions, Beveren were knocked out by Swiss champions, Servette Geneva.

Teams in the Belgian League 1978-79

Royal Sporting Club of Beveren (Koninklijke Sportkring Beveren) had won the Belgian league for the first time in 1979, four points clear of Anderlecht. The club is based in a small town (about 50,000 inhabitants) in East Flanders, just 14 km from the Dutch border in the suburbs of Antwerp.

The most dominant side in Belgium at the time was Anderlecht, from Brussels.

However the Belgian league for its early stages was remarkably open with 13 different clubs sharing the championship pie. Anderlecht only had a 21% slice.

In the twenty or so years up to the end of the millennium Belgium followed the European trend with fewer teams winning the title and the lion's share of them going to fewer clubs.

Club Brugge and Anderlect won 2/3 of all titles in this period.

Bringing Belgium up to date up until last season, we find a slightly higher concentration of wins for the big two but otherwise a fair degree of openness - five clubs have won the league, all of them at least twice.

Bulgaria Levski Spartak

Finally, to Bulgaria and their champions, Levski Spartak who were also knocked out in the first round, by Real Madrid.

Levski Spartak (now just called Levski Sofia) were, in 1979, well established as one of the top two Bulgarian clubs, going toe to toe with the top club CSKA Sofia. This was their 14th title, putting them just five wins behind the army club.

Like many leagues around the world, two big clubs from the capital were winning the majority of league titles between them. Ten clubs had won the league but only six had won it twice or more.

In the period to the year 2000, as was usual the trend, fewer clubs shared the top prize and the big two had an even greater slice of the cake.

Mirroring another recent phenomenon in modern football, in the last twenty years, a new "kid on the block" came from nowhere and have dominated the scene ever since. Ludogorets Razgrad were technically formed in 1945 but they never challenged for any honours until a money man, Kiril Domuschiev, bought the club and transformed them in 2010. They have now won the last eight titles in Bulgaria.

CSKA Sofia have thus been pushed into third place in the last twenty years.

This is the geographic location of the clubs in the Bulgarian top division today...

Summary

That will do for now. Just to finish, here's a comparison of all the European nations up until 1978.

And here's the next table, covering and comparing European leagues between 1978 and 1999.

I have shown these tables before when I went through the leagues last season. But here's the growing table of European leagues analysed since 2000.

So far, Albania is the most open league in Europe according to my methodology, and Greece the most closed.

Next: Auf Wiedersehen, Tony.