England. Ranked 9th in the UEFA’s yearly table. Just a reminder why that: English teams were banned from European tournaments and could not get any fresh points. Ranking depended solely on the old record, which was so great that without any teams playing in Europe England was still 2 points ahead of Yugoslavia, ranked 10th at the moment. There was no doubt the English championship was much superior to practically all Europe, although the 1980s were years of trouble and decline.
The season in a nutshell: 3 points for a win, still a novelty in the football world. For the first time a team was directly promoted from bellow the 4 professional leagues and it did quite well in the 4th Division. The 1st Division was reduced to 21 teams, going to be of 20 teams the next season. Thus, 2nd Division had 23 teams at the moment. 4 teams were relegated from the top league and 3 promoted from 2nd Division. There was no dramatic race for 1st in any of the professional leagues and Liverpool entirely dominated the top division. For all pretense and myth-building of Everton, they finished distant 4th, not even able to challenge rising Manchester United, let alone Liverpool, from which they were separated by 20 points.
Lincoln City, having the disgusting honour to be the first directly relegated team from the traditional professional leagues, was instantly seen as a favourite for promotion – and they did not disappoint. They won the promotion and were going back to IV Division after only a year of absence.
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