Football Journey

Wales. There was a championship and an old one too, but since it was not represented in the UEFA tournaments, it was practically unknown.

Barry Town won second consecutive title, just for the record.

What mattered was the Cup, mixed as it was. Shrewsbury Town met Wrexham and eventually prevailed 2-1 and 0-0.

Wrexham lost two years in a row, which was hardly a reason for celebration.

Once again the Welsh Cup was won by English club, which could not represent Wales in the Cup Winners Cup, so it was just local pride for the Shrews and another small piece of silverware in their trophy room.

The Cup final was played between APOEL and Pezoporikos (Larnaca). Pezoporikos fought with APOEL in the championship as well and finished ahead of them, 3rd, but did not succeed here. Regular time ended 1-1 and in the extra time APOEL scored 2 unanswered goals. All goals were scored late in the game – APOEL opened in the 80the minute and Pezoporikos equalized in the last seconds of the 90th.

Thus, APOEL, even having relatively weak season still maintained its leading position and finished with a trophy. Foreigners made Cypriot football better and there were more and more of them – an Englishman scored the opening goal at the Cup final and another foreigner, Sylvester Vernon, equalized for Pezoporikos. To a point, political traditions and divisions played its role in hiring attitudes – if left-wing Omonia was getting help from Eastern Europe, the right-wing APOEL was looking West.

Their scorer, Ian Moores, had long, if not spectacular, career in England. He was 30 years old, but he became a key player for APOEL and stayed with the club almost to the end of the 1980s.

 

Cypriot football was getting stronger, no doubt about it, but without any change of power – the strong remained strong and the weak – weak. The absolute beginners – Ermis (Aradippou) and Ethnikos (Achna) finished last and returned to Second Division after single insignificant season among the best. Etnikos was a bit unlucky, ending 13th only because of worse goal-difference. Omonia (Aradippou) survived, but let make no mistake about it: the last three teams were real outsiders, way bellow the rest of the league. Going up, there was perhaps only one mild surprise: APOEL (Nicosia) was not a title contender, finishing 4th.

Anorthosis (Famagusta) was 5th with 29 points – just to point out the inside league divisions: APOEL, weak as it appeared to be, was still far superior to those behind it – they finished with 33 points.

Apollon (Limassol) had excellent season, but still was not title contender. 2nd with 37 points, thus getting the singular Cypriot UEFA Cup spot.

The champions were the same as in the previous years – Omonia (Nicosia) was really superior and dominated Cypriot football. They finished with 42 points from 18 wins, 6 ties and lost only 2 games. Scored 59 goals, received 19. Bulgarian presence was responsible for Omonia’s domination – coaches since early 1970s and now players as well. Argirov coached them this season, helped by veteran players Ventzislav Arssov and Krassimir Borissov. Borissov was part of the Bulgarian national team in its last participation at World Cup finals in 1974. Arssov was Bulgarian champion in 1978 with Lokomotiv (Sofia). As the things were going, there was little doubt that Omonia will surrender its dominant position in, at least, near future.

 

B 1909, KB, and Herning Fremad were weak and relegated from First Division. Herning Fremad went down on worse goal-difference, unlucky. Good luck for Esbjerg, which survived.

Odense had weak season and finished 9th.

Koge Boldklub had quite a good season – 6th. Standing from left: holdleder Jorgen Sparre, holdleder Per Moller, Lars Frisch, Lars Olsen, Thomas Daugaard, Frank Johansen, Arne Rastad, Jesper Rasmussen, Cimm Barslev, coach Jan B. Poulsen, Soren Thyssen.

First row: Erik Rasmussen, Per Knudsen, Steffen Andersen, Jan Olesen, Soren Grenaa Larsen, Soren Olsen.

Lyngby BK, AGF Aarhus, and Vejle BK fought for the title.

Vejle won with 41 points. They were also the only decent scorers, averaging 2 goals per game. Top row from left: Ole Møller Nielsen, Kurt Bakholt, John Laursen, Alex Nielsen, Peter Kjær, Allan Simonsen, Sten Thychosen, Poul Erik Bech (coach).

Middle row: Peter Hansen, Brian Berthelsen, John Sivebæk, Gert Eg, Tommy Andersen, Julian Barnett. Sitting: Kaj Winther (holdleder), Michael Damm Pedersen, Jørgen Bach Andersen, Troels Knudsen, Per Jørgensen, Vagn Damm Pedersen (masseur).

Allan Simonsen – winner to the end. One more title for club and player.

The Cup final opposed the relegated KB (Copenhagen) to leading Lyngby. Not an easy victory, but Lyngby won 2-1.

Good period for the club, establishing it among the top Danish teams at the time. Lyngby BK won its first title the previous year and confirmed it was no one-time-wonder this year with the Cup victory – also their first. So, first title and first Cup in two years.

Denmark. In the news, because of the exciting national team, but otherwise – the same.

B93,

B 1903, and

Kastrup Boldklub played well and earned promotions from Second Division.

The Cup. Besktas reached the final and met there the dominant teams this season, Trabzonspor. Once again Istanbul lost to the provincials – 0-2.

Besiktas, even with Yugoslavian help – Arnautovic and Sekerbegovic – finished the season empty-handed. At least as losing finalist they were going to play in the Cup Winners Cup.

A double for Trabzonspor, their first. This was their finest season so far, promising bright future. 6 titles , 3 Cups, a double… who would know there will be no more doubles and no more titles? So great and triumphal was this season.

The Turkish football was slowly improving, but without change of power distribution: 4 clubs dominated the league, the rest continued to be inferior. One team was the solitary leader this season, the other three leaders fought only for the 2nd place. The rest of the league was fairly equal, which meant that more or less everybody tried to escape relegation zone – the last three places in the final table. At the end, the city of Adana was most unlucky, for both teams from it went down.

Karagumruk SK (Istanbul), newcomer this season, finished last with 26 points.

Adanaspor (Adana) – 17th with 27 points.

AdanaDemirspor (Adana) – 16th with 29 points and also relegated. They went down only on worse goal-difference.

Antalyaspor (Antalya) – 15th and happy to be safe, thanks to better goal-difference.

Boluspor – 14th and, like Antalyaspor, survived on better goal-difference.

Orduspor, another of the newcomers this season, ended 13th with 30 points.

Sariyer (Istanbul) – 12th with 31 points.

Genclerbirligi (Ankara), the third newcomer of the season, was 11th with 31 points.

Bursaspor, having the best goal-difference among the teams with 31 points took 10th place.

Zonguldakspor – 9th with 32 points.

Kocaelispor (Izmit) – 8th with 32 points.

Denizlispor – 7th with 34 points. They were the strongest performers of the 4 newly promoted teams.

Sakaryaspor (Adapazari) – 6th with 34 points.

Ankaragucu – 5th with 34 points, thanks to better goal-difference.

The next three clubs were old bitter rivals, but this season somewhat not good enough to fight for the title – apart from the usual pride at stake, their only aim was to get the single Turkish spot in the UEFA Cup and only 2nd place guaranteed that.

Besiktas (Istanbul) finished 4th with 44 points.

Galatasaray (Istanbul) – 3rd with 44 points.

Fenerbahce (Istanbul) – 2nd with 45 points. They got the coveted UEFA Cup spot and finished above their rivals, but… second-best does not equal success for this club.

Trabzonspor won its 6th title with 18 wins,14 ties, and only 2 losses. 43-14 goal-difference and 50 points. Excellent performance, leaving the Istanbul’s big three far behind. This was the best season Trabzonspor had.

Turkey. Obscure second level, of course, so just a glimpse of the teams playing there:

Vefa-Simtel,

Mersin,

Karsiyaka,

Rizespor. One thing was seemingly common – hard fields, very often pure sand.

The real matter was who was going up and this year the winners, promoted to the top division were:

Malatyaspor,

Eskisehirspor, and

Altay (Izmir). All former members of First Division and Altay and Eskisehirpor hoping to restore faded glory.

This was the finest season of Lech (Poznan) ever, for they not only reached the Cup final, but utterly destroyed Wisla (Krakow) – 4-0.

Wisla ended quite lowly this year – insignificant season and lost Cup final, yet, they were going to represent Poland in the Cup Winners Cup, so at least some international football was coming their way.

Lech finished with a double – their first and only double. Like Widzew (Lodz), Lech etablished itself as leading Polish club in that time – they never won a trophy before 1982, when they won the Cup. In 1984 they had 2 titles and 2 Cups. So far, they came ahead of Widzew, which won their first trophy in 1981, but now Widzew had 2 titles and Lech had 2 titles and 2 Cups.

Dramatic battle for the title, but no drama at the bottom of First Division’s table. Szombierki (Bytom), Polish champions just a few years earlier, was last with 17 points. Cracovia (Krakow) was the other outsider – 15th with 21 points. These two were relegated. LKS (Lodz) was 14th with 25 points – just to point out how weak were the two outsiders. Baltyk (Gdynia) was 13th also with 25 points.

Zaglebie (Sosnowiec) was 12th with 27 points – they usually finished in the lower half of the table, nothing new.

Wisla (Krakow) – 11th with 27 points, a weak season really, but hardly a crisis.

Motor (Lublin) – 10th with 29 points.

GKS Katowice (Katowice) – 9th with 29 points.

Slask (Wroclaw) – 8th with 30 points, Ruch (Chorzow) – 7th, also with 30 points. Slightly weaker than usual, but not really dropping down.

Gornik (Walbrzych) had wonderful season, prehaps their best ever – they finished 6th with 31 points. However, this looked like one-time wonder.

Legia (Warszawa) – 5th with 33 points. Gornik (Zabrze) – 4th with 34 points. Pogon (Szczecin) – 3rd with 38 points. Coming close to the leaders, but not quite strong enough to endure to the end. Similar to Walbrzych’s case – great season, but staying among the best was unlikely.

The top two teams battled to the very end for the title, finished with equal points and goal-difference decided the championship.

Widzew (Lodz), running strong and very difficult to beat got second place with 42 points and +18 goal-difference.

But it was Lech (Poznan) clinching the title – they had goal-difference +26. 19 wins, 4 ties, 7 lost games, 47-21 goal-difference and 42 points. Widzew had the Polish superstar Smolarek and was tough and experienced squad, but perhaps too tough – they lost only 3 games this championship, but tied 12 – more advantageous Lech benefited at the end, although having less famous players than Widzew. It was second consecutive title too, so Lech was doing great.