Small beer

Remember rosettes?

As someone who used to set pub quizzes, I stumbled on a lovely question the other day. In what year was the Penalty Shootout first introduced into English football and who scored the first goal?

Anyone who remembers The Watney Cup* would tell you that in 1970, prior to the first Semi-Final between Hull City and Manchester Utd, it had been announced that, in the event of a stalemate, the match would be decided by spot kicks. This, taken from the programme notes:

Drawn games in The Watney Cup will be decided by penalties. Both sides will be given five chances to score. The Watney Cup will be the first tournament to introduce this method of deciding drawn games. EUFA & FIFA have now agreed to use it in forthcoming European and World Cup games. As league secretary Alan Hardaker says: 'It will be good to settle something by pure football.'

 The Scaffold: pretending to like Watneys

Alex Stepney (United's goalkeeper) could be as vital to Manchester United as George Best when it comes to scoring goals. As Alan Hardaker says: 'It will be good to get a few goals from goalkeepers. Gimmicks used to encourage the scoring of goals are good for the game.' 

George Best arriving at Boothferry Park

Not sure about that, even forty five years on. And, a couple of seasons later, this short lived competition introduced another 'gimmick'. A variation to the offside rule which meant you could only be given off side if you were goal-hanging in the 18 yard box.

The programme notes go on to say: That's what the game is all about. Putting the ball in the net. But not many people in soccer with the exception of Watneys, of course, can guarantee goals.


Hull City v Manchester Utd: Wednesday 15 August 1970
1-1 after 90 minutes
Man Utd won 4-3 on penalties
George Best was the first player to score a penalty
Denis Law was the first to miss a penalty
And Ian McKechnie, Hull City's goalie, was the first keeper to save a penalty (though he did miss at the other end, thus gifting the tie to Man. Utd.)

* The Watney Cup was a pre-season tournament played out between eight teams  - the top two scoring clubs from each of the four divisions who had not qualified for Europe or been promoted. Hull City had scored 72 in the Second Division, Man. Utd. 66 in the First. It was also the first sponsored competition of its kind.

He's not the Messiah

Not the best place to sign your autograph Alan

The Holy Trinity

I was a fairly typical young boy when it came to outdoor pursuits: my three favourite sports were football, football, football. Living in Hull I was taken to Boothferry Park by my dad, but between the ages of ten and thirteen I flirted with Manchester United (don't worry, it soon passed). We're talking early 1970s: the Best, Law and Charlton years; not their most successful period by any stretch of the imagination, but a time when they would strut onto the pitch at 3 o'clock on a Saturday afternoon with their swanky new v-neck collared shirts - thus making Football Focus and Match of the Day unmissable on our recently acquired colour television from Radio Rentals.

Yesterday I was speaking to someone who lived in Manchester from 1969 to 1973 - directly overlapping my brief dalliance with United. His surname is Busby; he said that in that time there were only three Busbys in the Manchester phone book. And (Sir) Matt wasn't one of them; so on a Saturday evening if the team had lost his phone would often be ringing with some heckler on the other end venting his spleen. If at the time I'd had a direct line to the top I'd have been asking Sir Matt why he put Alan Gowling in his starting eleven. Alan Gowling, for me, stood for everything Manchester Utd weren't: he was gangly, ungainly, and if he had a Top Trump card his swagger rating would be 0 %. I hated him. He'd got a Degree and his middle name was Edwin. Looking back I was probably a little harsh on Gowling. He couldn't help being the way he was. Also, the stats would indicate that he did at least know where the back of the net was - something I conveniently airbrushed out of my memory at the time. So, anyway, if on the off chance you're reading this Alan, no hard feelings?