September 15 – Derby’s Glorious Twelfth
European football ain’t like it used to be. Back in the day there was no group stages, no endless pots of television money and no red-button for interactive coverage. And English teams didn’t need to produce outrageous comebacks in order to win trophies. Today in 1976 Derby were proving this as they became the first English side to bag 12 goals in a European game.
Granted, the opposition was only the patriotically named Finn Harps from Ireland, but it shows an example of the gulf in class that used to exist in European competition. To knock down today’s cliche, there certainly were easy games in the old days.
For Derby County, the 1970′s were halcyon days. The legendary Brian Clough had dragged the Rams out of the old Second Division in 1969, and had it not been for a breach of financial regulations they would have been in Europe by 1970, following their fourth-place finish. Cloughy bought the title to the Baseball Ground in 1972 and their first season in Europe saw an exhilarating run to the semi-finals only to be denied by Juventus or the “cheating bastards” as the shy and reserved Cloughy diplomatically put it.
Clough left Derby in 1973 after he fell out with the board and although Dave Mackay was to lead them to another title in 1975, they were out of the top flight by 1980. Their 1976/77 UEFA Cup run started with a bang, as their 12-0 first-leg win against Finn Harps became a 16-1 aggregate victory, but their glory was short-lived as they tumbled out in the next round, losing 5-2 to AEK Athens over the two legs.
See all twelve record-breaking goals from that night below and come running this way tomorrow if you want to find out who you’d have been watching on TV seventy years ago.
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September 15 - Derby’s Glorious Twelfth and Tinker Bridge | On This Football Day on September 15th, 2009
[...] 1976 – Derby’s Glorious Twelfth European football ain’t like it used to be. Back in the day there was no group stages, no endless pots of television money and no red-button for interactive coverage. And English teams didn’t need to produce outrageous comebacks in order to win trophies. Today in 1976 Derby were proving this as they became the first English side to bag 12 goals in a European game. Read more here. [...]