April 16 – Football League Turns 100

UNDER Brian Clough Nottingham Forest won pretty much everything going and in 1988 the club added another pot to their collection when they won a one-off competition – The Football League Centenary Tournament.

On this day the tournament (also known as the Mercantile Credit Football Festival thanks to the sponsors) kicked off at Wembley with 16 clubs turning up to take part in the celebrations for the League’s 100th birthday.

Aston Villa, Blackburn, Crystal Palace, Everton, Leeds, Liverpool, Luton, Man United, Newcastle, Nott’m Forest, Sheff Wed, Sunderland, Tranmere, Wigan, Wimbledon and Wolves all took part in bizarre 40-minute long matches, many of which had to be settled by penalties because they were so short.

The general public were all a bit bemused by the whole thing and although more than 40,000 fans turned up to watch on the first day, most didn’t bother coming back for the second day with little more than 17,000 coming through the turnstiles.

The semi-final matches were extended to 60 minutes and in the first one, Division Four side Tranmere Rovers pushed Forest all the way, only being knocked out on penalties after a 2-2 draw.

In the other semi, Sheffield Wednesday beat Manchester United 2-1 to set up the final with Forest. Just like many of the other matches, the final went to pens and Forest held their nerve to win.

Clough himself showed what he thought of the whole exercise by not even bothering to turn up to the contest, still, it was another thing to stick in the trophy cabinet.

The year before the League had kicked off their centenary celebrations with an exhibition match at Wembley featuring a Football League XI versus a Rest of the World XI in which the home side triumphed over the away team which contained Diego Maradona and Gary Lineker, then of Barcelona.

One can only imagine what the centenary celebrations for the Premier League will be like in 2092 but no doubt it will be hyped to the point of atomic levels by Sky who will probably have to strap their presenters in to their chairs to stop them exploding with excitement.

Thankfully most of us won’t be around to see any of that, but we will be here tomorrow so come back then to see what the happy-haps are round here, but before you go have a look at Sheffield’s own Sean Bean starring in a typical vastly over the top ad from Sky below.