Football Journey

Yugoslavia. Ranked 10th. No scandals this season and everything back to normal and familiar – Crvena zvezda and Partizan fighting for the title, closely pursued by Velez (Mostar) and Dinamo (Zagreb). The championship was of fairly equal teams: the top 6 teams were somewhat visibly stronger than the rest, but the difference at the end between the 7th and the last was only 5 points, so more or less anybody could have been near the top or relegated. There was one huge surprise this season and also a big change: Second Division was going to be reorganized and next year instead of 2 groups of 18 teams was going to be only one league of 22 teams. This meant that half of the teams in each current Second Division group were going to be relegated. More or less escaping relegation was the only concern of almost all teams in the lower level. Meantime only 2 teams were going to be promoted from the Third level.
Of course, the lower levels of Yugoslavian football were hidden, so just a glimpse of some teams, playing somewhere there:
Trepca
Radnik (Velika Gorica)
NK Samobor
NK Belisce
Koper (Beltinci)
Jedinstvo (Bihac)
Kolubara
GIK Ramiz Sadiku
FK Vrbas
FK Becej
FAP Priboj
Drina (Zvornik)
BSK Slavonski Brod
Cukaricki (Belgrade)
Akademac (Sremska Mitrovica)
Buducnost (Banovici)
Balkan (Skopje)
RNK Split – in red, before a friendly against their famous neighbours Hajduk.
Timok (Zajecar)
Hajduk (Sijekovac)
The list is endless, of course – some of the above sample will popup after the fall of Yugoslavia in the top leagues of the new independent states, others will remain obscure, but from the vast lower realm of Yugoslav football what matters is who was going up – 2 teams earned promotion to Second Division:
One was Belasica (Strumica), a Macedonian club, and the other
Serbian team Backa (Backa Palanka) – pictured here in a friendly against Partizan (Belgrade) in light blue.
Well, good luck to the promoted to the new, supposedly stronger, Second Division.

The Cups. This was the season of surprises – and sure predictions going to the dust. Both finals looked easy to predict, because the opponents were surely unequal. No matter how good Luton Town was at the moment, Arsenal was much stronger and also rising team. No matter how tough and eager was Wimbledon, Liverpool was entirely different class. But in the League Cup final Luton scored 3 goals and Arsenal only 2…
Arsenal lost – and that after destroying Everton in the ½ finals! May be a note on the picture spells out why they did not lift the cup – Charlie Nicholas disappointed and the club get rid of him. Somehow, Arsenal was unable to make the right choice in recruiting and the result was a good, but not excellent team. Always something lacking, always something needed.

Hats down to Luton Town – they won the League Cup, a wonderful success for a club never winning anything.
Hats down to a modest club, having no star in the team, not even fairly recognizable player, but prevailing over strong Arsenal. That was the best ever season for Luton Town, a historic, a legendary season, and they should have been remembered better, but unfortunately there was another sensation, which overshadowed their success.
In the FA Cup final Liverpool met Wimbledon. Here the victory of dominant Liverpool was absolutely certain. Like the other cup, the finalists came with different stories: Liverpool eliminated Nottingham Forest in the ½ finals, much stronger opponent than Wimbledon’s – the Dons met Luton Town, a battle of team in good shape, fairly equal, but hardly strong as Nottingham. Liverpool was surely to win a double this year. But the only goal of the final was scored by someone named Sanchez and he was not a Liverpool player – and the winner was Wimbledon. A sensation bigger than the outcome of the League Cup final.
No double for Liverpool – perhaps a warning that one cannot win everything with players like John Aldridge. With all respect to Liverpool’s fans, it was nice to see the mighty team lose – even nicer to almost anonymous opponent.
Sensational winners and instant legends! Standing from left: Alan Cork, Andy Thorn, Alan Gillette – assistant coach, John Scales, Vince Jones, John Fashanu, Wally Downes.
First row, some standing: Dennis Wise, Dave Beasant, Terry Fhelan, Laurie Cunningham, Terry Gibson, Eric Young, Clive Goodyear.
This was fantastic victory of the underdog, instantly legendary, perhaps of Liverpool – people not only in England were getting tired of Liverpool’s dominance and were happy to see them lose. Which enlarged the status of the victors – even Wimbledon’s rugged and somewhat primitive style was liked. Even their brutality, even Vinnie Jones’ antics, which were not at all funny. Because of the instantly made legend today the squad does not look as anonymous as it was back then: what, anonymous? But they had Jones, Dennis Wise, Fashanu, Beasant! Laurie Cunnigham played for Real Madrid, for God’s sake! Well, he made only 6 appearances through the season and although he played at the historic final, it was only in the second half as a substitute. The others nobody knew at the time – they became well known because of this victory – and their anonymity is even better point: it was these unknowns beating Liverpool! And let not forget – Wimbledon was playing 4th Division football in 1982-83 and First Division was not even a dream. It was fantastic climb, very fast, but Wimbledon debuted in the top league in 1986-87 – a year later they were beating Liverpool and win the FA Cup! That was not a joke and a loud and clear testimony of the work of manager Bobby Gould. Don Howe was helping, an important help. The only question was how long such a team would last… for there were examples of such meteoric climbs ending quickly: Swansea City, Oxford United, Watford. But let leave the unknown future aside – Wimbledon produced a miracle to stay in memory.

I Division. The last three teams were doomed early, but there was a race between 5 teams for escape from the last relegation spot. At the top – the familiar dominance of Liverpool keeping the rest of the league far away, followed by rapidly improving Manchester United, also separated from the rest by a vast distance. Perhaps it is worth noting the success of players-managers: nothing new about it, particularly in England, but usually they were not that many and not leading winning teams – now Kenny Dalglish put a new twist to Liverpool’s tradition to replace one home-grown manager with his former helper and another former Liverpool’s star was successful player-manager of Glasgow Rangers – Graham Souness. Scots were the current best managers – Souness, Dalglish, and Ferguson and the helm of Manchester United.
Oxford United – last with 31 points and saying goodbye to top league football.
Watford – its great story ended: 20th with 32 points. Looks like the club followed the career of Elton John… the rock-star was no longer hot ticket and his club also declined.
Portsmouth – 19th with 35 points. Lasted a single season in the top league and was relegated.
No end to the suffering of Chelsea – 18th with 42 points and relegated again. It was not that didn’t try, but hardly bad luck (the larger relegation group because of the reduction of the league plus ending in that group only on goal-difference) – the squad was poor quality and there was hardly any other way because of still shaky financial situation.
Charlton Athletic survived: 17th with 42 points. Thanks to 4 goals better goal-difference than Chelsea.
West Ham United also survived on goal-difference: 16th with 42 points.
Derby County ended 15th with 43 points. Escaped relegation and may be Peter Shilton was the happiest of the bunch: still the number 1 goalkeeper of England.
Norwich City – 14th with 45 points.
Tottenham Hotspur – 13th with 47 points. Just a few years ago there were great hopes of Spurs going to the very top and rivaling Liverpool. Now the direction was the opposite. Ray Clemence and Ossie Ardiles, and Johhny Metgod were approaching retirement fast, their best years already in the past. To a point, Nico Claesen’s best years were in the past too. Chris Waddle’s… Terry Venables? Better look at Barcelona’s photo of this season, not at the above picture.
Southampton – 12th with 50 points. Their strong period ended and no surprise: the risky approach to recruit aging stars eventually run dry.
Sheffield Wednesday – doing well: 11th with 53 points, but seemingly on ascent.
Coventry City – 10th with 53 points.
Luton Town – 9th with 53 points and such position itself was achievement for them, but there was more to the team seemingly at its peak – arguably, they had their best season ever.
Newcastle United – 8th with 56 points. Optimistic season and fortune tellers were predicting great future. Paul Gascoigne was the trump card.
Wimbledon – 7th with 57 points. They finished a place higher in the previous season, but still this season was sensational and perhaps their best. The true Cinderella story… leaving Luton Town in the dust.
Arsenal – 6th with 66 points. Good work of George Graham, but not the finish product yet – if one can speak of Arsenal’s finished product.
Queen’s Park Rangers – 5th with 67 points. Strong season, bringing back memories of mid-70s, and good team in which Terry Fenwick was the current big star, but QPR usually did not last long among the best.

Everton – 4th with 70 points. Yes, they were still strong, but already the myth, based on ‘if’, was taking roots: if English clubs were banned from playing in the European tournaments, courtesy of hated Liverpool, Everton would have conquered the world already and sky was the limit from there. True, they left Liverpool 9 points behind in the victorious previous season, but now were 20 points behind Liverpool and 11 points behind Manchester City. Hardly a prove of greatness. And the squad was not all that impressive… even the English national team players in it were not leaders – the big stars of the moment played for other teams.
Nottingham Forest – 3rd with 73 points. Brian Clough still managed to keep the team high in the league, but it was already clear for some time that success was impossible. Not a title contender this squad, not even second-best.
Manchester United with reserve team, youth and all – 2nd with 81 points. Alex Ferguson was doing a good job, building and improving, and it showed – the rest of the league was left far behind. Yet, it was still a building process and the team was not ready even to challenge Liverpool.
Liverpool quickly recovered by the humiliating previous season, when they were left in the dust by city rivals Everton and came back thunderously: they lost only 2 games, won 26, tied 12, scored 87 goals, permitting only 24 in their net, and finished with 90 points. Nobody was even close to them – in anything! Manchester United was left 9 points behind and never mind the rest of the league. Liverpool outscored Manchester United by 16 goals and never mind the rest. Everton was bested defensively by 3 goals, but allowing only 24 goals in their net was astonishing achievement in the tough and attacking English football. Of course, the team was wonderful and full of well known stars and Kenny Dalglish was simply proving that Liverpool was grooming excellent managers one after another. Yet, Liverpool’s dominance was tiring and even alarming – after all, Liverpool sold during the season Lawrenson, Wark, and Walsh and still was head and shoulders above the whole league with second-rater like John Aldridge and risky goalkeeper Bruce Grobelaar. Was Englsih football becoming so bland that it was enough to have Aldridge to keep winning? No need for the likes of Rush, Keegan, Toshack… no need to hunt Gascoigne – Aldridge was enough… Then again, it was Liverpool – let not pile on Aldridge, because they already had youngsters going to be big – Peter Beardsley and Steve McMahon.
Just one more title for Liverpool… so routine.

II Division. No other country in the world had continental cup winners and finalists playing Second Division football – so great is English football, right? Well, there is another side – financial troubles and sometimes stubborn mismanagement was perhaps the real reason. One thing was certain, always certain: British teams fought hard no matter what. 3 teams were going up and 4 going down from the league, which made quite an exciting battle at any level of the table. One outsider and one team slightly above the rest, but 6 teams battled for promotion and 6 teams made everything possible to escape relegation. 23 teams in the league, because of the reduction of First Division. At the end – that:
Huddersfield Town was out of place this season – last with 28 points and 100 goals in their net.
Reading – 22rd with 42 points and out.

No steel enough in Sheffield United – 21nd with 46 points and relegated. Their neighbours were doing quite well in the top league and they were going down to third tier.

West Bromwich Albion could not stop its downfall, which started a few years back: 20st with 47 points and relegated.
Birmingham City survived – 19th with 48 points.
Shrewsbury Town – 18th with 49 points.
Bournemouth – 17th with 49 points.
Plymouth Argyle – 16th with 56 points.
Hull City – 15th with 57 points.
Barnsley – 14th with 57 points.
Leicester City – 13th with 59 points.
Swindon Town – 12th with 59 points.
Stoke City – 11th with 62 points.
Oldham Athletic – 10th with 65 points.
Manchester City – 9th with 65 points.
Ipswich Town – 8th with 66 points.
Leeds United – 7th with 69 points. Not a sign of recovery – looked like Leeds settled for mid-table existence in Second Division.
Crystal Palace – unlucky: 3 points short of promotion. 6th with 75 points.
Blackburn Rovers – looked like after so many years outside top league they had the appetite to climb back again. But failed – 5th with 77 points.
Bradford City – great season for them, even surprising one: they uncharacteristically fought for promotion and were unlucky to miss if by a single point. 4th with 77 points.
Middlesbrough succeeded to clinch promotion: 3rd with 78 points. Keep in mind – they were just promoted from Third Division!
Aston Villa – if not return to glory, at least return to top flight: 2nd with 78 points. Managed to come ahead of ambitious rivals at the end.
What a pleasant surprise – Millwall won the championship. Not quite a solitary favourite, but still finished 4 ahead of the tight pack of pursuers. Won 25 games, tied 7, lost 12, scored 72 goals, received 52. 82 points.
Perhaps not very impressive winners, but who would say anything against them? Just look at Leeds United, Mancester City, Ipswich Town, even Aston Villa. Millwall never played top league football, so they were going to debut next season and achieved their first ever promotion in the best way: as league champions. The team was relatively modest – which makes the victory even greater: Tony Cascarino was practically the only familiar name and he was hardly a first-rate star. But look there – young Teddy Sheringham was pushing his way up along with the team. For such a team one can only wish the best of luck. And some worthy reinforcements.

III Division. The top 3 were promoted, the last 4 – relegated. 2 outsiders, one favourite and 3 teams fighting for the 2 remaining promotions.
Doncaster Rovers – last with 33 points.
York City – 23rd with 33 points. Bested Doncaster on goal-difference, but so what? Relegated.
Grimsby Town – nothing to be happy about, really. 22nd with 50 points and joining IV Division.
Rotherham United – unable to survive: 21st with 52 points.
Aldershot – escaped by a point: 20th with 53 points.
Mansfield Town – 19th with 54 points.
Chesterfield – 18th with 55 points.
Southend United – 17th with 55 points.
Preston North End – 16th with 58 points.
Chester City – 15th with 58 points.
Bury – 14th with 59 points.
Gillingham – 13th with 59 points.
Brentford – 12th with 62 points.
Port Vale – 11th with 65 points.
Blackpool -10th with 65 points.
Fulham – 9th with 66 points.

Bristol Rovers – 8th with 66 points.

Wigan Athletic – 7th with 72 points.
Northampton – 6th with 73 points. Running high – for them, that is.
Bristol City – 5th with 75 points.
Notts County – run for promotion, but missed it: 4th with 81 points. Back row; Kevan, Thompson, Belford, Dolan, Leonard, Kimberely, Atkin
Midddle row; Walker(Coach), Yates, Smalley, Birtles, Hart, Young, Lund, Davis, Hill(Youth), Jones(Physio)
Front row; Barnes, Snook, Pike, Barnwell(Manager), Harbottle, Fairclough, Jackson.
Walsall – clinched 3rd place with 82 points and got promoted to Second Division.
Brighton & Hove Albion – battled hard for promotion and succeeded: 2nd with 84 points.
Sunderland dominated the championship and won it confidently with 93 points. 27 wins, 12 tiles, 7 losses, 92-48 goal-difference. They scored most goals in all leagues this season, which was great as well. If anything, Sunderland could not accept staying in III Division and climbed back to II Division right after they were relegated.

IV Division. One outsider and one favourite. At least relegation to the formerly unseen bowels of English football did not trouble most teams. Two teams, however, had points deducted for infringements – Halifax Town was penalized with a point and Tranmere Rovers with 2 points.
Newport County was hopeless outsider this season and was relegated with 25 points. They received 105 goals in their net.
Carlisle United – very weak this year, but safe: 23rd with 44 points.
Exeter City – 22nd with 46 points.
Rochdale – 21st with 48 points.
Stockport County – 20th with 51 points.
Hereford United – 19th with 54 points.
Halifax Town – 18th with 55 points.
Crewe Alexandra – 17th with 58 points.
Hartlepool United – 16th with 59 points.
Cambridge United – 15th with 61 points.
Tranmere Rovers – 14th with 64 points.
Darlington – 13th with 65 points.
Scarborough, the first team directly promoted from 5th level, did very well for a debutante – 12th with 65 points.
Wrexham – 11th with 66 points.
Burnley – 10th with 67 points.
Colchester United – 9th with 67 points.

Leyton Orient – 8th with 69 points.
Peterborough United – 7th with 70 points.
Swansea City – 6th with 70 points. There was no end of misery… the Swans did quite well, yet, most likely for financial reasons they were out of the league in the next season. Remember their amazing climb to First Division less than 10 years ago? Looks like they were paying terrible price for that – now going out of professional football.
Three teams fought for 3rd place and two naturally failed to get promoted.
Torquay United ended 5th with 77 points.
Scunthorpe United – 4th with 77 points, ahead of Torquay on better goal-difference.
Bolton Wanderers clinched 3rd place with 78 points and was going to play in the III Division next season.
Cardiff City – comfortably 2nd with 85 points and promoted. Kind of relieve for the Welsh football – one of their teams was going to be higher than 4th level next year.
Wolverhampton Wanderers had no rivals this season: champions with 90 points from 27 wins, 9 ties, and 10 losses. Scored 82 goals, received 43.
Happy boys – after sinking to the very bottom, the Wolves were trying to climb back to glory. So far, up to III Division, but who knows?

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.

Austria. Ranked 8th. Like Scotland, Austria was not as good as ranking suggests – based on UEFA’s computation of teams performance in Europe, the ranking gives somewhat inflated picture sometimes. Austrian championship was modified into unusual for Europe scheme precisely because of financial troubles and relatively low quality: it was 2-phased championship. In the fall the top leagues played regular season. In the spring the top 8 in the fall continued between themselves to compete for the national title, carrying their fall records. The last 4 in the fall plus the Second Division top 4 in the fall played in another spring league, serving as promotion/relegation tournament – the top 4 in it moved to the top league for the first stage of the next season, the rest – to Second Division. No previous records were carried to this stage, naturally.
Starting from there: the last 4 of First Division – SK VOEST Linz, Linzer ASK, SK Austria Klagenfurt and VfB Modling were joined by the Second Division top 4 in the fall: VSE Sankt Polten, SK Vorwaerts Steyr, Kremser SC, and SV Austria Salzburg. Quite an interesting mix, at least at the level of trivia: both clubs from Linz found themselves in danger of relegation. SV Austria Salzburg was still a far cry from the strong club, which they became (under different name) in the 21st century. Kremser SC enjoyed its best ever season, creating a sensation. SK Vorwaerts, practically unheard of club so far, was going very soon to employ the greatest Soviet player – Oleg Blokhin. But another world-famous player was already here:
Mario Kempes started his second season in Austria for Second Division VSE Sankt Polten – after playing for top-league First Vienna the previous season. Hardly noticed by anyone… Kempes was going down by some time and practically disappeared from sight and mind already. Now 33 years old, he was no good for big and famous clubs, but for modest St. Polten was great help.
VfB Modling finished last in the spring with 6 points and moved to second level for 1988-89.
Austria Salzburg was next to last with 9 points and stayed in Second Division. Kremser SC was unable to get promoted – 6th with 12 points.
VOEST Linz ended 5th with 15 points and after many years in First Division was relegated.
Vorwaerts Steyr earned 17 points and with that finished 4th – and was promoted, which most likely moved them to importing Blokhin, very old by now – but that was later.
VSE Sankt Polten also succeeded: 3rd with 17 points and promoted. Mario Kempes helped enough, himself moving back to top flight football.
Austria Klagenfurt put itself together after terrible fall stage and finished 2nd with 18 points. Lost top position on worse goal-difference, but it did not matter – the main task to stay in First Division was completed successfully.
Same for Linzer ASK, which topped the table – goal-difference placed them above Austria Klagenfurt, but no matter – keeping place among the best mattered. They had somewhat amusing spring campaign: did not lose even a match – the only team in the relegation group without a loss – but did not win often either. They won 4 games and tied 10! Consequently, they were modest scorers – only 16 goals, less than relegated city rivals VOEST and not even close to Kempes-lead VSE Sankt Polten, which scored 30 goals in their 14 games.
The championship play-off. Things were pretty much already decided in the fall, so there was exciting battle for the title. The lower one goes… it is safe to say that for at least half of the teams the real work ended in the fall – securing a place in the top league for the next season. In brackets is the club’s position and points they had at the end of the fall stage.
Wiener Sportclub – last with 31 points (8th with 22)
Grazer AK – 7th with 35 points ( 3rd with 27)
Swarovski Tirol – 6th with 37 points (5th with 25)
Admira/Wacker – 5th with 38 points (4th with 25)
First Vienna FC – 4th with 39 points (7th with 23)

Sturm Graz – 3rd with 42 points (6th with 24)
Austria (Vienna) – 2nd with 46 points (2nd with 28)
Rapid (Vienna) – champions with 54 points (1st with 36 points). They dominated the full championship, way stronger than the usual rival Austria. 22 wins, 10 ties, 4 losses, 81-40. Austria outscored them by 2 goals, but that was nothing. Otto Baric kept his great work with the team, which, as usual, was completed with Yugoslavians – Zlatko Kranjcar (31 years old), Sulejman Halilovic (32), and Zoran Stojadinovic (25). Somewhat lesser names than Austria’s imports (Hungarian Tibor Nyilasi, Czechoslovak goalkeeper Vladimir Borovicka, and Argentine Jose Percudani), but as a whole Rapid’s selection performed much better.
Eventually, a Soviet player was added to the squad – the 31 years old former national team midfielder Sergey Shavlo. How much he contributed to Rapid is even unimportant: the big note here is the real start of USSR exporting players. Shavlo was one of the first, soon to be followed by many, but there was significant gap of years until the Soviets decided to follow up their over-careful opening some years ago, when Zinchenko was let play for same Rapid. In any case Rapid won one more title and no reason to mention how many they had.
The Cup final was quite unusual – Swarovski Tirol reached the final, which, in general, was nothing new, but the other finalist was Second Division Kremser SC. Hardly heard of club outside Austria. The underdog won the first leg of the final at home 2-0 and surprisingly scored a goal in Innsbruck. They lost the second leg, but this goal proved to be pure gold: 1-3. The away-goal rule made Kremser SC the winner.
Swarovski Tirol, a new ambitious project, was more ambitious than strong at the moment and unexpectedly lost the final. Too bad for the project… which was just a typical Austrian example of desperate efforts to keep football alive: the Innsbruck club was fairly well known and successful name, but behind the familiar name a history of trouble lurked: the club changed names, reformed, amalgamated, re-started, the famous sponsor Swarovski came to help, dropped out, came back again. This was fresh re-incarnation, barely 2 years old and not fully developed. Hence, ambition did not match strength and they lost.
Kremser SC from the city of Krems was modest club, usually playing somewhere deep down in the Austrian football system. Of course, they never won anything substantial and, to a point, playing well in the Second Division was the best they probably dreamed of. But they played well this season and had a chance even to get promoted to the top league. That chance they lost, but reaching the Cup final fueled hopes for success. They won the final a bit luckily, but cannot blame them for winning. A great victory of the underdog – their first and last! Such historic victory and one never repeated deserves better memory than the club has… their website practically does not mention the success and there is no picture of the club’s greatest heroes. Let put it like that: as a whole, Austria is not all that crazy about football and prefers alpine sports.

The Cup final opposed the disappointed – Anderlecht vs Standard.
The best know abroad Belgian clubs had to save this season with a trophy, but Standard was less classier this time and lost, somewhat expected, 0-2.
This is not picture from the final, but at least gives some idea what Standard had this season and perhaps why they lost. Standing from left: Gilbert Bodart, Guy Vandersmissen, Alex Czerniatinski, Guy Hellers, Alfonso Fernandez, Zoran Bojovic
Front row: Srebrenko Repcic, Freddy Luyckx, Thierry Rouyr, Dimitri Mbuyu, Michel Renquin.
Well-known names, but somewhat aging and becoming second-raters – or second-raters anyway (the Yugoslavs Repcic and Bojovic and the unfulfilled promise Czerniatinsky). Their goalkeeper Bodart was perhaps the best player the had for the future and so far he was in shadow of Pfaff and former teammate Preud’homme. And so far in the shadow of weaker than the former greats Anderlecht keeper Munaron.
Anderlecht saved the season by winning the Cup and had to make the best of it. Which was not all that little after all – the last time they won the Cup was in distant 1975-76. More than 10 years later the won their 6th Cup. Long wait ended finally and although it was a title, still it was great to break the bad spell. Still, Anderelcht had the top squad in Belgium and more money than anybody else, so the relatively weak season could only fuel their ambitions.
As a final note to this championship: the well known and never ending financial troubles of Belgian football brought 2 changes for the next season: Racing Jet moved from Brussels to Wavre, becoming Racing Jet Wavre and FC Winterslag and K. Waterschei SV Thor merged, forming KRC Genk.

First Division. Three teams fought for the title and somewhat curiously Anderlecht and Standard were not among them.
Racing Jet (Brussels) – too weak for top league footballs: last with 21 points and relegated.
KAA Gent – 17th with 25 points and relegated. One point short of safety.
KSC Lokeren Oost-Vlaandern – 16th with 26 points. Lucky escape.
KFC Winterslag – 15th with 26 points. Escaped relegation, but they ended with the worst goal-difference in the league: -42!
KSK Beveren – good years were over and now they fought to escape relegation. Ended well enough: 14th with 27 points.
K. Beerschot VAC (Antwerp) – 13th with 27 points.
RWD Molenbeek (Brussels) – 12th with 28 points.
St. Truiden – or Sint-Truidense VV – 11th with 29 points.
Standard (Liege) – 10th with 30 points. Very weak season.
KV Kortrijk – 9th with 31 points.
R. Charleroi SC – 8th with 32 points.

Cercle Brugge KSV (Brugge) – 7th with 33 points.
KSV Waregem – 6th with 39 points. Got UEFA Cup spot thanks to KV Mechelen’s European success. If you want, count the beer producers sponsoring Belgian clubs – Waregem was only one of many.
RFC Liege – or RFC Liegeois – 5th with 44 points. Rarely they came above city rivals Standard, so this was great season. With UEFA Cup spot as well – and Standard only had to watch international football.
As usual, few Belgians played regulars and the squad was the most impressive in the country, but weak and disappointing season for Anderlecht: 4th with 45 points.
Royal Antwerp FC – 3rd with 49 points. They were – untypically – a title contender, but eventually lost the race. Settled for bronze either on worse head-to-head record or less wins.
KV Mechelen – their best season to date and perhaps ever. 2nd with 49 points. Lost the battle for the Belgian title, but nothing to worry about – they conquered Europe in the same time. Finished with worse goal-difference than Royal Antwerp, but rules favoured them and they took the silver medals.
Top row from left: Jaspers, Ohana, Den Boer, Rutjes, De Greef, Verstraeten, Benfeld.
Middle row: x, Deferm, Sanders, Koeman, Hofkens, Wijns, Theunis, Metman, x.
Sitting: Drouguet, Denil, De Wilde, Kesselaers, De Mos, Preud’homme, Clijsters, Emmers, De Mesmaeker, Dommicent, Van Hoof.

Great or not, FC Brugge – Club Brugge KV – won the championship. 23 wins, 5 ties, 6 losses, 74-34, 51 points. 2 points ahead of KV Mechelen and Royal Antwerp. Royal Antwerp scored most goals in the championship – 75, and KV Mechelen had the best defensive record, allowing only 24 goals, but the champions had the best goal-difference: +40.
Top row from left: Kurt Hinderyckx, Jan Goyvaerts, Alex Querter, Henk Houwaart (coach), Dennis van Wijk, Ronnie Rosenthal, Peter Creve.
Middle row: Eddy Warrinnier (kine), Luc Beyens, Franky Van der Elst, Hugo Broos, Jan Ceulemans, Tew Mamadou, Kenneth Brylle, Henk Houwaart jr, Raymond Mertens (assistent-coach).
Front row: Yves Audoor, Stefan Vereycken, Birger Jensen, Serge Kimoni, Philippe Vande Walle, Marc Degryse, Luc Devroe, Leo Van der Elst, Dwight Decerf.
Not a bad team at all, yet, not great. Their Danish goalkeeper Birger Jensen was seemingly eternal and a staple of their long successful years, going back to mid-1970s. Another Dane – Kenneth Brylle – plus Belgian veterans Franky van der Elst and Hugo Broos knew European success with Anderlecht. Jan Ceulemans knew it largely with FC Brugge and the Belgian national team. The Israeli Ronnie Rosenthal played in England before and not just for any club. Impressive enough squad for 7th title.