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Two more
1968. We got relegated... 20 years later Ernie Hunt revealed in a Sunday paper that Coventry bribed Southampton players not to win the match in the last game of the 1967-68 season. He said that near the end of the match, a Saints player had a chance that was easier to score than miss but very skilfully missed the sitter.
1962. We finished in 5th place, the FL nominated us, Everton (4th) and Burnley (2nd) to take part in the 1962-63 Fairs Cup but the Fairs Cup committee wanted Everton, Wendy (6th) and Birmingham (17th). Several meetings between the FL and the Fairs Cup committee tried to resolve the argument but in the end Everton was the only English entry in the 1962-63 Fairs Cup
For the 765th time, we didn't miss out on Europe in 1975. Even had we won at Birmingham, we would not have qualified.
Inspired by Woodwardfan....
FA Cup Semi 1993
FA Cup Semi 1998
Play off finals
Relegation 1994 - Segers, corruption.
Relegation 2007 - Tevez, Jags, Unsworth penalties, Webber miss.
Missing out on promotion to pigs on goal average 1950
We sold that to Man U.No, but we do have the worst fax machine in the league.
Sorry we can't blame McCabe for that one.
1950... Spurs having pissed the division, there was more than a suspicion of a carve up when Spurs played Wendy for a 0-0 draw on the last day guaranteeing both get promoted, when United were stuffing Hull 5-0.....
? That's why we never played Eintracht Frankfurt
Thursday 19th October 1961We did actually play Eintracht Frankfurt in a friendly in '60 or '61 after they had been beaten 7-3 by Real Madrid in the European Cup Final.
18,000 turned up and the programme notes for the next match contained a statement from the Board that they were very disappointed with the attendance and they would think long and hard before arranging such a fixture again!
Eewwww!
Thursday 19th October 1961
Didn't we play Dynamo Kiev in a friendly in front of 41.000 in 71/72?
18,106 on 8th February 1972. Oleg Blokhin was playing for Dynamo Kiev that night. I do not remember him or knew of him at the time. The first I read about him was when he won the European Player of the Year in 1975 and then years later when I read (either in Flashing Blade or the Telegraph Archives) he played against us at BDTBL then I realised I had seen him play!Didn't we play Dynamo Kiev in a friendly in front of 41.000 in 71/72?
We did play them in Feb 72, but "only" around 20,000ish turned up
18,106 on 8th February 1972. Oleg Blokhin was playing for Dynamo Kiev that night. I do not remember him or knew of him at the time. The first I read about him was when he won the European Player of the Year in 1975 and then years later when I read (either in Flashing Blade or the Telegraph Archives) he played against us at BDTBL then I realised I had seen him play!
Thursday 19th October 1961
Missed out on promotion due to Leicester going into admin and not being punished - its what brought in the punishments, but couldn't be applied retrospectively.
To be fair, I'm expecting a few "that wasn't luck" comments. Personally, apart from Huddersfield, I don't think any of the play off finals were bad luck, more to do with the team playing like dog shit/not turning up*
*delete as applicable
As you can see, I was asking if others thought it was luck or not. I agree with you.Cup semis - 93, 98... don't put them down to luck...we didn't turn up. We were crap. That's not luck.
1994 - the "corruption" that many reporters of the game suspected was endemic that year could have relegated any of the bottom 5 that season - results weren't fixed but there was a belief that individual players were influenced. The one game that really came under suspicion was the Blackburn vs Ipswich (0-0) game on the last day which suited both clubs and was apparently "dour". We were unlucky in that things worked out in a way to relegate us, but with 5 minutes to go at Stamford Bridge we were in front, and had it in our hands. That's not bad luck, it's fecking uselessness.
2007 - again can't see "luck" playing a part. It was plain "bent-ness" and cowardice in application of rules and penalties based on a lack of precedence that led to an avoidable situation - act quickly, judge and penalise WHUFC immediately and whatever the outcome at the end of the season there'd have been little fuss (from either WHUFC or SUFC). Bad judgement by the PL, not bad luck for us.
1950... Spurs having pissed the division, there was more than a suspicion of a carve up when Spurs played Wendy for a 0-0 draw on the last day guaranteeing both get promoted, when United were stuffing Hull 5-0.....
There was some kind of statistical analysis which proved it. No idea if it was tongue in cheek as I didn't see it at the time.
As you can see, I was asking if others thought it was luck or not. I agree with you.
1994 - Wasn't the Everton 3-2 Wimbledon game also scrutinised after Wimbledon went 2-0 then Segers let in 3 soft goals to ensure Everton stayed up?
2007 - I was more referring to our own game with Wigan where Jags inexplicably gave away a penalty then Webber hits the post as we battered them in the 2nd half.
1950 - Did not know that - very interesting.
Oh god, the name Don Givens is etched into my memory. Martin Peters was boss at the time (I'm pretty sure). There was a picture of Peters in the Green 'Un or Sheffield Star with a look of sheer horror on his face when Givens missed that penalty.Worst ever for me..Givens1981,Simonsen 2012. Unbelievable that someone so maligned as,a goalkeeper should have come forward to take the crucial penalty..only for the ball to land in Sheffield two hours later. Humiliating, just sums up our blasted curse.
94 - the performance of Segers was suspect... in as much as he was implicated in other match fixing incidents, and he can best be described as "crap" that day, even by junior footy standards.......
2007 - strange or excruciating incidents in that game...
are any of those "luck" though? I get where you're coming from...why couldn't Segers have been bent/crap in a different game, why couldn't Jags handle the ball against Newcastle....... ?
if it was just "luck" we'd hope that things would even out - though that would take an infinite universe to prove the influence of luck.... (if poker players gave up through a long series of bad beats there'd be no professional players).
so, if it isn't luck, we have to start thinking we're genuinely victims of "planned" events.... and since they seem to be repeatedly affecting us, we then begin to think there's a real conspiracy against SUFC. I'd prefer that to be the reason because it would explain so much, so simply and excuse all the errors we think the club has made itself. But that's just clutching at straws....
Now, before 'Arry became our manager, there was no general antipathy towards us - we'd become pretty insignificant and irrelevant having previously been an "interesting" club.
Bassett created a rebel, backs-to-the-wall spirit within the club and certainly upset a few of the establishment and others outside the club, but I don't think it was ever sufficient to warrant a feeling of people genuinely working against our interests - merely that we were a chip-on-the-shoulder annoyance to many.
But with Warnock in charge... exacerbating that previous perspective built by 'Arry, I'm pretty sure that the games' authorities couldn't wait for us to fail, and certainly didn't "favour" us in anyway. But that's a long way from actively conspiring against us. I always thought that Warnock cost us 6 points a season because of the automatic antagonism of referees towards us - but not intentionally, just down to natural response of humans to Warnock's attitude and game play.
In the greater scheme of things, even via some independent arbiter and judge of "luck", there will be one club out of the 140 or so clubs that have ever been in the league that has had things work against them more than the rest - there'll be a league table of "luck" if you like, and maybe it's us at the bottom of it currently.
If it is purely down to luck then it will eventually tend towards all clubs being in the same position in that "luck" league.... by the end of the universe.
So, maybe it's not United that is the unluckiest, but this generation of fans of SUFC that are the unluckiest cos we've witnessed the bad beats and won't live for ever to see the luck balance out!!!!!
Bugger.
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