April 10 – Bruce to the Rescue

WHEN teenage debutant Federico Macheda – who sounds far more like a spaghetti western character than a footballer – planted the ball in the back of the Aston Villa net last weekend to hand back the initiative in the title race back to Manchester United, it didn’t take long for the pundits to cast their mind back to a similarly important goal when the Red Devils’ were looking to break their title drought.

Today in 1993 Steve Bruce was the hero, as his two goals in the last five minutes gave his side a 2-1 win over Sheffield Wednesday, effectively clinching their first championship since 1967.

United were locked in a battle with Aston Villa in the race to win the first ever Premier League, with the Villians leading the pack for most of the season. Norwich City also had a spell on top over the Christmas period, but they eventually had to settle for a Uefa Cup spot, but this would bring about one of the greatest days in the history.

Villa’s challenge faltered as the season climaxed, but United needed to down Sheffield Wednesday to keep their momentum going. With five minutes to go they found themselves a goal down, but just as they were last weekend, they would be rescued by an unlikely source.

Centre-back Bruce’s quick-fire brace has gone down in United folklore, as the club’s title drought was ended, and didn’t Brian Kidd know it, as he jumped up and down on the Old Trafford sideline like Tigger on E numbers.

United would go on to win the title by 10 points that season as a new Old Trafford dynasty was born and the Premier League began to sculpt the footballing landscape in it’s brave new image.

Today also saw a bit of a rumpus on the continent, so click here for a look at that. We’ll be back tomorrow for more footballing history, but if you can’t wait until then follow us on Twitter here.

April 9 – The Messiah: Act One

IF the urban myth is to be believed – and let’s face it, always more fun to take urban myths as gospel – Alan Shearer was placed in goal during his trial at Newcastle United.

At most clubs this would rank as one of the biggest mistakes in their history, but that particular category is somewhat over-subscribed at St James’ Park. Despite this, there were probably a few red faces in the North East today in 1988, when a 17-year-old Shearer bagged a hat-trick on his full league debut for Southampton.

Shearer had made the long move down to the south coast after Southampton’s chief scout Jack Hixon had spotted the then-midfielder turning out for a Wallsend Boys Club, a move that the former England skipper would later claim was “the making of me”.

After signing his first deal in 1986, Shearer rapidly progressed through Saints’ youth squads, emerging as the archetypal old-fashioned, aggressive English centre-forward.

He made his first-team debut as a substitute in a First Division clash with Chelsea in March 1988, but it was his first start that really saw him grab the headlines.

Turning out at The Dell against Arsenal, aged only 17 years and 240 days, Shearer became the youngster ever player to score a top-flight hat-trick in England, breaking dog enthusiast Jimmy Greaves’ 30-year-old record. Not too shabby, when you remember his opposition was George Graham’s uber-stingy Arsenal side.

Over the next few seasons Shearer mixed it at the front-line at The Dell with the likes of Rod Wallace and Matt Le Tissier, earning himself an England under-21 call up in 1990. After a record-breaking 13 goals in 11 games for the young-un’s he made his senior debut against France in March 1992, scoring in a 2-0 win for the Three Lions.

With the big fish circling around Saints, Shearer made an English record £3.3m transfer to the newly-minted Blackburn Rovers in 1992, where he would win his only major honour, the 1995 Premier League.

Next up for Shearer, the son of a Gosforth sheet-metal worker, was a move back home where he would spend ten seasons scoring goals, getting injured, watching managers come and go and winning nothing at Newcastle.

In a move to appease Match of the Day viewers and generally amuse the football world, Big Al his now back at his beloved St James’, tasked with keeping the sinking ship in the Premier League.

“I feel deeply for this football club. I believe I can help it along with the players,” said the Geordie messiah, forgetting to mention the £2m he’ll be pocketing over the next six weeks if he beats the drop.

See the man himself reminiscing about his time on the south coast below and see what else went down today here.

April 8 – Wanderers Dream Over

EVERYONE loves an underdog story in the FA Cup and every year the grand old competition delivers in some form or other. Whether it’s Hereford and Newcastle United in 1972 or Barnsley disposing of Liverpool and Chelsea last year there is always at least one story for the BBC to latch on to and produce a patronising piece for Football Focus about.

A bit of VT of some old glory days (hopefully in black and white), followed by an interview with the 70-year-old groundsman who can remember the last time they played Manchester United when we still had ration books. Then back to the studio for mindless platitudes from Lawro about how “they’ll make it very difficult for the Premier League side”, and “the pitch will be a great leveller”, finishing on the time-honoured “the gate receipts will be invaluable for the club.”

And we all lap it up. But more often than not, the dream comes to a premature end. The plucky lower-leaguers can only go so far before the big boys spoil their fun.

And so it was today in 2001 when Wycombe Wanderers great Cup run was finally halted.

After beating Harrow Borough in the first round, Wanderers had disposed of Millwall, Grimsby, Wolves and manager Lawrie Sanchez’s former Cup-winning team WImbledon, to get to the quarter-finals. All except Harrow were higher-League scalps for the Second Division Chairboys.

Then they faced Premiership Leicester City at Filbert Street where they pulled off a remarkable 2-1 win thanks to Roy Essandoh – a striker the club signed through Ceefax when they had a forward crisis.

Their reward for seeing off Leicester was a match up with Liverpool in a semi-final at Villa Park. The tie was a gift for the media: Liverpool had been the opposition back in the 1988 final when Lawrie Sanchez had scored to win the Cup for Wimbledon in one of the greatest upsets of all time.

Having proved he was capable of an upset as a manager too, could he come back to haunt Liverpool again? Erm, no, but they pushed them all the way.

It took 78 minutes for Liverpool to finally score through Emile Heskey and Robbie Fowler added a second five minutes later. Two minutes from time Keith Ryan scored for Wanderers but they couldn’t find the equaliser and the dream was over.

Sanchez said: “We did the best we could and that’s all I could ever ask of them. I am pleased we got a goal and that it was Ryan who scored it.”

While his opposite number Gerard Houllier went down the predictable route of lavishing praise on the lower-League opponents for their spirit etc and so on. “We expected a battle and they got lots of bodies behind the ball. They made the game extremely difficult for us,” he said, while goalscorer Fowler joined in the patronise-fest: “To be fair, every one of their players performed magnificently. They made us fight until the final whistle,” he said.

Liverpool went on to beat Arsenal in the final thanks to two goals from Michael Owen, which helped them on their way to a fairly poor-man’s treble of League Cup, FA Cup and Uefa Cup.

That’s us for today folks, last year on this day we told you about this, and tomorrow we’ll tell you about something completely different, so don’t miss it.

April 7 – The Fall and Rise of Alain (Reggie) Perrin

PERHAPS sharing a name of one of the most tragic heroes in British comedy history meant his sojourn to British shores was always doomed to end in failure for Alain Perrin.

Today in 2005 Alain was appointed the new manager of Portsmouth FC, after ‘Appy ‘Arry Redknapp had done one and taken up the reigns at Southampton.

The club had been in the hands of one-time director of football Velimir Zajec but after a down-turn in results, chairman Milan Mandaric acted to bring in Perrin to try to ensure the club was not relegated.

Perhaps a tad worryingly for Pompey fans, at his first press conference as manager he was asked what he knew of Charlton Athletic, the team’s first opponents under his charge. “Nothing at all,” came the reply, but he didn’t get where he was without having some nous.

He never played football professionally but made his name in his native France by guiding provincial club Troyes from non-League obscurity to Lique 1 after three promotions in six years, and then even into the Uefa Cup.

After that he moved to Marseille (where he bought Didier Drogba for £4m in 2004) before being sacked after two years in charge. He was then linked with the manager’s job at Southampton after Gordon Strachan left but eventually had a spell as manager of Al-Ain of the United Arab Emirates. He was sacked from this job too after just four months before he pitched up at Fratton Park.

On arrival he said: “I think I have an English mentality. First you have to fight and give your best. I will tell the players that tomorrow because always when you finish a game you have to leave the pitch with your head high. After that I prefer to get the ball and play by passes.”

Despite confessing to knowing nothing about Charlton, that didn’t stop him leading his new team to a 4-2 victory over the Addicks and Pompey fans were no doubt lauding the new genius in their dug-out.

A pasting of local rivals Southampton followed (4-1 at Fratton Park) and Pompey’s survival was assured, but the following season was less euphoric for Reggie and the fans.

The Frenchman oversaw just two more wins in the new term before Mandaric had had enough and gave him the guillotine. Mandaric said: “This has not been an easy decision. Alain is a talented coach and a good man who has worked extremely hard since arriving.

“However, the view taken is that recent performances and the general morale amongst the squad needed improvement. We are all extremely grateful to him.”

And who wouldn’t be grateful with a record of four wins in 20 games? Soon after Milan was reunited with his first love, Harry Redknapp who kept the club up by the skin of his teeth after returning from his ill-fated spell at Southampton who he had relegated.

That’s all we’ve got time for here at OTFD but don’t forget to check in with us tomorrow, and to tide you over until then, have a look at last year’s offering from us. TTFN.

April 6 – MLS Kicks Off

TODAY in 1996, two years after they had hosted the World Cup America showed that they were serious about this soccer lark, as the MLS kicked off it’s debut season.

The Major Soccer League was the brainchild of Alan Rothenberg, who had sunk over $1m into short-lived NASL outfit LA Aztecs in the late 1970s, mainly on Johan Cruyff’s inflated paypacket.

To avoid the boom and bust of the doomed NASL, the new league followed the curiously socialist leanings that are evident in the NFL and NBA by introducing a salary cap, shared profits and losses and a player draft.

First pick in the draft was the few players from that first season who would make it on the international stage, as future Everton and Fulham striker Brian McBride was picked up by Columbus Crew. If anyone can fill us on what this draft’s ‘Mr Irrelevant’ – the nickname given in US sports for the player picked last, and in this case Carlos Garcia of Myrtle Beach Boyz – is up to, please let us know.

Ten teams fought it out for the inaugural MLS Cup, with 31,683 watching today’s opening match and seeing San Jose Clash defeating DC United 1-0, with Eric Wynalda securing his place in the record books with the league’s first ever goal.

DC United, coached by former USA boss and current LA Galaxy gaffer Bruce Arena, had the last laugh though, as they would win the MLS Cup and US Open Cup double. Arena would then inspire United to win the MLS Cup in three of the first four seasons, but the league would suffer from a fall in attendance, especially after the US national team flopped at the 1998 World Cup.

The league has bounced back though, with help from the USA’s quarter-final showing in the 2002 World Cup and the hyped-up debut of a 14-year-old Freddy Adu in 2004. Oh, and some bloke that’s married to a Spice Girl gave it a bit of exposure a couple of years ago, before realising he could still mix it with the big boys in Europe.

See clips of the some of the league’s stars from the last 13 years below and see what else was going on today by clicking here. We’ll be back tomorrow for some more of the same, so don’t go changing.

April 5 – The Fresh Prinsep

IN recent years we’ve seen a number of spotty-faced teenagers turn out for England, as the like of Theo Walcott, Micah Richards, Wayne Rooney and Aaron Lennon have managed to focus on their football rather than sleeping until two in the afternoon and worrying if that girl in the year above fancies them.

This recent rash of youngsters in the national team is a relatively new thing though, as the record for England’s youngest ever player stood for almost 125 after 17-year-old James Prinsep became England’s most junior player today in 1879.

The Three Lions’ opponents that day, as they usually were in the bludgeoning days of international football, were Scotland as the old rivals met for the ninth time.

The game took place at the Kennington Oval in London and was supposed to have been played on four days earlier, but was put back after heavy snowfall.

Prinsep was one of nine new caps that day, at age of 17 years and 252 days and he can’t have played in too many more thrilling games.

England took an early lead courtesy of Sheffield Wednesday’s outside left Billy Mosforth, but the Scots came roaring back, bagging four goals before half-time to take a commanding 4-1 half-time lead in front of a crowd of 4,500.

Showing a backbone that has been all-too lacking at various points over the subsequent 130 years, England immediately got started on one of their greatest ever comebacks, with a Charlie Bambridge brace inspiring a 5-4 win for the English.

Prinsep, meanwhile, would not go on to represent his country again, although he kept the record as the youngest player until Wayne Rooney made his debut against Australia in 2003, aged 17 years and 111 days.

Just a week earlier Prinsep had set another record that would stand 120-odd years, as he was the youngest player to play in the FA Cup Final, when he turned out for Clapham Rovers against Old Etonians. His Rovers side went down 1-0, but his record lasted until 2004, when Millwall’s Simon Weston was an FA Cup Final substitute against Manchester United.

Prinsep would go onto serve his country in the army, seeing action in the Mahdist War in Sudan, where he would receive the Albert Medal for saving a fellow soldier from drowning. In 1895 he was killed in action at the age of just 34.

See some old-timer England-Scotland footage below, but alas, not from Prinsep’s big day and see what else was going happening today here.

April 4 – Trouble in Rome

ROMA won the first leg of a Champions League quarter final against Manchester United 2-1 on this day in 2007, but the result was largely overshadowed by terrible scenes in the stands as United fans and Italian police clashed.

Roma is well known as a club with fanatical supporters, some of whom have been known to use violence in the past. The hard core fans called the Ultras have often caused trouble in the past, sometimes with English clubs as Middlesbrough found out in 2006 when three of their fans were stabbed and 10 others hurt during fights with Roma fans when the teams met in the Uefa Cup quarter finals.

Video contains swearing!

When the Roma/Man United tie was announced the Old Trafford club issued instructions to their travelling fans to avoid certain areas of the city where the Ultras were known to congregate. But Mayor of Rome Walter Veltroni condemned the warning and claimed it could provoke violence rather than avoid it. He told Italian sports daily Gazzetta dello Sport: “Rome is a city that welcomes everyone in a hospitable manner. I consider what appeared on the Manchester United website to be an unfortunate accident, but also dangerous because it risks creating a negative climate. I have spoken on the telephone to the English ambassador. Rome is a serene and welcoming city.”

The atmosphere inside the Stadio Olimpico was anything but serene and welcoming once the match was underway.

BBC correspondent Christian Fraser, who was in the stadium, said trouble flared after Roma fans ran towards the perspex partition which separated the supporters.

He said Manchester United fans reacted and the police moved in with their batons in a response that was “at best robust and in some cases some officers went completely over the top”.

The Independent Manchester United Supporters Association (IMSA) led the condemnation of police for what it said were “hideous” attacks on fans. Spokeswoman Carly Lyes said: “There was no need for the brutal level of violence they showed. The police charged in from all angles and were hitting people indiscriminately.

“They didn’t care who got hurt. People were running all over the place trying to get away. It was chaos.”

The day after the match Manchester United released an official statement and asked fans to come forward and give witness statements. “The disturbing scenes witnessed in the Stadio Olimpico last night shocked everyone at Old Trafford,” read the statement. “In what the club views as a serious over-reaction, local police handed out indiscriminate beatings to United supporters.”

Rome’s chief of police defended his officers actions. Achille Serra said: “To criticise the police is a sport. The British like to do it. The police were forced to intervene between two sets of violent fans.”

He added: “The stewards were literally swept aside and at that point the police were obliged to intervene. If people are criticising the security forces… I was at the stadium and I saw no negative behaviour. Certainly when you are facing facts of this nature you can not hand out flowers, that much is clear.”

A Home Office investigation was launched into the matter while Uefa fined both clubs. United were given a £14,526 penalty while Roma were fined £31,125 after their supporters were deemed to have behaved worse.

Perhaps the worst thing for all those involved was that the two clubs had to meet again a week later, this time at Old Trafford, for the second leg. It was feared United fans might use it as an opportunity for reprisals against their Italian counterparts.

There were clashes outside the ground before kick-off and 21 people were arrested, 14 English and seven Italian but there were no injuries and there was no trouble inside the ground – except for the Roma defence that is who conceded seven goals en route to a 7-1 hiding at the hands of a rampant United side.

See all eight goals below and come back tomorrow for more of the same from us. Last year on this day, we told you about this.

April 3 – Liverpool 4 Newcastle 3

NEWCASTLE United in the relegation zone? How are the mighty fallen. You know things are bad when Mike Ashley calls in Alan Shearer to try and save the club. “Hmmm, we’re really in trouble here, what shall we do? We could bring Keegan back?” “No Mike, you’ve already tried that doomed-to-end-in-tears-from-the-start-crowd-pleaser.” “Oh yeah. Well, next on the list of Geordie messiahs is Shearer. Give him a call.”

You have to wonder who they’ll end up with if this doesn’t work. Peter Beardsley? Rob Lee?

Today we are going back to a time when Newcastle really were the best and most exciting team in the country and were chasing the League title. On this day in 1996 the Toon Army travelled to Anfield to take on Liverpool in a match that became an instant classic and came to define both the Newcastle team of the time and Kevin Keegan himself.

Going into the game the Geordies were three points behind leader Manchester United with a game in hand but Liverpool were also in the title hunt and had home advantage which helped as Robbie Fowler fired them into the lead after just two minutes.

Newcastle fans knew better than to panic at going a goal down – after all they expected to concede at least one goal every game and they could be more certain than any other supporters that their team would definitely score.

And they did, just eight minutes later through Les Ferdinand before going in front on 14 minutes with a David Ginola strike.

Ten minutes into the second half Kop hero Robbie Fowler scored again to level the tie at 2-2. Newcastle simply came back at them again and Columbian Faustino Asprilla lofted the ball over David James to put them 3-2 up.

Enter Stan Collymore. The striker, who was the Premiership’s record signing at £8.5m, restored parity in the 68th minute, stabbing in a Jason McAteer cross. After being made to look like amateurs in front of their own fans for periods of the game, Liverpool could now smell blood, and went for the kill. It came two minutes into injury time, again from Collymore who scored a sensational winner to send the Kop wild and send Keegan into despair. The image of him in an oversized coat dropping his head to the advertising hoarding he was leaning on was beamed to millions through the Sky cameras. He, and his team, had been beaten at their own game.

After the match KK was unrepentant about his team’s style and rightly labeled the match “a classic”. “It was a terrific game, and we shall go on playing the same way, because that’s what we believe in. Either we go on, or I go,” he said in typical Keegan style, adding: “I’ve never managed a team that played so well and got nothing.”

The game summed up in 90 minutes why Keegan’s Newcastle team were so admired and yet why they came up short in the end. KK was right, it was a classic – it is probably not hyperbole to say it is the best match in Premier League history – but it did not end the way Newcastle needed it to. They failed to recover some of the lost ground on Manchester United in the League and their title challenge had faltered terminally. The pressure grew on the team and the manager as Alex Ferguson’s men kept winning and before the month was out Keegan had crumbled live on TV with his “I would love it” rant.

Newcastle had to settle for second as Man United won the title and by January the following year Keegan had resigned.

David Ginola, one of KK’s players who starred in the 4-3 game believes Newcastle would have gone on to clinch the Premier League title had they won the match. “If we had managed to keep the score at 3-2 we would have won the league – definitely,” he said. “We played so well up until they scored. For us it was such an easy season to be honest – we were scoring goals for fun.

“Les Ferdinand scored 25 Premier League goals and he was Player of the Year. Every single area of the team was very good, we played very attractive football also, and we definitely deserved to win the league.

“Manchester United wouldn’t agree with that – they had a strong team too, and they managed to finish the season better than us. They had the experience they needed in the run-in. After the first half of the season we thought we were going to win the league. If we had won the league this year, Newcastle United would have gone on to win more trophies.”

But they didn’t.

After all that excitement we need a quiet lie down but never fear, we shall be back tomorrow with more tales from the past. Until then quench your thirst for date-based historical football knowledge by reading which famous club was founded on this day.

April 2 – Trundle Makes Cardiff Grumble

FOOTBALL would nothing without the passion of local derbies. Sometimes, however, players can get a bit carried away. When Swansea won the Football League Trophy with a victory over Carlisle today in 2006 two of their star players’ first instinct was to stick the knife into their local rivals Cardiff.

The two Welsh sides had not even met for almost nine years, but with Swansea picking up some fresh silverware in their countrymen’s backyard of the Millennium Stadium, two of their number saw this as the perfect time for a spot of goading.

Lee Trundle, who had scored a spectacular opening goal in the Swans’ 2-1 win, and Alan Tate paraded a Welsh flag bearing the words “F**k off, Cardiff” and Trundle donned a t-shirt with a cartoon showing a man urinating on a Cardiff shirt.

Was this merely a spot of friendly banter? Not according to South Wales Police who arrested the pair on suspicion of public order offences following a number of complaints. The Welsh FA also threw a disrepute charge their way.

The Swansea manager, Kenny Jackett, said: “I honestly don’t think the players knew what they were doing, it was something that was in the heat of the moment and I’m sure they regret their actions.”

This incident had followed a number of unsavoury confrontations between the two Welsh sides, such as ‘the Battle of Ninian Park’ in 1993 that saw Swansea fans rip out seats and use them of missiles. This came a year after Cardiff fans had worn t-shirts celebrating the suicide of Swansea winger Alan Davies the year before.

See a clip of the two sides doing battle the right way below and check out another pair of brawlers that were doing their thing today here. We’ll be right back tomorrow with some more footballing history, so join us then.

April 1 – The Start of Something Big

TODAY was the start of it all. Daft ideas about 39th games, average players earning more in a week than we’ll earn in five years and the re-writing of football history, with 1992 and the Premiership being Year Zero.

This may sound like some sort of April Fools’ Day exaggeration, but the first ever game shown on British satellite television, which came today in 1990, completely changed the rule book.

Despite arriving ten months behind schedule, British Satellite Broadcasting (BSB) were the pioneers that introduced us to this new technology when they showed Rangers canter to a 3-0 win over Old Firm rivals Celtic.

Calling the shots that day were a pair of commentators that have done alright for themselves in this brave new era, as the public were introduced to the partnership of Martin Tyler and Andy Gray, who still rule the airwaves.

The early days of satellite television were a chaotic affair, as Rupert Murdoch, put an awful lot of eggs in his basket when he risked all and merged his Sky TV with BSB to form BSkyB in November 1990.

This move paved the way 18 months later for the formation of the Premier League, the biggest development in English football since… well ever really.
As there weren’t many satellite dishes knocking around for this first game, there’s not much footage knocking around, so enjoy another Old Firm clash from the season, with a distinct lack of red buttons, player-cam and the other trappings from 19 years of satellite broadcasting.

If, unlike Newcastle United fans, you get through today without any hilarious April Fool ‘merks’ get yourself back here tomorrow for the latest chapter in our history of football.