April 20 – Super Ted!

JURGEN Klinsmann once described Teddy Sheringham as the most intelligent strike partner he had ever had. When he was battling to save Tottenham from relegation in 1998 Klinsy said: “There is only one Teddy Sheringham.

“I know it is impossible to completely replace him. There is just no substitute. But if we had somebody playing like him we would definitely get out of the mess we are in. He is not only a great player but a great person and I learned many things from him when we played together for Spurs.”

Today in 2001 it seemed the esteemed members of the British press agreed with Jurgen the German’s assertion that Ted was something special when the 35-year-old former Millwall man was named Footballer of the Year by the Football Writers’ Association.

The striker, playing at Manchester United at the time, narrowly edged out team-mate David Beckham by just two votes with Arsenal’s Patrick Vieira in third spot and another United player, Roy Keane, in fourth.

“It is an honour bearing in mind the illustrious names who have won it in previous years,” said Sheringham. “This is a very special personal highlight in my career. I’d like to thank all my team mates for their help and support. This is an honour for the club as well as for myself.”

United manager Alex Ferguson added: “I’m delighted Teddy has been voted Footballer of the Year.

“It’s a fitting tribute to a player who has contributed so much to Manchester United this season. It’s always difficult singling out individuals among so many great players but Teddy has been exceptional for us and thoroughly deserves this award.”

And he had been exceptional that year. After coming to prominence at Millwall and then playing with distinction at Nottingham Forest and then his childhood club Tottenham, Teddy signed for Manchester United in 1997. He was already 31 by then and hoping to finally win some silverware in a career that had already spanned 15 years.

Trophies did not immediately follow and United ended the 1997/98 season uncharacteristically pot-less, giving rise to the Spurs chant: “Oh Teddy, Teddy, he went to Man United and he won f . . . all”.

Sheri rather took the wind out of that chant in United’s famous treble winning 1999 season, which he had a key role in, scoring one and setting up the other United goal in their extra time defeat of Bayern Munich in the European Cup final, and scoring in the FA Cup final.

The 1999/2000 season was tougher for Teddy as Dwight Yorke and Andy Cole meant his first team playing time was limited but the following season he was in excellent form and was United’s leading scorer, prompting recognition by the Football Writers’ Association, and the PFA who also voted him player of the season.

He was was the first Englishman to win the Writers’ award since his former England SAS striker partner Alan Shearer won the honour in 1994. Since then it has only been won once by an English player: Frank Lampard in 2005.

At the end of the 2001 season Teddy’s United contract expired and he re-joined Spurs. After two years at White Hart Lane he went on to play for Portsmouth, West Ham and finally Colchester before hanging up his boots in 2008 aged 42 and with more than 700 League appearances under his belt.

Also on this day, England were trying to choose a new manager, and tomorrow we’ll be right here as usual to waste five more minutes of your life.

April 19 – Messi Vs Maradona

HOW many emerging Argentine footballers have had to cope with being labeled ‘the next Maradona’? Too many to count here but none who have actually lived up to the tag.

Until Leo Messi came along. He really was the new Maradona, we were told. No, this time he really is. ‘Yeah yeah, heard it all before,’ we cried.

But a few years down the line and it seems the young lad from Rosario really is a bit tasty after all. Week after week he seems to score a wonder goal for Barcelona, and only those pundits who haven’t seem him play would be claiming Cristiano Ronaldo is the world’s best player.

Today in 2007 little Leo scored a goal that sent the media berserk. After carrying around the ‘new Maradona’ tag for years, Messi scored an identical goal to the magical one scored by El Diego against England in the quarter-finals of the World Cup in 1986 (the really amazing one, not the Hand of God).

The similarity between Messi’s strike against Getafe at the Camp Nou to Maradona’s run through the England defence was uncanny. Played side by side on a split screen and the goals are virtually indistinguishable.

Maradona raced in from the right, ran half the length of the pitch, beat five men and finished beyond a diving sixth. Messi did the same, only for Beardsley, Reid, Butcher, Fenwick, Shilton and Stevens, read Paredes, Nacho, Alexis, Belenguer, García and Redondo.

The Spanish papers went bonkers over the goal. One reporter from a pro-Real Madrid paper said: “I feel like crying. Holy Christ! Long Live Football! Long Live Leo!”

Another wrote: “So, you can copy a work of art, after all. This was a replica, with the same path, the same acceleration with every touch, the same pauses and feints, always escaping on the same side. The only difference was Messi finishing with his right foot.”

Messi’s face was on the back of the Catalan daily Sport, with a note saying: “If you want to disguise yourself as God, simply cut this out and put it on.” Indeed.

Have a look at both goals above. Something much less exciting was also happened on this football day, but if that razor-sharp pitch didn’t sell it to you, then just come back tomorrow for more from us.

April 18 – Joy then Sorrow for Morrow

GRIDIRON legend Joe Namath once said: “When you win, nothing hurts.” We reckon that today’s protagonist would beg to differ.

Today in 1993 Steve Morrow should have been celebrating the pinnacle of his career after scoring the winning goal in a Wembley cup final, but instead found himself on his way to hospital as his team-mates hoisted the League Cup.

Morrow’s Arsenal side were taking on Sheffield Wednesday in the Coca Cup Final, which would be the first of a Wembley trilogy between the two sides as they would also contest a replayed FA Cup Final.

Wednesday, managed by Trevor Francis, took an early lead thanks to American John Harkes, but Paul Merson, playing like a man possessed (or at least one who had just lost his first goalscorer bet) equalised in the 20th minute.

With 20 minutes remaining Merse turned provider as Arsenal broke the deadlock through the unlikely source of Northern Irish defender Steve Morrow.

This would prove to be the winning goal and no one was more delighted than Gooner skipper Tony Adams who ran over to the match-winning to hoist him on his shoulders and give it the big one.

We don’t know about you, dear reader, but the thought of an early-90s Tony Adams lifting us up fills us with trepidation. We’re not saying he was definitely schloshed, but we weren’t fooled when he lost his footing and sent poor old Morrow flying.

Morrow his the ground awkwardly, breaking his arm, and had to be rushed to hospital, meaning he would miss his trip up Wembley’s 39 steps to pick up his winner’s medal. Not so smart now Joe Namath, hey?

The break was serious enough for Morrow to miss the rest of the season, including the FA Cup Final and replay against Wednesday as Arsenal went on to complete the cup double.

The FA for once showed a rare sense of decency and common sense however, when they let Morrow pick up his League Cup medal a before the FA Cup Final, meaning, securing him his place in trivia lexicon as the only player to have picked up a medal before a Cup final.

Morrow would never have such an eventful day in an Arsenal shirt and left the club for QPR in 1997 when he deemed surplus to requirements by new boss Arsene Wenger.

His next move saw him go trans-Atlantic as he joined up with Dallas Burn, first as a player, then as manager, until he was fired in May 2008.

See Morrow getting the Baddiel and Skinner treatment below and check out what other tomfoolery was occurring today by clicking yourself silly here. We’ll be back with more tomorrow, but if you can’t wait until then follow us on Twitter here.

April 17 – Radebe to the Rescue

EMERGENCY ‘keepers – don’t you just love ‘em? Over the last few seasons we seen the likes of Rio Ferdinand, john Terry and even Dean Windass pick up the gauntlet (literally) and fill in between the sticks for various reasons, much to our amusement.

Today in 1996 Leeds United boss Howard Wilkinson’s gamble of not putting a sub goalie on the bench at Old Trafford backfired, as centre-back Lucas Radebe had to tend the Leeds goal for most of the game following Mark Beeney’s early red card.

Clashes between these two bitter cross-Pennine rivals are always intense affairs and although Leeds were heading towards a mid-table finish they wanted nothing more than to derail Fergie’s title ambitions after the Red Devils had clawed back Newcastle United’s 12-pont January lead.

This task was made all the more harder by Beeney’s 16th minute red card for handling outside the area. With recently dropped ‘keeper John Lukic not even on the bench, Wilkinson called on South Africa captain Radebe, nicknamed ‘The Chief’ at Elland Road, as he had played in goal as a youngster.

Radebe had made a brief cameo in goal the month before in Leeds’ 1-0 loss to Middlesbrough, and put in a confident display at Old Trafford, making several important saves to keep a dominant Manchester United side at bay.

With only 17 minutes left on the clock The Chief’s luck would run out however, as Roy Keane fired home to give his side the lead in what was the Leeds defence’s only real lapse.

Manchester United would hold on to their lead and the game would famously be the launchpad for a stressed-out Kevin Keegan’s infamous ‘I would love it” rant ten days later.

Leeds meanwhile, would think hard about putting a sub goalie on the bench and making the best use of Radebe’s many talents. Over the next few seasons Radebe would assume the captaincy at Elland Road, as the player who originally signed as company for Bafana Bafana team-mate Phil Masinga established his place as one of the Premier League’s finest defenders.

Radebe’s tireless charity work and commitment to Leeds have meant that his name is still sang at Elland Road week-in and week-out, despite his retirement in 2005 after 11 years in Yorkshire.

See a tribute to the man that Neslon Mandela described as ‘my hero’ below and see what else was happening in the big bad world of football today here.

April 16 – Souey in at Liverpool

SIR Alex Ferguson has said that his greatest challenge was to “knock Liverpool off their f***ing perch,” and you have to say he succeeded.

But he didn’t do it alone. SAF was aided in his mission, so who was the man who did the most to help Fergie topple Liverpool? Roy Keane perhaps? Eric Cantona? Nope.

Surely Graeme Souness was unwittingly Fergie’s ally in United’s rise to dominance. As Liverpool manager Souness systematically destroyed the greatest winning dynasty in British club football. He put the club on a downward spiral from which it has yet to recover.

Today in 1991 was the day it all started to go wrong for Liverpool when Souness was appointed manager. The fans had every reason to believe the new man would continue the winning tradition at the club. He had the pedigree as a player – not only had he been one of the world’s top midfielders, but he had served Liverpool with distinction, winning the league title five times and the European Cup three times while at Anfield.

He had also made a good start to his managerial career at Rangers. After arriving as a player-manager in 1986, Souness revitalised the Glasgow giants after years in the doldrums. He oversaw an ambitious recruitment programme that saw top talents including Terry Butcher and Chris Woods and took the club back to the top, winning the League title and League Cup in his first season as boss. He followed this up with two more League wins and three more League Cup triumphs.

He looked to have all the tools to be the next great Liverpool boss: player pedigree, affinity to the club, experience of managing a big club (they don’t come much bigger than Rangers), spending a big budget on high profile signings and winning trophies.

Sadly, he couldn’t translate this success to Anfield. An excellent piece by Scott Murray in the Guardian last year sums up Souness’s record with Liverpool thus: “In the 18 seasons before Graeme Souness became manager of Liverpool Football Club, the red men had only finished outside the top two places in the First Division once. In a year which saw them lift the European Cup. Compare and contrast with the help of my lovely italics: exactly 18 months after Souness took charge, Liverpool, having finished a lowly sixth in their new manager’s first full season, found themselves languishing in 16th place in the league.”

In between times he sold Peter Beardsley to Everton and decided against signing Roy Keane from Nottingham Forest, apparently believing him to be too much trouble off the pitch.

He did win the FA Cup with the Reds, but he even managed to sully this experience for the fans. He had to have heart surgery in 1992 and returned to work in time to lead his team out at Wembley. He gave an interview to The Sun about his successful operation which the paper published on April 15 – the anniversary of the Hillborough disaster. The Liverpool fans were incensed that he had sold his story to The Sun – a paper boycotted on Merseyside for its coverage of the Hillsborough tragedy.

Although he has admitted since that he probably should have resigned over the issue, he didn’t and stayed in the job, struggling on until he finally quit in 1994 after an FA Cup defeat to Bristol City.

Four years: one trophy. It was not what Liverpool expected, but the rot had set in and the club has still yet to fully recover its place at England’s top footballing table.

Last year we told you about this. Tomorrow we’ll be back to bring you something else. Until then dear reader…

April 15 – Bestie’s NI Debut

FOOTBALLING debates in the pub over a few pints always pass the time. Here at OTFD we’ve been having rather a long-running one about which playing position is the least important in any team. Two camps have emerged, some think wingers, others the full-backs, but in the best Neil Buchanan off Art Attack tradition, ‘try it yourself’ and see what you come up with.

Another pointless and unprovable football debate concerns the best player never to play at the World Cup. For this one, we think you can’t really look any further than George Best.

The reason the supremely gifted Georgie never graced the World Cup is that he played for Northern Ireland who failed to qualify for a tournament during his playing days. Today in 1964 young George was just 17 when he turned out for his country for the first time in a match against Wales in Swansea.

Also making his international debut for Northern Ireland that day was 18-year-old Pat Jennings, the former Spurs and Arsenal goalkeeper who now holds the record for most caps for his country at 119.

“I was just coming out of the third division with Watford when I got capped,” Jennings said in 2005.

“I hadn’t come up against George with Manchester United – and that was the first I had really seen of him, even though there had been a few headlines in the papers before that.

“As soon as I saw him, I knew that this was a special talent,” Jennings recalled.

“It was a real wet night on a boggy pitch and he was just skating over the top of the ground. You knew that this was somebody special, even at that age.”

The match, a Home International Championship tie, finished 3-2 to Northern Ireland. Bestie didn’t score that night but went on to play for his country 37 times, scoring nine goals.

Jennings added: “I was his room-mate. He played 37 times for Northern Ireland and I roomed with him on all those occasions.

“He was not only a fantastic player, to me he was also a fantastic bloke. The George Best I met then is the same George Best I knew years later. He was no different to the rest of us, but over the years, he became more and more popular, and couldn’t do the simple things like the rest of us – like going shopping on an afternoon – because he got recognised wherever he went.

“In those days, after training we’d go out on the town whether it was in London, Belfast or somewhere else but a lot of the times he’d just sit in the room and watch television because he’d get tortured whenever he went out.

“And that was in the nicest possible way – people would just chase him for autographs and photographs.”

Sadly for Best, he only just missed the high points of the Northern Ireland team at the beginning and the end of his career. They played in the 1958 World Cup when George was just 12, and then qualified for the 1982 tournament. Best was apparently briefly considered for the squad for the competition in Spain but he was way past his best and did not go.

Have a look at the clip above to see him toying with England and making a monkey out of Gordon Banks, and come back tomorrow for more from us.

Today is also the anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster. Read about that here.

April 14 – The Fish Make a Splash

SANTOS, the club that is synonymous with the most famous footballer ever to play the game, are celebrating their birthday after being founded today in 1912.

Pele’s old boys are one of the planet’s most famous sides and were formed when three sports nuts in the Sao Paulo city decided to jump on the ever-growing bandwagon that was spreading over South America.

Raimundo Marques, Mário Ferraz de Campos and Argemiro de Souza Júnior, originally players from the modest club Americanos, put pen to paper at exactly 11.33pm to create the club, albeit after much debate about what they should be called.

Africa Futebol Clube, Asociaçao Esportiva Brasil and Concordia Futebol Clube were all banded around as possible monikers for the club, but the three friends eventually went back to basics and opted to name themselves after the town they lived in.

Drawing on their coastal roots, the founding fathers also decided that their new charges would be nicknamed Peixe, which means ‘Fish’ and chose a whale as their mascot.

Their early existence failed to trouble the record books too much, but the arrival of Pele in 1955 changed everything.

Everyone’s favourite viagra spokesman would stay at the club for the next 15 years, paving a way for a golden age in the clubs’ history that saw countless state and national titles, as well as two Libertadores Cups and a brace of Intercontinental Cups.

Backed by the likes of Zito, Dorval, Jaïr, Coutinho, Ze Carlos, Pepe, Toninho, Edu, Clodoaldo and Brazil captain Carlos Alberto, Santos would play classic free-flowing, goal-hungry, Samba-style football and became known as the Harlem Globetrotters of the sport.

Pele would eventually leave for the bright lights of the NASL and Santos’ trophy rush would slow down, but their appetite for goals did not diminish and the club became the first in world football to amass 10,000 goals, in January 1998.

In recent years Santos have again looked to their youth system to reignite their side, with players such as Robinho, Diego, Elano and Renato helping them to win the national title in 2002 for the first time since 1968 and notch up another success in 2004.

Here’s a clip of what Robinho used to get up to when he was drawing comparisons with Pele during his Santos days, before he became a Manchester City benchwarmer. Not too shabby. Read about another goal from today that had a hint of the Samba magic about it here and we’ll be back for another slice of footballing history tomorrow, same time, same place.

April 13 – Grey Day for United

WE ALL like to think that as we get older, our excuse-making capacity – one of life’s vital skills – gets better. No more ‘the dog ate my homework’ for us, oh no. If you ever log-on here and don’t see a new tale of football history then we’ll be spinning you an elaborate story involving public transport and the raising of the national terror threat level quicker than you can say Malcolm Tucker.

Today in 1996 none other than Alex Ferguson was coming up with his contender for ‘worst excuse of all-time’, when his side took a first-half rollocking from Southampton.

Manchester United had spent the last first three months of 1996 clawing back Newcastle’s 12-point lead at the top of the Premiership and were huge favourites to dispatch relegation-fighting Southampton at The Dell.

With the formbook well and truly being thrown out of the window Saints produced a blistering first-half display, going 3-0 up before the interval.

The reason for Manchester United’s capitulation? Well, according to Fergie, United’s grey shirts prevented them from seeing each other. Must have been all that grey grass down by the south coast.

The United players emerged for the second half after 15 minutes of hair-dryer treatment and fashion advice from the their manager sporting blue shirts.

Lee Sharpe recalled his gaffer’s reaction, saying: “The manager just stormed in and said: “Get that kit off, you’re getting changed.” Those were the first words he said at half-time.

“I don’t think he liked the shirt anyway – our results had been poor whenever we wore it, and we certainly never played in it again.”

Whether it was the change of kit or their manager’s half-time rant, United’s second half display was much improved, but Saints held on to win 3-1 to secure three vital points as they would go on to stay up that season on goal difference.

United meanwhile would go on to overturn Newcastle’s lead at the top of the table and also win their second domestic double when they beat Liverpool in the FA Cup Final.

The grey kit, however, fared less well. United would never wear it again as excess stock began to build up at the Old Trafford Megastore.

The kit was made by Umbro, who typically spent 18 months to create their new shirts for United, but this incident left their promotions manager Simon marsh wincing: “The phones started ringing as soon as we heard what was going on, and they carried on ringing all day Sunday. On Monday eight of us met here at 7am to decide what to do.”

All that was left to do was to abandon the shirt, much to the outrage of fans and parents across the company who had bought it expecting their heroes to turn out in it for two seasons.

It seems as though the grey kit has been airbrushed from YouTube history Trotsky-style, so instead check out a wonder-strike from the next time these two sides met at The Dell – a crushing 6-3 victory for Saints over the Red Devils. It is Easter Monday after all. Enjoy that, check out what else was panning out today here and then we’ll be back for more of the same tomorrow. Until then everyone…

April 12 – England’s New (Old) Home

DO we still have to call it ‘the new Wembley Stadium’? Commentators still don’t seem sure, although Motson will doubtless be calling it that until he hangs up his microphone.

But it does still feel like ‘the new’ Wembley in a way, and that’s possibly because it still hasn’t been the scene of a really historic or fateful match. Despite having been open for two years now you do get the sense we will all be calling it ‘the new Wembley’ until it hosts at least one defining match that can start giving it some history.

Today in 1924 its predecessor, the old or original Wembley Stadium began its relationship with the national side, hosting an England game for the very first time.

It had opened the previous year and famously hosted the White Horse FA Cup final of 1923 so it already had a feel of importance about it.

And now England were coming to make it their home. The visitors were the auld enemy, Scotland, recreating the oldest international fixture in the world, and wouldn’t you know it, it was the Scots that scored first. Typical England.

Well, it was just about the Scots who scored first, although there is some debate as to whether the goal would have been given to Willie Cowan who put them ahead after 40 minutes played, had the goal occurred today.

Just to prove England goalkeeping howlers at Wembley are nothing new, it was a gaffe from the England number one Teddy Taylor that helped the Scots on their way. Cowan’s shot hit the post and then rebounded off the back of Taylor and rolled into the net. Obviously Taylor did not want to be the first England player to score an oggy at Wembley so was happy for Cowan to claim it.

In the second half England hit back through Aston Villa striker Billy Walker. The striker who once scored nine goals in 40 minutes in 1915, leveled the match with a precise left-footed shot just before the hour.

And that was how it stayed: a draw, just as the first match between these two sides had been 50 years earlier.

Four years later the Scots returned to Wembley and trounced England 5-1 in a match still talked about in reverential tones in Scotland today. Have a look at some great archive footage of that below, and click here to see which provincial club from the north of England really do claim to be the first ever world champions of football.

April 11 – Ellis Park Stadium Disaster

ON this day in 2001 fans of the Orlando Pirates and Kaiser Chiefs gathered excitedly for a match between the two rivals – the biggest derby game in South Africa – at the Ellis Park Stadium in Johannesburg. Tragically, 43 of those fans would never return home when they were killed in a massive crush inside the ground in the worst sporting accident in the history of South Africa.

The accident was caused when an estimated 30,000 extra fans tried to cram into the already full 60,000 capacity stadium.

BBC reporter and lifelong Orlando Pirates fan Milton Nkosi was at the match to support his team in the biggest game of the season, but ended up witnessing the horrific scenes.

He said: “Ellis Park was packed to capacity 45 minutes before kick off, local music groups provided entertainment on the pitch, there was dancing and singing all around me.

“As people were taking up space on the aisle between the stands, it became more and more difficult to move. Gradually, the pushing and shoving was becoming unbearable. At first I thought it was going stop when the match began, but how wrong I was.

“Fans who were sitting on the steps down the aisle were getting more and more squashed by the incoming crowd – it was absolutely clear that there was no more room in that area. The first thing I did was stand up and see how many people were still trying to get in.

“There were thousands still coming in. I and most people who were seated near to me had to stand on our seats to avoid the crush. Those who were not quick enough were getting crushed.

“Our screams were as loud as humanly possible but the PA system and the rest of the stadium crowd just drowned out our voices. When the whistle was blown and the match began, this just fuelled the stampede. The crowd outside the stadium surged forward even more, only this time with greater force. Suddenly a few security guards and marshals were battling against a human tide.

“As if this was not enough, Kaizer Chiefs scored the first goal and all hell broke loose. Those who were still outside pushed down the stadium steel gates and rushed in to join the people who were already being squashed and crushed – they wanted to see which team had scored the first goal of the match.

“It was horrible. Together with those next to me I screamed and whistled, trying to draw the attention of the match officials to stop the game. But the noise of the rest of the crowd in the stadium who were following every pass, every tackle and every move of the ball, was just too much for them to hear our cries. They probably thought we were rooting for our teams.

“A friend tried to use a belt to deter the crowd from surging forward but he failed, dismally. I shouted to him: ‘Banzi, if we don’t get away from here we are going to be crushed to death!’

“I then started the terrifying journey that led to my survival – walking, pushing, shoving, screaming with both my feet off the ground. I had to walk on other people to save my own life. Others were pushing me away as I forced my way out of the chaos.”

Eventually the match was halted and the 250 injured and 43 dead were taken on to the pitch. The following day an inquiry was launched into the tragedy, but most blamed a combination of a lack of pre-sold tickets, and inexperienced security staff inside the ground.

South African president Thabo Mbeki said: “It is important that every element of this tragedy be looked at so that we can take all the necessary measures to make sure that we don’t have this thing happening again.”

The disaster was chillingly reminiscent of the previous worst sporting tragedy in the country’s history which occurred ten years earlier in 1991 when they same two teams met for a ‘friendly’ match at the Oppenheimer Stadium in the city of Orkney, some 200km from Johannesburg. That day the 23,000 capacity stadium was overrun by some 30,000 fans who caused a mass stampede, killing 42 people including two children.

Former Leeds United player and South African Captain Lucas Radebe played in the 1991 match for Kaizer Chiefs and he believed safety would improve as a result of the tragedies.

He said: “Things like this do happen and you do learn from them, especially in a country which always tries to get better. Things will improve. This highlights some of the problems and hopefully things like this will never happen now.

“I’m a footballer and I’ve been in that situation before. To lose the lives of supporters, especially those with young families, is a terrible thing to happen. It’s very, very bad.”