On this day — how often the Super League Teams have been Humbled
Over the weekend news emerged of the breaking away of six top English clubs — Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea and Liverpool — to join a European Super League.
I wrote yesterday about how I view the economics of it — it’s an attempt by these clubs to grab a yet greater share of the revenues in the game, without necessarily considering the bigger picture. This has always been the tension in the game — the big clubs want more, but they only get what they get because of the rich competition in the game that makes it worth watching.
The big clubs also want to guard against their ever losing their position atop the game. So it’s perhaps interesting to take a somewhat random historical look at football. On this day, or OTD, is a popular pastime for fans — what did my team do on this day in history?
My own team, Oldham Athletic, sits miserably in 17th in League Two, 85th out of 92 Football League and Premier League clubs in England’s pyramid structure. Tonight they travel to Harrogate Town, the Football League’s newest entrants.
But on April 20th in history, they’ve had plenty of match-ups with the Super Leaguers.
On April 20th 1912 they travelled to Manchester United and lost 3–1.
On April 20th 1984, Manchester City visited Boundary Park and only emerged with a point in a 2–2 draw.
On April 20th 1992 Tottenham Hotspur made the same journey, and left Oldham pointless after a 1–0 defeat.
In 1984, that was a Manchester City team playing in Division Two, the second division, after a relegation — one of the many they’ve suffered over the years. In 1998 they were relegated to England’s third tier, so perhaps it’s clear why they’d like to sign up to a competition without relegation.
Manchester United suffered relegation in the 1970s, and were also humbled at Boundary Park in that time. It’s one thing to be nostalgic about these David and Goliath type outcomes, but they do serve a purpose. They ensure higher quality sport, they generate interest, they make the sport what it is, and what it’s been since 1912 and before that even.
Promotion and relegation allows the smaller teams to dream — the bigger ones too, like Aston Villa. Some of those lesser teams can mix it with the big boys, too. When Oldham beat Spurs 1–0 in 1992, they were in the old First Division, which became in August 1992 the inaugural Premier League.
They’ve been sadly mismanaged over a long time since those glory days, and football’s unforgiving structure of promotion and relegation means that they’ve suffered relegation three times since then to languish where they do now. But, despite that, there are no Oldham fans hoping that a competition without relegation becomes a reality any time soon.
