Robert Exley
Arsenal’s defence of the Fairs Cup in 1970/71 started with a first round tie against Lazio of Italy in the first round. In the first leg two strikes John Radford gave Arsenal a two goal lead by fifty six minutes, however Lazio pulled level with two goals from Giorgio Chinaglia - a player of Italian birth though grew up in South Wales and actually started his career at Swansea, though finished it playing alongside the like of Pele, Beckenbauer and Bobby Moore at the New York Cosmos.
The first leg was quite a tempestuous affair, which boiled over at a post-match meal held for the two sides. Young Ray Kennedy was set upon by three Lazio players on leaving the restaurant, which led to his Arsenal team mates leaping to his defence. The trouble escalated to the point where the majority of the Arsenal and Lazio squad were involved in the scrap with even Bertie Mee swapping blows with his opposite number, something which finally endeared him to many of his players who previously saw him as a stiff upper lip type. Back at Highbury, in front of a 53,000 crowd baying for blood Arsenal secured their passage to the next round with a 2-0 win, with goals from George Armstrong and John Radford.
Arsenal proceeded to meet Sturm Graz in the Second Round with a 0-1 defeat in Austria over turned with a 2-0 victory at Highbury with goals from Ray Kennedy and Peter Storey, followed by a 4-0 win over Belgian side Beveren with goals from George Graham, Jon Sammels and two for Ray Kennedy. Arsenal’s defence of the Fairs Cup however would fail on account of losing to 1FC Koln on away goals, defeating the West German side 2-1 at Highbury with goals from Frank McLintock and Peter Storey, but losing 0-1 away. On winning the League and FA Cup double in 1970/71, Arsenal entered the European Cup for the first time, drawn against Norwegian side Strømsgodset IF in the first leg in which Arsenal triumphed 3-1 with goals for Peter Marinello, Peter Simpson and Eddie Kelly.
This match also featured an Arsenal debut for Paul Davies, not he who broke Glenn Cockerill’s jaw but a member of Arsenal’s 1971 FA Youth Cup winning side who was transferred to Charlton within twelve months. Back at Highbury Arsenal won the second leg 4-0, with goals from George Armstrong, Ray Kennedy and two for John Radford. In the second leg Arsenal faced Swiss side Grasshoppers away, winning 2-0 with goals from George Graham and Ray Kennedy. Back at Highbury, goals from Charlie George, Ray Kennedy and John Radford gave Arsenal a 3-0 win on the night, 5-0 on aggregate, which set up a quarter final tie against reigning European Champions Ajax the following March.
Throughout this footage of the first leg in Amsterdam, ITV commentator Brian Moore’s pronunciation of the opposition sounds like a product placement for a certain bathroom detergent. Arsenal took the lead with a goal from Ray Kennedy after fifteen minutes, however Ajax drew level with a goal from Gerrie Muhren, the older brother of former Ipswich and Man Utd midfielder Arnold, ten minutes later. Muhren would strike again with seventieth minutes penalty in the second half to inflict a 1-2 defeat on Arsenal. The away goal in their favour meant that Arsenal may have fancied their chances back at Highbury, however 0-1 defeat arising from a George Graham own goal put paid to Arsenal’s European Cup hopes.
Arsenal failed to qualify for Europe for the 1972/73 season and despite finishing runners up in the League in 1972/73, still didn’t qualify that year either. The running of the Fairs Cup was now taken over by UEFA and renamed as the UEFA Cup. The European governing body had dropped the Fairs Cup rule of one team per city, however the Football League decided on retaining the rule. That season Spurs won the Football League Cup, which the Football authorities wished to promote the importance of. As a result Spurs competed in Europe ahead of Arsenal and the blog of long time Gooner contributor Phil Wall shows the club’s reaction in their official programme at the start of the 1973/74 season. However, though Arsenal and their fans were indignant, unlike the events of 1919, it’s not something we’ve milked for the best part of a century.
The ‘One City, One Club’ rule had been a particular bugbear for Everton who often lost out to Liverpool. In 1975/76 the Toffees successfully challenged the rule, however Arsenal wouldn’t qualify for Europe again until the 1978/79 season in the UEFA Cup, drawn against East German side Lokomotive Leipzig in the First Round, winning 3-0 at Highbury with goals from Alan Sunderland and two for Alan Sunderland and an emphatic 4-1 victory in the away leg with goals from Liam Brady, Alan Sunderland and two for Frank Stapleton. In the second round Arsenal were drawn against Yugoslav side Hadjuk Split, losing 1-2 away with a vital away goal scored by Liam Brady. Back at Highbury a Willie Young goal was enough to take Arsenal through to next round on away goals with a 1-0 win. In the third round Arsenal were to visit Yugoslavia again, this time against Red Star Belgrade, losing 0-1 away.
Back at Highbury, Arsenal could only manage a 1-1 draw with a goal from Alan Sunderland, meaning that the Gunners would be eliminated. Red Star however progressed all the way to the final, though losing to Borussia Mönchengladbach. Lining up for Red Star had been future Arsenal star Vladimir Petrovic, who joined Arsenal from Red Star in January 1983. Arsenal returned to Europe the following season after winning the FA Cup, facing Turkish side Fenerbahçe in the first round winning 2-0 at Highbury with goals from Alan Sunderland and Willie Young, with a 0-0 draw in the away leg. In the second round Arsenal faced East German side FC Magdeburg at Highbury, winning 2-1 with goals from Alan Sunderland and Willie Young. In the away leg Arsenal scraped through with a 2-2 draw with goals for Liam Brady and David Price.
In the Quarter Final, Arsenal would meet Swedish side IFK Göteborg in March, going a goal behind however running out 5-1 winners with goals from Liam Brady, David Price, Willie Young and two for Alan Sunderland. A 0-0 draw in the Second leg secured Arsenal passage through to a mouth-watering Semi Final against Juventus. The home leg came just forty eight hours after Arsenal played Spurs at White Hart Lane on Easter Monday and managed a 1-1 draw with the Italians. Juve took the lead through Cabrini scoring from a rebound after Pat Jennings saved the initial penalty. Juve, however, were later reduced to ten men after Marco Tardelli had taken out Liam Brady. Arsenal, though, equalised with five minutes left as Battega put through his own net. Juve’s away goal meant that Arsenal required an away victory in Turin, where no side had beaten Juventus in Europe for over a decade. Arsenal however eventually broke the deadlock after 88 minutes with a goal from Paul Vaessen which gave Arsenal a 1-0 victory which stunned 66,000 Italians into deafening silence.
Considering Arsenal went on to play a record seventy game season that term, which included Ron Atkinson’s West Brom just three days later and an ongoing saga with Liverpool in the FA Cup Semi Final, which went to three replays, it’s surprising from a modern perspective that Terry Neill, in an interview with Les Crang for Online Gooner in February 2013, allowed the Arsenal players to let their hair down to such an extent, stating: ‘I remember sitting with the players until 3.30 a.m…I came down the next morning, and some of the players were still there. Not drinking beer, they’d moved onto the wine. The expensive stuff too. On my bill. But look, they bloody deserved it’. As the season wore on however, the Arsenal side were dead on their feet.
In the final Arsenal faced a Valencia side who boasted Argentine World Cup winner Mario Kempes, but, in all, a much weaker side than the Juventus team Arsenal had disposed of in the Semi-Final. The final went all the way to a penalty shoot-out, when Liam Brady had failed to capitalise on Jennings’s save from Kempes, missing from the spot. All other penalty takers from both sides had converted, taking the shoot-out all the way to sudden death, until Graham Rix had missed the deciding penalty at 4-5 to Valencia. Even after the Cup Winners Cup Final there were two further League fixtures to satisfy, in which Arsenal needed full points from both to qualify from Europe. Arsenal lay in fourth place after 40 matches, which in any other season would have meant qualification for Europe however due to UEFA co-efficient rankings only three berths were available to English sides in the UEFA Cup for the 1980/81 season, which meant that fourth was simply not good enough this term.
Though English sides practically owned the European Cup during the late '70s and early '80s, their performances in the UEFA Cup itself were not so dominating during this very period. Three points above Arsenal in third place were Ipswich Town and under the two-points-for-a-win system Arsenal needed to win both to overhaul them for a place in the UEFA Cup. Arsenal sadly only managed two points, beating Wolves 2-1 just forty eight hours after losing to Valencia but hammered 0-5 away to Middlesbrough at Ayresome Park. Arsenal were to finish third in 1980/81 however, which did mean qualification to the UEFA Cup. Their first round draw brought Greek side Panathinaikos and a 2-0 win for the Gunners in Greece with goals from Brian McDermott and Raphael Meade marking his debut with a strike.
In the second round Arsenal would face part-timers from the Belgian side of Winterslag, who in the first leg surprised the Gunners by inflicting a shock 0-1 defeat (@0.14) . This Thames News footage shows the Winterslag squad preparing for the Second leg in a training session on the Highbury pitch. Even worse was to befall Arsenal at Highbury with the Gunners going a goal down, with the Belgian side almost adding a second by hitting the bar. Terry Neill recalls the reaction of the Arsenal fans in his 2013 interview with Les Crang, stating: ‘Winterslag? S**t team. S**t Pitch. S**t game. I remember the game as the barracking was constant. Right behind the dugout I could hear them. So I think - I’ll tell 'em to get behind the team. I come out the dugout, and half a brick hits me on the head. Terry looks up and an Arsenal fan shouts ‘F**k off you Irish c**t, get 'em playing… I was an idiot for doing it and trying to calm them’.
Arsenal pulled goals back, with an excellent free kick from John Hollins and one from Graham Rix, however substitute Willie Young had put the ball in the Winterslag net on three occasions only for each to be disallowed and a 2-1 win wasn’t enough to prevent Arsenal crashing out of the UEFA Cup on away goals with The Times remarking: ‘Now is the Winterslag of Arsenal’s discontent’. Arsenal however finished fifth in the League and were granted another pop at the UEFA Cup the following season, however this time failed to make it beyond the first round. Arsenal were drawn against Spartak Moscow and lost a two goal lead in the away leg in Russia to lose 2-3, with Lee Chapman and Stewart Robson on target for the Gunners. Though Arsenal came back to Highbury with two away goals, the Russian side inflicted the heaviest home loss dished out to an English side in Europe. Though Brian McDermott and Lee Chapman were on target for the Gunners.
The BBC owned the rights to the tie and demanded £180,000 from Russian state TV for coverage, who baulked at the fess as they had only paid £300,000 for all fifty games at that year’s World Cup in Spain a couple of months prior. Muscovites were unable to watch the tie as a result, however it is doubtful whether any footage of this fixture was ever captured by the BBC (certainly none is available via any of the video sharing site aside from this collection of stills on YouTube. Spartak raced into a four goal lead back at Highbury, before Brian McDermott pulled one back for Arsenal, before Spartak added a fifth. Lee Chapman pulled one back before the final whistle, with the final result of a 2-5 defeat for the Gunners, but a standing ovation for Spartak from the Highbury crowd at full time.
That match would be Arsenal’s last in Europe for another nine years. Arsenal finished the 1982/83 season trophy-less and in tenth position in the league, meaning that European qualification would be missed, as it was in 1983/84 with Arsenal finishing sixth and seventh in 1984/85, the latter however would be an irrelevance as Heysel had meant that English clubs would be banned from Europe and an Arsenal rebirth at the end of the decade meant that the new breed under George Graham would be denied the chance to pit their wits against Europe’s finest until the dawn of the reintroduction of English clubs in the early 1990s.
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