Your Boys Took A Hell Of A Beating

As Middlesbrough travel to Crystal Palace, the Team of the ‘80s play the final game of the ‘70s, minus the injured Kenny Sansom, who is sat in a picnic chair next to the B&Q Memorial Dugouts at Selhurst Park. John Burridge makes a pantomime dive – oh yes he does – to save a weak shot, while at the other end, Jim Platt channels his inner draught excluder. Terry Cochrane gives the international sign...

It’s back to June 1986, as Belgium do battle with the Soviet Union in León for a place in the quarter finals of Mexico86. Soviet star Igor Belanov joins an elite band of players for all the wrong reasons, while Jan Ceulemans pitches in with his own entry for the Golden Scissors, the unofficial (and some might say non-existent) award for the ‘haircut of the tournament’. We can only assume it’s the...

After Boxing Day defeat at Anfield, can Manchester United get things back on track? They can, steamrollering the Londoners to such an extent that David O’Leary gets wheeled off on a hospital trolley by Don Howe for what turns out to be no more than a sprained ankle. He’s well out of it. Elsewhere Gerald Sinstadt declares that Pat Jennings has hands like spades – buckets, surely Gerald? Manchester...

On to Old Trafford – yes, really – for the 1970 FA Cup final replay and Chelsea and Leeds are about to produce another game for the ages, one of the most enduring cup finals of all time, while simultaneously doubling as a useful handbook on guerilla warfare. Steven Scragg and Dave Bowler take you through the game and do work of vital national importance by concluding how we can return the Elgin Ma...

At the midway game of the season, Trevor Whymark becomes the 26th [twenty-sixth] player to represent Derby County that season. No wonder they’re struggling. Yet within the first minute, Roger Davies has put a somewhat soft penalty past Ray Clemence, 1-0 Derby. Have they scored too early? Have a guess… This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access...

“The Slum Sport’ tells football’s story of 1985/86. This was the season of the Heysel ban, a TV blackout, half-empty grounds, a thrilling three-way title dice, tragedy on the touchline, controversial stadium-sharing proposals, a League and Cup double, the first seeds of a Super League, and so much more. ‘The Slum Sport’ author Chris Lepkowski joins Steven Scragg and Gary Thacker to pore over a sea...

So here it is, merry Christmas, and where better to celebrate than Goodison Park? Referee Mr. Gwyn Owen is full of the Christmas spirit, dispensing season’s greetings to the captains before the game and catapulting himself straight into our Hall of Fame, along with his linesman, Mr. Funnel, who inadvertently inspires a cartoon series for Roger Hargreaves. In a game that gives average a bad name, G...

In ‘Diamonds in the Rough’, author Joseph Pope adds to the Your Boys Took a Hell of a Beating library with the stories behind English football's most meteoric personal rises, exploring the journeys taken by players from non-league to the very top of the game, including World Cup winners and Premier League champions. Steven Scragg meanwhile, takes renewed hope that he might still be able to break i...

Chelsea again? Is Brian Moore seated in his penthouse flat, overlooking the Bridge, commentating from in front of the fire, using a pair of binoculars? Surely we should be told. The Goon Show provides referee Gilbert Napthine, the cavernous Stamford Bridge offers scope for a car boot sale, and a football match breaks out. During the course of it, Swansea goalkeeper Brian Letheren forces his way in...

From champions of Europe to sliding into the Second Division in five short years, despite signing a string of high profile players and swooping for Manchester City boss, Billy McNeill, a Celtic legend and leader of the Lisbon Lions. Graham Taylor was the man to pick up the broken pieces at Villa Park in the summer of 1987, to begin the job of dragging a comatose giant back into the First Division...

Just a week after Palace skipper Jim Cannon proclaimed that they could win the league, they face the acid test at Anfield - and sadly, not even Gaviscon can help them as Liverpool produce a performance that says, “Oh no you can’t”. Terry Venables goes on a typical charm offensive, clad in red cardigan as he arrives at Anfield, but as Kenny Dalglish defies the laws of physics, El-Tel-to-be suffers...

Our 1970s teachings begin with a book of learning that brings you everything you needed to know about each of the decade’s FA Cup finals. We start at Wembley, where there’s barely a blade of grass to be seen as Leeds United and Chelsea join battle in a final that sets the tone for the rest of a golden decade in the FA Cup. Steven Scragg and Dave Bowler take you through a truly magnificent 120 minu...

Did you think that the worst goal Peter Shilton ever conceded was when he jumped downwards to let Diego Maradona palm in the Hand of God goal? Well, you were wrong. Come with us to Selhurst Park in December 1979 and watch him allow a shot that barely has the strength to get over the line roll between his legs and in. Brian Clough, full of the milk of human kindness, reacts afterwards by saying, I...

Going into the 1984/85 season, Stoke City were heading into their 20th First Division campaign from the last 22, across which time they had been part of the furniture of English football's top-flight. Yet, as the opening day arrived the wheels at the Victoria Ground were already wobbling, while by Christmas 1984, three of them had fallen off; a domino effect was in motion that took the club from a...

The War of the Roses is conducted in typically sedate fashion at Old Trafford, where we found Terry Connor celebrating like a man possessed, as Trevor Cherry engages a barrister for a High Court appeal after he is penalised for maiming Steve Coppell. Then we head to Suffolk as Ipswich begin to drag themselves away from the foot of the table thanks to a visit from the obliging Manchester City. Terr...

Join us in the Book Corner as Steven Scragg talks to David Worthington, veteran of life in the lower leagues as a player before going onto a stellar scouting career with the likes of Bolton, Chelsea and Everton. It’s all captured in his new book, ‘Worthy: The Scouting Adventures & Football Life of David Worthington’. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscriber...

In a lost and lonely part of town, Big Mal is dressed for tragedy. Resplendently kitted out for a big night out, following yet another dysfunctional display from his Manchester City side, his post-match interview betrays the hangdog demeanour of a funeral director in a gravedigger’s strike. Wolves will tear Mal apart again, particularly Kenny Hibbitt in a virtuoso display. Meanwhile there is time...

Middlesbrough have the misfortune of turning up at Anfield as Liverpool are in full flow, dispensing a routine 4-0 beating without breaking into a sweat. Craig Johnston has the good sense to injure himself early on, while Jim Platt attempts to better King Canute, but is overwhelmed by the red tide. All is so straightforward that Graeme Souness doesn’t even bother to maim any of his former colleagu...

Unconvincing at the 1982 World Cup finals, a trio of defeats in the group stages of the 1984 European Championship finals, a failure to qualify for the 1986 World Cup and the 1988 Euros, while the Yugoslavia senior national team found the 1980s to be a decade of decay, in Chile, during October 1987, a golden generation of young talent was introducing itself to the world, by winning the FIFA World...

“There’s a psychedelic sunset over Highbury” according to Brian Moore, who has clearly had the Grateful Dead records out again. That’s pretty much the end of the freeform jazz for the day, as Arsenal and Liverpool play out a 0-0 draw. Terry Neill refuses to speak to Moore afterwards, after ITV technicians had surreptitiously attached microphones to the goal netting, an act that so unbalances him t...

A grisly start to the season for Ipswich Town ends with a glorious display of football that puts Southampton to the sword and has Alan Ball resorting to kicking anything that moves. A magical display from Alan Brazil in his pre Jabba the Hut days crowns an afternoon that has the Blues back with a bang, the start of the long march towards potential European qualification. Elsewhere, Brian Clough is...

1986 and Christmas is just around the corner so what could be more festive than heading for the Manchester G-Mex to watch First Division footballers taking part in a six-a-side tournament? Pretty much anything, but let’s not let that stop us recalling those halcyon days when Oxford United could duff up the Arsenal on a regular basis. Following up on a last day win in May to save their top flight s...

Like Bob Ferris and Terry Collier on acid, Steven Scragg and Dave Bowler have spent 46 years hiding from the result of the England v Bulgaria game in November 1979, just to be able to bring you this coverage of the game. All they know is ‘England f…..’ Thanks for reading YourBoysTookAHellOfABeating’s Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. Thanks for reading YourBoys...

We continue in the depths of mid-November winter as Chelsea entertain Charlton Athletic in Division Two. A clash of heads sees Gary Sparrow incur a lump the size of a bird’s egg, appropriately enough, and, in the days before concussion, tries to carry on, in part because Tommy Langley hasn’t read the instruction booklet that tells him how to take off a tracksuit. Brian Moore has immense trouble wi...

Before Liverpool, before Manchester United, before Manchester City, Ipswich Town might have gathered a golden treble in 1980/81. As they pursued the 20th century’s third domestic double - after Spurs in ‘60/61 and Arsenal in ‘70/71 - Bobby Robson’s side also had the UEFA Cup in their sights. Steven Scragg and Dave Bowler follow their 66 game season to its breathless conclusion in the Netherlands....