Those were the days. Or were they? I didn't see a single black face at the Golstone, either on the pitch, on the bench or in the crowd in that transmission. You had Venables interviewed later sneering at players who can't 'take it' (meaning abuse and intimidation from other players). In a later game we saw disgusting tackling (from Southampton on Fulham players) that should have resulted in red cards, yet Bobby Moore was penalised for a foul that never was and Southampton took the kick quickly and scored, then George Best was sent off for Fulam for dissent. You could see from Alec Stock's interview later that there was an elephant in the room - the referee was a cheat. Meanwhile the lazy Brian Moore just whipped up a fake angle about Best's sending off. Oh, we did eventually see a black player, subbed on for Fulham, and you can hear someone monkey chanting a few seconds later. No comment about that, of course. Generally the standard of football was poor, with the final game (Leeds versus ManUre) redolent with unfit players standing and watching, lunging tackles, crappy passing....and we actually thought England was the greatest footballing nation in the world, and were outraged when we couldn't qualify for the world cups?
Very disappointed by that. I used to love Big Match replayed, but it seems very dated and shitty now. As Danny Baker often said, never shine daylight on magic. It was magical then, but now....
As always, I agree with your recollections about the 'good old days' in sport and general UK life. It wasn't.
On a very recent (C4 I think it was) documentary they interviewed blacks who'd attended games in the 70's and 80's. Not hooligans, typically just a lad and his dad. They used to leave games at half time covered in gob from n*gger haters.
We have actually truly progressed.
