Scottish League Cup , livre ebook

Pitch Publishing Ltd - David Potter

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222 pages

English

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The Scottish League Cup is often wrongly described as the 'Cinderella' of Scottish football, as distinct from its two ugly sisters, the Scottish League and the Scottish Cup. Dating from the Second World War, it is certainly the youngest. The trophy is unusual, if not unique, in having three handles. It is a major part of the Scottish season, and has been keenly contested for 75 years. Sixteen teams have won the cup. Unsurprisingly, the big Glasgow clubs have won it the most, but Aberdeen, Hearts, Hibs and Dundee have also tasted glory. The trophy has also given the likes of Raith Rovers and Livingston their moments in the sun - and who could ignore the mighty deeds of East Fife, who won the cup three times in its first decade? Rangers hold the record for Scottish League Cup wins, but Celtic's victories have been more spectacular, not least their astonishing 7-1 triumph in the 1957 final. This book pays homage to each one of the 75 seasons, with a detailed account of every final.

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Escocia

Scotland

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Publié par	Pitch Publishing Ltd
Date de parution	07 février 2022
Nombre de lectures	2
EAN13	9781801502207
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0500€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

Extrait

First published by Pitch Publishing, 2022
Pitch Publishing
A2 Yeoman Gate
Yeoman Way
Durrington
BN13 3QZ
www.pitchpublishing.co.uk
David Potter, 2022
Every effort has been made to trace the copyright.
Any oversight will be rectified in future editions at the earliest opportunity by the publisher.
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the Publisher.
A CIP catalogue record is available for this book from the British Library
Print ISBN 9781801500562
eBook ISBN 9781801502207
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Contents
Introduction
1. The Newcomer On The Block: 1946-1949
2. The Early 1950s: 1950-1953
3. Hearts And Seven: 1954-1959
4. The Rangers Return: 1960-1964
5. Celtic s Five In A Row: 1965-1969
6. Celtic Keep Losing Habit: 1970-1978
7. A Brief Tayside Interlude: 1979-1982
8. Rangers Stop The Rot: 1983-1985
9. Rangers Rampant: 1986-1990
10. Tainted Glory: 1991-1998
11. Into The New Century: 1999-2004
12. Same Old Firm: 2004-2010
13. The Cup Goes Round: 2011-2013
14. Celtic Reassert: 2014-2021
Postscript
Photos
INTRODUCTION
THE SCOTTISH League Cup is grossly undervalued. It suffers from being the third tournament in Scotland in terms of seniority and has never enjoyed the status of the Scottish Cup, for example. It has also suffered from sponsorship. Sponsorship earns money but seldom enhances the status of the competition. A competition called after a soft drink, an alcoholic drink or betting firm must lose dignitas , the impression given that we are talking about a Mickey Mouse pre-season tournament. We are not. We are talking about a national competition, and the competition should always be referred to as the Scottish League Cup.
It is a handsome trophy, certainly unusual and possibly unique in world football history in that it has three handles. It has been played for 76 times, with Rangers having by far the best record in the competition with 27 wins, a touch over a third of the years played. Celtic did not start well in this competition but have been successful 20 times. Aberdeen have won the trophy six times, Hearts (with a purple eight years in the late 1950s and early 1960s) have carried off the trophy four times, Hibs, Dundee and East Fife (whose glory years were the early ones) three times, Dundee United won it two years in succession around 1980, while supporters of Motherwell, Partick Thistle, Raith Rovers, Livingston, Kilmarnock, St Mirren, Ross County and St Johnstone have had one moment of triumph in this tournament.
Some years winning the trophy would confer entry to Europe. This did not always mean a great deal, since the winners of the Scottish League Cup usually won something else as well. In any case, the phrase entry to Europe seems better than it actually is in the context of Scottish teams. Scottish teams seldom last long! At the moment, winning the trophy does not confer entry to Europe. This is no loss. It saves a club from the embarrassment of a dismissal before July is out. Not always, however. Raith Rovers got the opportunity to play Bayern Munich in 1995/96 because they won the Scottish League Cup in 1994/95. It would be hard to imagine it happening otherwise.
The Scottish League Cup was born in season 1946/47, the first proper official season after World War II. The League Cup, however, had been in existence since 1940/41. This may seem to be a paradox and contradiction, but what is meant by this is that the actual trophy was in existence during the dark years of the Second World War and was known as the Southern League Cup. More difficult to explain, and even more contradictory, is the fact that the winners of the Southern League Cup in 1946 (its final year in that existence) were, in fact, Aberdeen! Aberdeen is by no stretch of anyone s imagination in the south of Scotland but, then again, funny things happen in wartime.
In 1939, when war was declared, the Scottish League and the Scottish Cup were put on hold and all competitions became unofficial. In the Glasgow area a Southern League was formed and, further north, a North-Eastern League. With the Scottish Cup having been put into abeyance for the duration, the Southern League decided that a cup competition would help to spice things up, and the Southern League Cup came into existence. Where the actual trophy came from, no one seems to know, but it was a success, certainly as far as Rangers were concerned. They won the trophy in four years out of six - 1941, 1942, 1943 and 1945 - while Hibs won it in 1944 and Aberdeen in 1946. Rangers would maintain their love affair with the Scottish League Cup, off and on, for the next 75 years.
Aberdeen s triumph in 1946 was significant, nevertheless, for the new trophy was now seen as a Scottish rather than a Southern one, and for the first official season, 1946/47, it was decided to incorporate this new tournament into the calendar and call it the Scottish League Cup. The other two national competitions, the Scottish League and the Scottish Cup, had been going from 1890 and 1873 respectively. There was a long way to go to catch up.
It is often assumed, sometimes even by those who should know better, that the Scottish Football Association and the Scottish League are the same thing. In fact, they are not and, although phrases like bitter rivalry are not entirely appropriate, they have always been quite keen to assert their individuality. The Scottish League were very keen to keep their own Scottish League XI internationals (until they went out of fashion) and, in 1946, there appeared a chance to have their own trophy, which might even compete with the SFA s Scottish Cup.
More mundanely and cogently, the Scottish Cup had been more or less a licence to make money before the war with everyone still remembering the 1937 final between Celtic and Aberdeen which yielded a crowd within a kick in the pants of 150,000. The Scottish League wanted a piece of that. No one should ever underestimate the love for the game that the Scottish public has. And it certainly loved football in the immediate post-war era of the late 1940s. Football had not gone out of fashion during the war and now the game went from strength to strength. People came back from the war desperate for football, and football did not make the mistake of pricing itself out of the market. (Arguably, it has done so since in certain areas.) Facilities were shocking, but no one seemed to mind too much. It was only later when prosperity and increased expectations kicked in that football began to struggle to attract supporters. There was no such problem in 1946. Business was about to boom. Atom bombs, fuel shortages and the beginnings of the National Health Service gave way to football.
Since then, the tournament has brought its fair share of triumph, disaster, ecstasy and despair to all clubs in Scotland. It is not unheard of for clubs, when they receive their marching orders from the tournament (as of course happens to every club bar one every year), to put a brave face on it and to say that it is just the League Cup. Often there follows a clich to the effect that We can now concentrate on the League. This is, of course, specious, even dangerous, rubbish and phrases like sour grapes spring to mind. The tournament, much mucked about with and altered by flavour-of-the-month legislators and wicked self-seeking sponsors, has survived and flourished and remains an integral part of the Scottish season. Just talk to a supporter of a team involved in the League Cup Final just five minutes before kick-off and ask him/her if it is just the League Cup! Similarly, five minutes after his captain has lifted the three-handled trophy draped in his team s colours, Is that just the League Cup?
It is also a tournament that has been neglected by the football historian. This book is an attempt to redress that omission.
CHAPTER ONE
THE NEWCOMER ON THE BLOCK 1946-1949
SEASON 1946/47 was a remarkable one, as was always likely to be the case after the end of the major global conflict. The map of Europe had been redrawn and there was no permanent guarantee of peace. Our erstwhile Allies in the Soviet Union were proving no easier to deal with in certain matters than the late regime in Germany. But at least there was some temporary peace, although various parts of the world like Germany itself, the Middle East and India (funnily enough, not Ireland this time) were threatening trouble.
Worse still, according to some newspapers, was the fact that there was now a Labour Government with a huge majority, and a vigorous, determined one at that. The middle classes, we were led to believe, were throwing their arms up in despair and wondering whether the war had been worth it since the working classes voted for a Labour Government, and the middle classes were paying the price. Newspapers and Churchill himself predicted, even suggested, wholescale emigration! It was laughable.
What was really happening was that, for the first time ever, the Government cared about its people. Improvements, revolutionary ones, in health, housing, education and all the important things in life would soon be on their way. It would be true to say that there was by 1946 no immediate sign of any such changes, but a revolution was indeed happening, a revolution all the more powerful and potent because it happened without any violence or bloodshed, and a revolution that was tacitly accepted by its opponents. When Winston Churchi