WORLD CUP STORIES: 1978

🏆Argentina '78 will be remembered for the ticker tape and the passion, the Dutch getting to their second successive final only to find, for the second successive time, they would be losing to the host nation, another lone Scotland appearance on behalf of the home nations (this time much more embarrassing than in 1974) and an exotic, passionate backdrop that seemed as otherworldly as it was apt. This was what World Cups were supposed to be about for a young kid growing up: a new country, new players, exotic things.

Sadly, it was only apt in a footballing sense. The politics that have taken over global sporting events these days were much in focus back in 1978 too, with many baulking at the thought of FIFA putting on its grand show in a country where thousands of dissidents had disappeared under the Videla regime. Pre-tournament reports focussed on the gun-toting guards and rabid-looking police dogs that were part and parcel of the match-going experience down Mendoza way.

Jorge Videla, Argentina's dictator, prepares to deliver the World Cup to Daniel Passarella.

Curiously, the now-iconic World Cup logo had been modelled on an outstretched-arms gesture by Juan Peron, the ex-leader ousted by military coup, but it could not be changed so close to the start of the tournament as it would have led to a spate of expensive law-suits against the military regime headed by Videla.

 

Having turfed out Wales in a hectic game at Anfield, Scotland were once more the only representative from Britain's sceptered isle. Apparently stronger than four years earlier, when they had slid out unbeaten in the first-round groups, the squad contained two vital contributions from City. At 26 and 27 respectively, Willie Donachie and Asa Hartford were at their prime for this World Cup. Despite a wretched start, they would both feature at the pointy end of another brief but generous Scotland donation to football history.  

Hartford played in all three of Scotland's games, so can be said to have had a hand in two of the country's worst-ever results plus one of the most outstanding. Donachie missed the first game against Peru, his left back slot occupied by Stuart Kennedy of Aberdeen. Kennedy's abject showing in the shock 1-3 defeat allowed manager Ally MacCleod to ease the City man back in for the second game, an equally desultory 1-1 draw with Iran. By this time the travelling fans were throwing their tam o'shantas at the team bus and Tony Gubba was working overtime getting all the cringe-inducing interviews in for BBC World Cup Grandstand.  

Hartford and Willie Johnstone take on Peru in Cordoba. The West Brom winger was sent home in disgrace for doping infringements. 

Hartford, tireless in midfield as ever, played through the opening disasters to form the solid midfield bond with Graeme Souness that so nearly put paid for a Dutch side swaggering towards their second consecutive final. One more Scottish goal and the Dutch would have been going home after the dust had settled on the group phase. Initially partnered with Derby's Bruce Rioch and Don Masson of QPR, Hartford's efforts against Peru and Iran were overshadowed by the chaotic preparations of the manager MacLeod, who had allowed everyone to think that Scotland only had to turn up in Argentina to be crowned world champions.

The introduction of Forest tyro Archie Gemmill and, in particular, Liverpool kingpin Souness, transformed the Scottish midfield into something that happily stood up to Johan Neeskens, Wim Jansen and the Van Der Kerkhof twins until Johnny Rep smashed in a thirty-yarder past the flailing Alan Rough (wasn't he always flailing?) to dull the threat.

Donachie comes away from Van der Kerkhof and Jansen in the epic 3-2 win over Holland

Scotland went home but others were planning to stay longer. Kaziu Deyna again graced a Polish midfield, which qualified from an opening group with West Germany, Mexico and Tunisia into a difficult 2nd round group with Brazil, Argentina and Peru. It would be Deyna that missed a critical penalty in the white-hot atmosphere of Mendoza, from which the Poles never really recovered. Argentina, meanwhile, went on to beat the Dutch in the final. It would be Deyna's last World Cup. Less than six months later, he would ship up in Manchester via a convoluted range of agreements that included fridge freezers and television sets from City chairman Peter Swales' Altrincham emporium going in the opposite direction to the Polish skipper.

Ubaldo Fillol dives to smother Kazimierz Deyna's ill-fated penalty in Mendoza: Argentina 2-0 Poland

Deyna would never properly settle at City, despite firing a glorious winner against European champions Forest at Maine Road, and would find himself underused and maltreated in the reserves when Malcolm Allison came back to City. Allison's successor John Bond would then sell him to San Diego Sockers, where he later died in a car crash with excess alcohol found in his blood. It was a tragic demise for a superb technician, who - had he been used properly by City - could have been part of a revival at the club at the turn of the decade instead of a demise.

Having had his penalty saved against Argentina, Deyna would start the following two group games against Peru and Brazil, but a win and a loss in these games meant Poland were out of the World Cup at the second group stage. For Deyna, the 3-1 defeat to the Brazilians would be his 97th and last cap. A matter of months later his ground-breaking move to City would finally go through. 

Elsewhere in the Polish squad the successor to Deyna was also making his first tentative steps on the world stage. Zbigniew Boniek had also come to the attention of City fans before the World Cup, where he debuted as a sub in Poland's sterile first two group stage matches v West Germany (0-0) and Tunisia (1-0). He had arrived at Maine Road as a relatively unknown midfielder for Widzew Lodz as the pivot in the Poles' 2-2 draw in the 1977-78 UEFA Cup match, disturbing one fan so much, he broke onto the pitch and attacked Boniek. This incident was the catalyst for UEFA ordering City to put up fences for future European matches and can be read about in full here.

There were two other high-profile stars at this World Cup who could have worn the sky blue of City. On Malcolm Allison's return in 1979, a huge clear-out of talent had begun. many names were mentioned in dispatches as to who might replace the likes of Dave Watson, Mike Channon, Brian Kidd, Gary Owen and Peter Barnes and two of the most anticipated were Johan Neeskens and Herbert Prohaska. Both would pass through the first round easily with Holland and Austria respectively and would have played against each other in the second-round group game in Cordoba, had the Dutchman not been injured (he returned for the crucial win over Italy). Instead of firing City's soon-to-be-weakened midfield ranks, Neeskens enjoyed great success at Barcelona alongside Johan Cruyff and Prohaska briefly became one of Internazionale's best players of the early 80s and also alighted at Roma for a season. 

On such narrow margins football fates are sealed.

  

WORLD CUP STORIES: 1974

If the 1970 World Cup finals in Mexico had seen possibly the strongest England side to compete in the tournament up to then (better balanced than Alf Ramsey's wingless winners of 1966), 1974 saw no England participation at all. 

While Colin Bell and Francis Lee had displayed their art in the searing heat of Guadalajara, there would be no games for England fans to savour in West Germany in the summer of '74. Rodney Marsh would miss out too, at perhaps the peak of his career. For City fans, however, there were still some areas to focus on. 

Instead of England, it was to be the first of two World Cups, where Scotland were Great Britain's sole participants. This would be Denis Law's swansong. After a final season (1973-74) in the sky blue of City, the ageing Law (34) was picked by Willie Ormond to travel to West Germany with the squad. With 54 caps, he was also the most-capped player in the squad, ahead of Billy Bremner (48) and the Leeds captain was also, at 31, the only other senior professional anywhere near Law's age and experience.

Law waits for a corner to be taken in the opening game of World Cup 74 for Scotland v Zaire.

Ormond chose Law, Kenny Dalglish, Joe Jordan and Peter Lorimer for the opening game v. Zaire, in the obvious hope that such exaggerated attacking firepower would lift Scotland's goal difference before the more critical ties with Brazil and Yugoslavia. Law, looking leggy and blunt, played a low-key part in a 2-0 win over the central Africans that did little to convince. Yugoslavia would beat Zaire 9-0 in their second game, while Scotland were putting up a much better performance against the Brazilians (0-0).      

By this time, Law's international stint had stalled at 55 caps. He failed to make the pitch in either of Scotland's remaining games, which were both drawn and resulted in an early flight back to Glasgow. Unbeaten, yet eliminated, with Law at the end of his international career and a few weeks away from retiring altogether, it was the beginning of a hard luck story for the Scots that would dog them in 1978, 1982, 1986, 1990 and 1998 before they disappeared completely into modern World Cup oblivion. 

City's Willie Donachie fared even worse than his teammate in West Germany, playing no part in a defence that comprised Rangers' right back Sandy Jardine and a central pairing of Manchester United's Jim Holton and John Blackley of Hibernian. with Danny McGrain of Celtic in the City man's place on the left.

Denis Law and Kaziu Deyna feature in a Barratt card collection for the 1974 World Cup

In both the 2-0 win over Zaire and the ultimately unsuccessful attempt to qualify against Yugoslavia (1-1), Ormond brought on Tommy Hutchison as a substitute. The leggy Coventry winger, who would join City under John Bond in 1980, added wide attacking options as Scotland's need for goals became more acute. It was Hutchioson in fact that provided the cross for Joe Jordan's late equaliser against the Slavs, but it proved too little too late and Scotland were out.

Elsewhere, Poland, about to embark on a surprise journey to a well-deserved third place finish, were captained by the Legia Warsaw midfielder Kazimierz Deyna, who would find his way to Maine Road after the 1978 World Cup in Argentina. Deyna's casual finesse in the middle of the park belied a skillset that also involved powerful shooting from all distances, a fact that did not go unnoticed by Argentina and Italy, as they surprisingly succumbed to the Poles in a competitive Group 4. An Italian side containing many elements of the Juventus team that would knock City out of the 1976 UEFA Cup were sensationally sent packing at the group stage here thanks to the emergence of Poland and Argentina as footballing powers of the 70s.

Tommy Hutchison takes on a Zaire defender after his 75th minute introduction as substitute

Deyna was the lynchpin of a magnificent Polish side that included the skills of Robert Gadocha, the energy and organisation of Henryk Kasperczak, the goal-laden attacking of Grzegorz Lato and Andrzej Szarmach, plus the giant Jerzy Gorgon at the back and The Clown himself, Jan Tomaszewski, in goal. That Brian Clough had called the goalkeeper out thus before the fateful night when he almost single-handedly kept out England in the Wembley draw that saw Poland progress at England's expense was typical of the blustering Clough, who on this occasion could not have been more wrong. Tomazsewski's bronze medal from the tournament proved he had more to offer than oversized boots and a bright red nose.

The World Cup would be carried off by the host nation, victors over Deyna's Poland in a quasi-semi-final and over the tournament's outstanding team, Holland, in the Munich final. It would not be until after the following World Cup, in Argentina, that the flow of stars from the tournament would begin its slow trickle towards the shores of Albion. It would bring rich pickings for City in the shape of Deyna, but seeing him in his 1974 prime in a City shirt would have been a rare pleasure in those sweat-stained mid-70s days of push and shove.

 

MEDITATIONS ON ENGLAND

Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius seems a strange bedfellow for eager Premier League referee Darren England, but we are sailing through odd and difficult waters. 

Fatherless since childhood, Marcus Aurelius was raised by his wealthy single mother, Domitia Lucilia. In 139, she hired Fronto, a Libyan nomad who had shipped up in Rome looking for work and meaning, to teach her son and prepare him for a career in politics.

There is no striking evidence that Darren England was either fatherless or raised by African philosopher nomads, but his actions had a similarly galvanising effect on the Etihad on Saturday as the poet Aurelius' words once had on his followers in Ancient Rome. Meditations, indeed. There was scant time for that, as City's ten were moved to great deeds rather than thoughts.

City's modern-day gladiators, dressed in sky blue and without the helpful aid of either tridents or swords, tore into Fulham in a way that the visitors could hardly have been expecting, even if they knew they were on one of the toughest assignments of the league campaign. And England, as is often the case these days, was the root cause of much of their later discomfort.   

Darren England had quite the weekend. Beginning in Manchester and ending in North London (or thereabouts), the Premier League referee managed to ignite not only debate, but a ferocious comeback from City that fair took the breath away. It is a feat that will have a lasting effect on this year's title race.

Stung by apparent injustice, the ferocity of City's response not only made the eyes water but also lit a bonfire under the crowd and, by the end, had the manager and coaching staff in a rare froth of fist-clenching and touchline bellowing. Pep Guardiola even managed to gurn into one of the pitchside cameras for extra effect as the emotions ran over. 

Those that felt the full "lap of honour" at the end of the game was milking it slightly, underestimate what these key moments of a season do to a group set a challenge of winning the game's highest honours. There was a spirit and a ferocity of achievement on display that rarely surfaces in such an unprovoked manner and which bodes well for what this group intends to try and achieve come May.

It was only Fulham, after all. 

It is no fault of the visitors that "Fulham at home" rarely gets the adrenaline pulsing. The away support is polite and unfussy but has often been sparse and stubbornly passive on past occasions; the games can be pleasant on the eye but nothing to write home about. What football delivers so well, however, is the unexpected. It is a sport that can suddenly take off when you least expect it to.   

As Joao Cancelo completed the latest of a long series of uncoordinated brainwaves and cannoned into the advancing Harry Wilson, a penalty was inevitable. The strutting English, enjoying his second outing at the Etihad, duly pointed to the spot. So far, so predictable. What happened next elevated the situation to siege. Out came a red card. An unnecessary double jeopardy manoeuvre that has been highlighted many times before. 

City, reduced to ten men and, a moment later, on level terms again, were incensed. With the crowd incandescent, a fightback of Herculean proportion commenced. 10 v 11 and all square with 70 minutes to play. The response was jagged and grew to an exhausting cresendo, as Guardiola threw on Foden and Haaland to try to break Fulham's resolve.

The disallowed goal further upped the ante, as the Norwegian tank was judged to be slightly offside when heading in De Bruyne's curling cross, but the Belgian by now was carrying the whole show on his shoulders in the kind of display of mighty authority only certain players can produce. Joined by the tireless midfield work of Bernardo, Rodri and Gundogan, De Bruyne dragged City forward time and again until the raging storm finally brough its reward.

It was perhaps harsh on Fulham. It was certainly hard-going on the already frayed nerves. And it would be harsh to dwell on England's part in it all. He had after all made a reasonable call in reaction to Cancelo's petulant attempt at dispossession. 

Taken in isolation, the day was done. It was time to wipe the surfaces clean, tidy up and head off home. However, during the Sunday game at Tottenham, where Alexander Arnold's shove on Ryan Sessegnon went unpunished, a new scenario arrived. It was not wholly dissimilar to the foul perpetrated by Cancelo the day before, a little less reckless, but still a clear shove in the back. That it went unpunished by on-pitch referee and VAR officials alike served to highlight the grave problem of inconsistency in refereeing. 

That it was a certain Darren England in charge of VAR at White Hart Lane would have left Marcus Aurelius seriously lost for words.