The City v Bolton match was fairly poor by the standards of the First Division of 1980, to be fair. Bolton were on their way down with a pretty meagre points tally and City were also struggling, not to mention bereft of confidence having not won for over three months. I take the general point, though, that the game is so much faster these days that even the best sides of 40 years ago would find themselves seriously outclassed against any decent outfit these days.
One thing that no one mentioned that struck me was the challenge by Tommy Booth in the first half, where he goes straight through Whatmore. The ref makes as if to run across to Booth to take some kind of action, then satisfies himself with a quick word from distance and a wag of the finger before going to check on the injured player. That would be a red these days. Indeed, the awful pitches and lenient officiating are the two things I think modern players would find hard to cope with about the game then.
A couple of other things I recall that didn't show from the video. One is that, in the days of one sub, you could end up with teams having two or three players out of position after having to reorganise to cover for an injury - for instance, say your left-back had to come off and you had a striker on the bench. The other is that penalty retakes for encroachment used to be much more common. Maybe they'll make a comeback with VAR.
One thing that no one mentioned that struck me was the challenge by Tommy Booth in the first half, where he goes straight through Whatmore. The ref makes as if to run across to Booth to take some kind of action, then satisfies himself with a quick word from distance and a wag of the finger before going to check on the injured player. That would be a red these days. Indeed, the awful pitches and lenient officiating are the two things I think modern players would find hard to cope with about the game then.
A couple of other things I recall that didn't show from the video. One is that, in the days of one sub, you could end up with teams having two or three players out of position after having to reorganise to cover for an injury - for instance, say your left-back had to come off and you had a striker on the bench. The other is that penalty retakes for encroachment used to be much more common. Maybe they'll make a comeback with VAR.