The Screen Sports Super Cup

[Sir Tokyo Sexwale]

If it wasn't for...

 

Have you heard the one about the English Super League featuring Liverpool and Manchester United? It might sound like one of Ian Ayre's rib-ticklers, but it's already happened. If the big clubs want to form a breakaway competition of their own now, they're 26 years too late. It's been done.

 

English football was in the doldrums in 1985. 1966 was becoming an increasingly distant memory, 56 fans died in a fire at Bradford City's stadium Valley Parade and 39 Juventus fans were killed in the Heysel disaster, where Liverpool fans rioted before the European Cup final, which led to Uefa banning every English club from Europe for an indefinite amount of time. The financial implications were potentially disastrous. All things considered, this was not a good time to be English.

 

Six clubs, including Liverpool, had qualified for Europe for the 1985-86 season, but the ban rendered their efforts in the previous campaign immaterial and Everton, who were the league champions, were denied a place in the European Cup; to say they weren't best pleased with their Merseyside neighbours would be an understatement. Football fans don't forget. They still haven't forgiven them.

 

Not to worry though, because the Football League was soon to come up with a bright idea: instead of playing European football, the six clubs would instead take part in a domestic tournament called the Super Cup as a form of financial and sporting compensation. Everton would have been in the European Cup, Liverpool, Southampton and Tottenham had qualified for the Uefa Cup via the league and Norwich as League Cup winners, while Manchester United would have been in the Cup Winners' Cup as FA Cup holders.

 

For Everton, who could have been taking on Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Juventus, the prospect of playing Second Division Norwich instead was about as consoling as the family holiday in a Spanish villa being replaced with a summer-long stay in a cottage in Norfolk. It was little wonder that the tournament was scrapped after a year.

 

 

etc - long blog, didn't bother copying & pasting all of it

[Gunga Din]

 

 

etc - long blog, didn't bother copying & pasting all of it

 

 

thanks

[smithdown]

We beat them home and away in that comp too, iirc.

 

Here you go http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Cup_(English_football)

 

3-1 at home, 4-1 away - 5 goals in all to Ian 'theres a player in our team and he is a goal machine and his name is Ian Rush Ian Ian' Rush.

 

Course, they would have won the European Cup Final 10-0 though, even though we beat them 7-2 in this.

Edited October 26, 2011 by smithdown

[Epic Swindle]

Ifithadntbneetferthescreensportssupercup.

Edited October 26, 2011 by Masuka