deano ou812 said:
Mad Eyed Screamer said:
Anyone recall 1977 or 78 - Coventry, Bristol City and Sunderland could all go down.
On a Thursday evening (no idea why) cov played Bristol and Everton at home to Sunderland in each teams final game.
The game at Highfield Road was delayed (allegedly) due to ''crowd congestion'' and it started 15 mins after the Everton game.
When the final score of 1-0 to Everton came through, Jimmy Hill ordered it to be announced on the scoreboard.
The game was 2-2 so if it stayed like that both clubs were safe and the final 15 mins the players passed to each other, neither team venturing into their own half or making an effort to get the ball from the other team.
Final whistle and the players hug each other, as did both sets of fans in a joint pitch invasion.
Sunderland went ballistic over the delay and then putting the score on the board. Even to this day Sunderland fans hold bitter feelings towards Coventry and The Chin in particular.
And then there was West Germany v Austria in the 1982 World Cup....... a game so fixed for a draw (cant recall who they denied a place in the next round) that FIFA then introduced the rule that final group games start at the same time.
Algeria.....think actually germany had to win 1.0 for both themselves and austria to go through at the expense of algeria...
<a class="postlink" href="http://www.theguardian.com/football/2010/jun/13/1982-world-cup-algeria" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.theguardian.com/football/201 ... up-algeria</a>
The 3-2 victory still meant Algeria would become the first African team to reach the second round unless the group's final game, to be played the following day, ended in a one- or two-goal win for West Germany over Austria, in which case both the European teams would progress at Algeria's expense. In the 10th minute of that match Horst Hrubesch put the Germans in front. Then … nothing happened. Realising the scoreline suited both of them, Germany and Austria effectively stopped playing. In the ensuing 80 minutes there were no shots, and barely any tackles, crosses or sprints. The game was no longer a contest, it was a conspiracy. The teams' cynicism provoked universal scorn.
A smattering of Algerian fans in the Gijón crowd burned peseta notes to show their suspicions of corruption, while most of the Spaniards in attendance waved hankies throughout the second half in a traditional display of disdain. The next day newspapers in Spain denounced "El Anschluss" and there was outrage in Wst Germany and Austria too. Eberhard Stanjek, commentating for the German channel ARD, almost sobbed during the match as he lamented: "What is happening here is disgraceful and has nothing to do with football. You can say what you like, but not every end justifies the means." The Austrian commentator, meanwhile, told viewers to turn off their sets and refused to speak for the last half-hour. Former West German international Willi Schulz branded the German players "gangsters".
The gangsters, however, were unapologetic. When German fans gathered at the team hotel to protest, the players responded by throwing water bombs at them from their balconies.
Even less bothered was the head of the Austrian delegation, Hans Tschak, who made these extraordinary comments: "Naturally today's game was played tactically. But if 10,000 'sons of the desert' here in the stadium want to trigger a scandal because of this it just goes to show that they have too few schools. Some sheikh comes out of an oasis, is allowed to get a sniff of World Cup air after 300 years and thinks he's entitled to open his gob."
Did the Algerian players take offence? Not at all, Merzekane says. "We weren't angry, we were cool," he says. "To see two big powers debasing themselves in order to eliminate us was a tribute to Algeria. They progressed with dishonour, we went out with our heads held high."
From all over the world came calls for Fifa to punish the Europeans or stage a replay, but in the end all the world's governing body did was rule that henceforth the last pair of games in every group must be played simultaneously. "Our performances forced Fifa to make that change, and that was even better than a victory," Belloumi says. "It meant that Algeria left an indelible mark on football history."
